Anima
Passion of Christ, strengthen me. The line from the Anima Christi I say before receiving communion every week, before feeding my weary soul after more challenges and concerns meet me along the way. This line which stayed with me, as if whispered in my ear, as if a specific kind of encouragement. I am by nature a passionate person, and have always taken heart in this along with all the Anima Christi prayer. I’ve thought since I was a teen the idea of being “inebriated” was counterculture built in, and that still stuns me, but being a word nerd does not surprise me at all, the Latin base and root words foundational to my understanding, as well as my Portuguese understanding: sanctifica, salva, inebria, lava, conforta, absconda me. Sanctify, save, inebriate, wash, comfort, hide me. The words immediately remind me of the part in A Wrinkle in Time, when the motherly Beast creature completely wraps our main character in comfort and protection from ...