Aug 30 Sun
Does God want me to embrace the Cross?
When Jesus announced his suffering and death, Peter declared “No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
No one wants to see a friend tortured and killed. Yet Peter was wrong. Our redemption, according to God's plan, had to pass through the Passion of Christ. And our own Christian lives must pass through our own cross.
So, Our Lord lays down the basic principle for the Christian life: When suffering comes—our own cross—we must embrace it to gain eternal life.
Holiness for us is being in the right relationship with God, friendship with Him. It implies being in the state of sanctifying grace through Baptism, or regaining that condition, if lost, through Penance. Negatively, this means freedom from original sin and mortal sin.
Our Lord said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.
Renunciation signifies the negative: what we turn our backs on—acts of sin. Spiritual battle signifies the positive: what we advance toward—acts of goodness. Both can require a dying to self and embracing the cross.
Everyone has his own cross to bear. This cross is the sum total of all the difficulties in our lives. They can be big (like cancer) or little (a paper cut), recurring (having to get up early every day) or unique (the windshield wipers just stopped working), foreseen (the electric bill is due in ten days) and unforeseen (there’s a parking ticket under one of my broken windshield wiper blades), sought (I’m going on a diet) and unsought (Jun just vomited upstairs).
We don’t need to be told what our cross is since God can show us what it is and what to do with it. As Our Lord said, “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’”
Your cross will be different depending on whether you are a man or woman, young or old, what country you live in, your family of origin and family of marriage, the season of the year, what kind of work you do or are not able to do, your social class and educational background, and many other factors.
Our Lord wants us to embrace our cross as much as we want to embrace the many good things He sends us. God does not will evil on us, but He must have a good reason to permit us to suffer in so many ways. One way of dealing graciously with them is to start every awareness of suffering with an “I guess God wants.” I guess God wants me to have this headache. I guess God wants me to work here for now. I guess God wants me to wait at this railroad crossing till the freight train passes, and so on.
Our Lord also wants us to offer them back to him. After all, we are a priestly people. Lord, I offer this bee sting to you. Or, I offer this bee sting for grandma who is not feeling well.