Journey of a cross in Mount  Angel is an Inspiration

By: Carol McAlice Currie

Statesman Journal  4-14-06

The Father Bernard Youth Center in Mount Angel had all the elements of a spiritual retreat when it prepared to open in January: serene spaces for personal and group reflection, tree-lined grounds, a handsome chapel.

 The only item it lacked was a crucifix that satisfied the centers executive director, Tony Morris. A blissful cross now hangs in the chapel at Father Bernards, and the story of how it got there should forever inspire the young people who pray there and others who today celebrate Good Friday.

 Morris had been prepared to order a handsome crucifix from Italy for about $5,000 when he got a “wild hair” to travel to Tijuana with his son, Joe Morris, a Marine corporal stationed at camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif

 The elder Morris thought he could search for the cross and spend some time with his son, who was preparing for deployment to Iraq in January. Morris thought it would be a great chance to talk about the difficulties of life an opportunity to get the crucifix for the chapel. While Joe remained on the U.S. side of the Mexican border, Tony jumped in a cab and asked for a religious artifacts store. The cab driver drove him directly to a store that had the corpus (the body-of-Christ-sculpture) that he was looking for on a ragged piece of Mexican wood. It was about 3,900 pesos (a little more than $350). Morris didn’t have enough cash, so the cab driver loaned him the rest and almost resisted Morris’ concerted efforts to reimburse him when he finally found a bank that had an ATM.

 “It was crazy,” Morris said. “But everything came together so well. The corpus is gorgeous and very graphic. I knew it would appeal to our young people’s need for the passion of Christ.”

 Morris and his son started their return trip to Oregon. They stopped in the Bay Area, and visited the Lone Sailor Memorial at Vista Point. They reflected on the internal and external conflicts of war; Joe vented about witnessing a peer commit suicide. They had a picture taken with the cross in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 When they returned to Oregon, they removed the corpus from the weaker wood, and carved their own 4-foot by 6-foot cross from Douglas fir. “ We wanted it to be local,” Tony Morris said. “ We wanted it to be symbolic of our own difficulties in life.

 On his first outing from Baghdad, an armored Humvee in his convoy was bombed and three fellow Marines were injured. Joes e-mails since then talk of the death and destruction ha has seen. “He is trying to make some sense of it,” said his dad. So it caught Tony off guard this month when, on Joe’s 21^st birthday, he received a check for $650 from Joe.

 “This was his birthday, the day when most guys his age would be out drinking,” Tony said. “But here was Joe sending the center the money to cover the cost. In the midst of all the sacrifice he’s making and watching others make, he knew he still had to give more.”

 Joes sending of the check had nothing to do with reimbursing the center. “ He wants the 8,000 or so kids so will come through here to know what the cross represents sacrifice, and that sacrifices are still being made daily in Iraq,” Tony said.

 It’s the only thing that makes sense to Joe now. For him, this cross is as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.