Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace, and may God grant us every grace and blessing!
One of the most challenging parts of following Jesus is carrying our cross. This past September 14 the Church celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. I heard a beautiful weekday homily on how challenging the cross is, but how it also reflects the tender and pure love of God for you, for me, for all of us.
God has His reasons for the cross, so we can understand that it’s a part of life, but in our current culture, our excessive focus on money and success can actually cause us to distrust of God and stifle our faith. Let’s try to expand on this in this text, and understand that the cross isn’t the end of our journey, but a means to an end.
In a recent text, I proclaimed that in God’s eyes, love, charity, is supreme. What greater love is there, for God and neighbor, than Jesus’ crucifixion? So, in what way can we show greater love for God and neighbor, than by us also carrying our cross?
I’m convinced that because of the fall of Man with Adam and Eve’s sin our capacity to observe the Two Greatest Commandments is diminished; Jesus tells us the two are to “…love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Gospel of Mark chapter 12). So, God’s plan involves restoring our capacity to observe these with the cross. To carry our cross, to follow this God’s plan, we exercise our entire being, strength, will, intellect, and faith.
The pious and traditional practice of meditating on the Way of the Cross, the Stations of the Cross, helps us to understand how the cross might show up in our life. To name a few sufferings, as described in the Gospel of Luke chapters 22 and 23, the Lord suffers betrayal by Judas, persecution and rejection by His own, the Jewish people, including and especially the religious authorities of the time, and suffers a grave injustice of being falsely accused and then prosecuted by the civil authorities. He also suffers from false witness of those trying to do away with Him. Needless to say, if these were to happen to us, and they may and maybe are, they would cause us great distress. Of course, He also suffers unspeakably physically during his crucifixion. And last, when most vulnerable while hanging on the cross, he is mocked and verbally abused by many. These are all terrible sufferings, and may be part of our journey, but we shouldn’t fear; God doesn’t abandon us or our souls: Psalm 34 tells us: “The LORD is the redeemer of the souls of his servants; and none are condemned who take refuge in him.” St. Paul also tells us in Romans chapter 8: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
In our current culture, however, which is extremely focused on material success and wealth, there is little place for the cross. But we must have caution that it doesn’t stifle our faith life and lead us astray. Pope Francis warns that excessive anxieties, and for me this has meant concern for material things and success, can suffocate our Hope; he encourages us to make sure we “lift up our eyes” to God since we can be “imprisoned by…imaginary spectres that stifle hope,” meaning being overly fearful to a fault of ideas of unpleasant things happening (Pope Francis’ twitter, Jan 6, 2021). The Gospel Parable of the Sower likewise claims that our faith life will suffer because of earthly anxiety: “…worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit” (Gospel of Matthew chapter 13). Some, even within the Church, cannot tolerate a lack of material security, and so cannot reconcile poverty, suffering, and injustice with God and faith, potentially leading to a loss of faith or a straying morally. God is always the Good Shepherd and we should make our best effort to follow Him, even when we face crosses; as we’ve mentioned here, crosses are a normal part of the Christian life.
The purpose of this text isn’t to hyper focus on suffering, but also to share the Good news that the cross is never the end: God doesn’t want us to suffer forever and just because; then comes our glorious “exaltation” (Gospel of Luke chapter 10) and resurrection in this life and the next. We follow Christ in His Passion and Resurrection, to reign with Him for eternity.
Let us exalt and “lift high” the cross of Christ, our path through life. There will be very challenging times, but these don’t last forever; as the famous adage goes about any given trying situation, “This too shall pass.” When we find ourselves focusing on others and their success and good times, while we find ourselves struggling, maybe with these examples of crosses, let us remember that we will be OK, thanks be to God.
Abundant blessings to you and yours, my dear Brothers and Sisters,
Juan B
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