Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
What is the point of the cross in my life? St. Paul writes that the Crucified Christ is foolishness to the Gentiles, a scandal to the Jews, and to Christians a sign of salvation (cf. 1 Cor 1: 23-24). What is the point of the cross in my personal life? Is it folly or a scandal or a sign and place of salvation?
"Why this cross? Why me? Why is God testing me in such a way? I don't want to, I can't cope ..." - the soul screams in the first impulse to pain and suffering. On every cross. And it can be not only illness, disability, death of a loved one, but intellectual, mental or physical limitations, addictions, lack of capacity, professional failures, there may be a lack of people, that is loneliness. A person would like to run away from pain and suffering instinctively, because dealing with it requires a lot of effort and patience. The easiest way would be to throw the burden off yourself, pass it on to someone else, blame God for the misfortunes, and rebel against the cross.
Christianity does not exist without the cross. In some mysterious, divine way, what is overwhelming, what is difficult and demanding has been elevated above a carefree and easy life. To gain, you have to lose. To be happy, the final fulfillment has to be followed by the way of the cross. My own. Like Christ. Behind him and with him. He did not provide anyone on earth with privileges, honors, and did not promise his disciples an easy life, devoid of suffering. On the contrary, he predicted rejection, persecution, and the trouble of everyday life with the Gospel. He announced that his followers would share his fate. The expectation of only success, a comfortable, easy and light life is not only unreal, but also non-evangelical. To reject the reality and necessity of the cross is to reject Christ.
A genuine Christian cannot pretend that he has not heard the meaningful words "Whoever does not take up his cross and follows me is not worthy of me." With what, if not with your own cross, you can follow the Master? What can be given in return to the One who bore the heaviest cross? He came into the world to bring people to liberation, and he experienced misunderstanding, rejection, betrayal, abandonment, torture and death at their hands. The greatest burden he did not abandon was the sin of the world, crucified with him on Calvary. God's Son, but not reduced fare. It was not easier for Him in His divinity. And he experienced fear, the fear of dying, in the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed to the Father: "If possible, remove this cup from me" ... That is why he understands our fear of the cross, our struggles with ourselves. But it shows us something more. The attitude of unlimited entrusting oneself to the Father, surrendering to His will, summarized in the words "Let your will be done, not mine". This is the most appropriate attitude of a Christian towards the cross. Your own cross is incomparable to others, so do not estimate which is heavier. Only this one is yours, and only you can carry it. You would certainly not be able to deal with another. This one is within your abilities; you can handle it. On one condition. If you take it as yours and unite it to the cross of Christ. Do not reject it, because without cross you will deprive yourself from participation in the victory of the Risen One.
Fr. Bruno Ferrero tells the story of a man who thought that his cross was heavier and more difficult than other people's. The man complained to God in prayer. God sent him a dream in response. He saw human life in the image of an endless procession. Each man walked bearing a large cross on his shoulders. He moved on step by step, painstakingly and relentlessly. He, too, was carrying a cross, but it seemed to him that his cross was longer than the others. Upon reflection, he cut it in half. Now he was making progress without much difficulty. He overtook many on the way. When he reached his place of pilgrimage, he saw a wide ravine. It was a wide hole in the ground from which a land of eternal joy began. All those who reached this place would take their long cross off their shoulders and walk over it to the other side. Each cross was the perfect size to go into eternity. Everyone passed. Only he was left. His cross was too short.
By accepting the cross without rebellion, relying on God, man gives meaning to his life and suffering. And although the cross will not disappear, maybe it will not even decrease, our view of it will change. We will understand its mysterious - so far invisible - value and we will know its strength.
Why the cross? And why should we - weak Christians - expect something better than what has happened to God himself, whom we believe in? Perhaps, then, it would be more appropriate to ask Him, not so much to take down our crosses, but to give us strength to lift them up. You can never stop confronting yourself and others to the event of the cross. It is never enough to be confronted with such love and with such mercy.
The serpent lifted up by Moses in the desert is a shocking figure of Jesus Christ. Moses brought before the Jews eyes what was killing them and told them to look with faith in that direction if they were to save their lives. What is killing us? Our sins kill us. They are horribly concrete death. Saint Paul reminds us in the Letter to the Corinthians: "He made Him who knew no sin to be a sin for us." We are the ones who are perishing, who are being killed by of our own sins. But God has a need to find an answer to our death. He is not able to calmly watch us live in a state of death. God has a need to find a cure for human death and his Son, who is three times holy, made him our sin, and exalted him on the cross as our sin, so that we may see with faith and have life.
You must look with faith at the Son of God who has become your sin. If you believe it, you will see that your sin is killed on the cross. And that is incredibly Good News. That we would look with a deep inner conviction that our sin is killed - one that I cannot cope with it. This is where we regain our health. The addressee of such extraordinary love of God is, first of all, every person with whom God wants to meet personally. Faith begins with an encounter with God that can change everything in life. I was blind and I can see again. I was a corpse, and I'm alive. "
This meeting with God cannot end on an individual basis, God's love must be transferred to the world. This change that is taking place in me must translate into the reality that is around me, not only the closest, community or Church, but also in the form of responsibility for the whole world.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george