Sep 15 Sun
The Lord “began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, ..., and be put to death, and after three days rise again.”
Peter rebuked Him. But Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan, for you do not mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
Something similar is happening today, as St. Josemaría pointed out. “The Cross has become a symbol of death, instead of a sign of life. People still flee from the Cross as if it were a scaffold when it is a throne of glory. Christians still reject the Cross and identify it with pain, instead of identifying it with love.”
“Pain is not pain when we embrace it in union with Jesus. The Cross is not something to flee from, but to receive with love. And then the Cross is Christ's, He bears it and, therefore, it does not weigh.”
A life with one's back to God, or lukewarm adherence to the Lord, would be filled with fears. The mere possibility of an illness, a professional setback, a family upset, or any other unfavorable contingency, is enough to sow anxiety in the soul and perhaps become obsessed with the problem -real or fictitious- and one would lose the good humor.
Suffering is part of the life of every person, and God’s loving providence makes use of it to identify us more closely with Jesus Christ and to add us to his redemptive mission, with joy, so that we may complete what Christ has to suffer for the sake of his body, which is the Church.
“The Cross of Jesus is truly gentle and kind. There, sorrows do not count; only the joy of knowing we are co-redeemers with Him.”
“Sometimes the Cross appears without looking for it: it is Christ who is seeking us.”
“Some want to be free from poverty, from pain, from sickness, from old age, from subservience: from everything. But not from sin. Then they give free rein to their passions and live like beasts.”
“Having lost the sense of sin and living like beasts, some are filled with anger and violence, do not know how to live with one another, and end up destroying the personal freedom of others, which is the most precious gift of nature that God has granted to men.”
“How can we carry the yoke that Jesus placed on our shoulders? With joy. The Cross is always something very holy, a cause of happiness, the sign that one is close to Christ. The Cross, the Cross of Christ, is not heavy, because ‘my yoke is light and my burden is light.’ How many times have you meditated on this?”
Joy is the authentic sign that we are walking after the Lord. As soon as we recognize that the Cross is a source of joy, redemption, and glory, we cannot but love it. “Love the Cross. When you truly love it, your Cross will be.... a Cross, without the Cross. And surely, like Him, you will meet Mary on the way.”
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