A Deep Dive into the Anima Christi: The Second Request

                                                         
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O Good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds hide me.
Permit me not to be separated from you.
From the wicked foe, defend me.
At the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to you
That with your saints I may praise you
For ever and ever. Amen.

The Song's Second Request: "Body of Christ, save me."

The warrior then addresses the Respondent recognizing the reality of His Lord’s bodily being. This is no god carved in stone or alabaster. This is the flesh manifestation of the Soul within the flesh, the incarnation who is to sanctify the warrior. This body is the shape and size of many men, but there are, and it is the easiest of invocations in this entire prayer to envision. Because that is so, it is also easier to pass over (German: darüber) this address, and thereby underestimate the profundity of this body’s place in the universe of the soldier’s understanding of his salvation and within the specific conversation dynamic between the warrior and his lord.

As in the case of the uniqueness of the addressee’s soul, this is not just any body. It is the Body of Christos. The Body of the Messiah, the anointed one. It is a body with arms to reach out and embrace; it is a body with legs to journey and accompany; it is a body with singular muscularity and definition; and it is also a body that has the real markings of slavery, of trauma, of abuse, but nonetheless a body of inordinate strength like a Samson, a Joshua, or a Moses.

To the warrior, this Body is obviously one whose very presence inspires confidence and hope. It is a wounded body having been sullied and buffeted in battle. It is a body that has wounds though one that has been transfigured so that each penetration exudes the perfume of grace and even light. It is the body into which men of doubt dared to touch the deepest wounds for lack of faith. It is the Body that, unlike any ghost, could still eat with them over a charcoal fire. A body ever embracing and yearning for a love thrice denied and then thrice affirmed. 

The warrior looks upon a body both disfigured and transfigured. The warrior contemplates the words of Isaiah 53: A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our grief He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted..." 

So before the warrior is the enfleshment of sorrows with the markings of the “arnion” (pet lamb) who was slain. This was a slaughter in which the body was subjected to tortures signed to kill. And yet the body to whom the warrior speaks has the countenance and aura of victory over cruel enemies. The respondent smiles of mercy and hope as if to say to the warrior — ".. approach… for like David before me, I have caught Goliath and saved my people.” 

An interesting transmutation takes place in the imagination of Inigo the warrior.  Inigo gazes at the form of this David-like figure before him -- as David would have appeared at the age he slew Goliath -- A young boy, but with all of the sacrificial markings as noted before. The image is of the warrior surging from the rapids of a stream, fresh, wet and alive after an immersion. And at the outer banks is a child sitting atop a rock. It is the young Christos. This draws the warrior's sense of unworthiness, but increases his ardor and attraction for the child before him who in such conversation would have astounded theologians, philosophers, and priests of the temple because of his great wisdom and insight, and his ability to reach into the soul before Him with his once wounded hand, as if to grant what was being asked before it was being asked. The smile contemplated upon the countenance of this child is unfathomable. All the more profound is the sound of the warriors plea.

So then the warrior approaches and and having addressed this Body of Sorrows, the warrior makes the second request: “save me.”

This specific request within the entirety of the song characterizes the warrior’s sense that he needs to be saved, and that but for this request, all the others make no sense, and have no purpose. The warrior knows that this singular Body has the power to grant this request.

It can come from no other being. Salvation can come only from the “lamb who was slain” having both the Godly and earthly dimensions; having the power that came by a double kenosis wherein Creator wills himself to become created in form; thus, a lowering of a God-will to a subordinate order of human will, subjecting himself to and accepting the role of a slave so that this salvation might be possible. 

As in the mixing of water and wine, two orders of chemical complexity when mixed share their form, substance, potentiality, and effect. This would not be a dilution, but rather a mysterious transformation. The warrior’s thoughts imagine he is attending a wedding in Cana where the water with its own potentiality is transformed and even transfigured into a higher order of chemistry. This transformation is not an end in itself; it has a purpose to save a bride and groom from dishonor because they had run out of wine for the festival. They were in need of salvation.

If the Body of Christos has no power to grant salvation from a dubious end, fraught with an eternal version of earthly suffering, an eternal version of earthly injustice and evil, of darkness and eternal decay, there would be no purpose to this relationship. It would be an absurd drama providing none but a comic relief in the high tragedy of man’s existence. And without this power to grant salvation for a destination mirroring the respondent’s own power to transcend death, transfigure the pains and sorrows of earthly existence into the light of justice, mercy, love and fellowship, all endurance would be futile; all battles would be in vain; all the promises of the order of virtues would be a lie. The warrior knows that this request is the simplest, but the most fundamental of all of them and it forms the foundation of his posture. He needs to be saved. He needs to be purified. To the warrior this salvific body before him presents his raison d’être.

Next: The Song's Third Request: "Blood of Christ, inebriate me."