A colleague went on holiday to Rome and while they were there they came across some members of a Christian group, called the Community of St. Egidio, who serve Christ on the streets of Rome by sharing their lives with the poor and marginalised. Years previously, they’d found a crude, life-sized wooden statue of Jesus in a skip. (Here’s a picture of it.) It had been thrown out because it had been damaged – both the arms had broken off. But they picked it up and kept it. They said we are going to be the arms of Jesus; we are going to be his hands and feet and eyes. They called the statue Cristo dell’impotenza (Christ of weakness). Their base is the Church of St. Egidio in Rome and the statue is housed there, as a symbolic reminder. Friends, that’s what we are called to do and to be: we are to be Christ’s arms and hands and feet, and his eyes and ears and mouth… we are to use our spiritual gifts to serve the body and grow the kingdom.

R. Ian Seymour