The
Great Gift of the Cross
Dear
friends,
Christ
could have chosen many ways for us to get to heaven;
in His infinite wisdom, He chose the cross. Today just about everyone
wants a Christianity without the cross. How we react and act upon the
cross in our lives will determine our eternal destiny. No one likes
to suffer. Even Christ himself said to his Father: “Father, if thou
art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but
thine, be done” (Lk 22:42).
For
many years I have made a habit of making notes when I found
interesting or important passages from Sacred Scripture, from the
documents of the Church, from the writings of the saints as well from
other sources. In this article I have put together some of these
passages about the great gift of the cross for each of us, as well as
my personal reflections, to help us arrive to true and lasting
happiness with Jesus, Mary and all of the saints in heaven.
Christ
crucified is at the center of the universe.
How we react to the cross in our lives will determine success or
failure. It all depends on how we confront the cross: if we rebel
against the cross, or if we make an act of faith, gratitude and
surrender to God for the cross as St. Therese and all the saints did.
The
question is which direction are we going:
toward Calvary with Jesus or sliding further away from Calvary. Each
of us has received different a diversity of graces and also a
different calling, an individual vocation. Each of us are at a
certain point in our walk of life. But at any point, with whatever
vocation, there is always the freedom to go forward or backward.
When
the cross enters into our lives, some
Christians grumble and lament, and seek other people to approve this
refusal of the cross that God sends. Others look to God for meaning
and help with the cross.
Nothing
happens by chance. God, in his loving
providence for each of us permits seemingly unjust things to happen
to us for our true good. But we are free
to become trusting and grateful children or rebellious people.
Those who have maintained their faith, by persevering in prayer, know
and believe that all that God sends or permits is for our good. Those
truly in love with Christ Crucified, as Saint Paul and all the
saints, realize that although the cross in and by itself is not a
good, Christ in His infinite wisdom chose the cross as the instrument
of salvation so as to acquire a higher good. The saints trust Jesus
Who shares with us a little piece of His cross so as to offer us the
opportunity to freely accept and embrace our cross, prepared
precisely for each of us, so as to achieve a much higher good. Those
who trust themselves instead of Jesus and who do not see with the
eyes of faith the cross that Jesus gives us in his love, mercy and
divine providence, refuse and reject the great gift of the cross,
“the cornerstone rejected by the builders….” (Mt 21:42; Acts
4:11; Ps 118:22). It is impossible to overcome our slavery to our
egoisms without accepting and embracing the gift of sufferings that
God offers us.
When
a Christian follows Jesus with the cross,
he realizes how much there is to do in order to imitate Jesus, e and
he grows in humility. Instead when one
does not follow Jesus with the cross,
one ends up putting himself up as a model for others and he goes
around putting others straight according to himself as the model. The
people who follow Jesus with their own cross see things and
situations from the point of view of God instead from their own
closed point of view.
When
a person does not want to accept the cross that God has given in His
mercy and love for this person, he
seeks to get rid of his cross and often substitutes this cross with
something else that does harm to him and to others. One way to get
rid of one’s own cross is to focus on the sins of others, both near
to us an those we read about, while becoming more and more blind to
one’s own sins. A fundamental example, in particular in our times
of the sexual revolution, is to leave the wife or the husband,
without considering the consequences to the others, in particular for
the children and for the people and society around us. When a person
does not want to accept his cross from God but cannot free himself
from this cross, often he ends up grumbling and complaining and
murmuring as we read about in the Old Testament with the Israelites.
This way of doing things usually increases the suffering and the
psychological problems; confession costs a lot less than
psychiatrists! And those people near who do not want to encourage
this self-pity are accused of not loving, and are treated badly and
criticized by this person. There is the saying: “Misery likes
company”. Certainly, it is necessary to distinguish between
consoling which edifies and encourages a person who suffers and wants
to go forward, and consoling which does not help to go forward and to
mature as a Christian but increases the self-pity. One must also
distinguish between the people who suffer for others and are seeking
to persevere, and the people who do not want to suffer for others.
One
of the primary ways of avoiding our crosses, especially today in an
atmosphere of almost total relativism, is to embrace the easier
philosophy of life: “Ignorance is
bliss”! It may be bliss at the moment
to avoid the uncomfortable Truth and our responsibilities, but later
there is a price to be paid here on earth and then even worse, after
death!
A
famous psychologist, Carl Jung, explained that at
bottom all psychological problems are spiritual problems.
The great majority of psychologists today do not believe in God and
do not pray. And thus they offer only human solutions, non divine. In
the end it is always worse, because they do not lead us toward God
with the cross, but toward the world; the prince of the world is
Satan (Jn 12:31; 14:30). If ones says no to God who created us and
gives us his laws out of love and for out true good, obviously there
will be negative consequences.
It
is difficult to get to heaven! It is
impossible to follow Jesus without the help of Jesus. When the
disciples “were amazed at His words”, and even “exceedingly
astonished”, Christ did not offer false and empty and destructive
compromises as so many leaders in the Church today are offering to
the gullible “Christians”, but rather said: “With men it is
impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God”
(Mk 10:23-27).
The
saints say: “Those who pray save
themselves; those who do not pray damn themselves!”
When one does not pray, afterwards, it is impossible to overcome
temptations, and one says, I can’t do it!
Athletes
who do not work out during the week automatically lose the game on
Sunday. Those who do not work out with
prayer and continual sacrifices, automatically loose the eternal
game.
Satan
tells us the nice lie that heaven is automatic.
The truth is that hell is automatic. To arrive to such a wonderful
place, heaven, do we believe that it is not necessary to work, toil,
study and sweat and even to give our earthly lives for a future
eternity so beautiful? “The whole of man’s history has been the
story of DOUR COMBAT with the powers of evil” (CCC 409).
Today,
after the very strong promotion of secular feminism, in a great
number of families, THERE IS LACKING A GOOD CHRISTIAN FATHER,
who lives according to his vocation from God as the head of the
family (and thus the graces of his vocation if he prays), in order to
give a good example to the children especially in the years of
formation from 0 to 12 years old, to sacrifice himself for his wife,
the family and for the society, as did Jesus for His spouse, the
Church. The vocation of the father of the family is not just to
provide material things but above all to protect spiritually from the
very numerous and powerful traps of the wolf, the devil, today. There
is lacking today the voice that says “NO” to the things that do
great harm to ourselves, to the family and to the society. Today it
is not “politically correct” to explain false liberty which does
great harm to oneself and to others; this false liberty tells us that
we can do as we want to without seeking to discover if what we do can
have secondary and hidden negative consequences for others. The
Masonry has worked very hard to promote “politically correctness”
so that we do not seek correctness according to God but according to
those in power on this earth. Satan is “the prince of the world”
(Jn 12:31; 14:30)! This is similar to THE
PRIESTS TODAY WHO PREACH THE WHOLE GOSPEL and all of the teachings of
the Magisterium of the Church are labeled
ridged and old-fashioned, insensitive, lacking in compassion,
divisive, judgmental, MORALISTS. While at the same time the ones who
maintain a culpable silence, the ones who tell their people what they
think they want to hear are seen as understanding, sympathetic,
pastorally sensitive and merciful. “Woe
to you, when all men speak well of you” (Lk 6:26). “How can you
believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory
that comes from the only God?” (Jn 5:44; Gal 1:10). But this way of
doing things is not true mercy! THIS IS
FALSE LOVE, MISGUIDED COMPASSION, false
mercy, false ecumenism, that does not lead to heaven for eternity!?!
True love means to desire the greatest good possible for the other
person; to help people to arrive to eternal happiness is much more
important that earthly happiness that ends at death. True love means
above all to help people to keep their eyes of Jesus and Mary, not on
one’s self, to arrive to eternal happiness. A great number
Christians today, surrounded and brainwashed by the mentality of
today, strongly promoted by the mass media, offer human love in which
the only thing that counts is to be happy here on this earth during
this very short life! Today, not only a great number of lay people,
but a great number of priests and bishops do not believe any more
that the devil or hell exist, which is exactly what Satan wants as
Father Gabriele Amorth and many other exorcists explain (“An
Open Letter To A Fellow Priest”;
http://testimony-polo.blogspot.com/2009/11/open-letter-to-fellow-priest.html)!
Behold the mentality of today to be able to do as one likes without
giving any thought about the consequences and without any
responsibility towards God or towards neighbour.
It
is said that the first commandment of the devil is: “You must not
suffer!” Satan must eliminate the
cross, the way to heaven! Today there is no trust in Jesus who says
to take up your cross and follow Me; there is instead trust in
oneself, in science, in the world. We are so totally surrounded by
this mentality today that those who encourage with their example and
with their words to follow Jesus with the cross toward Calvary in
order to arrive to the resurrection are greatly criticized and judged
and marginalized. This is why few people today are ready to suffer in
order to be able to live the Gospel to love God and to love one’s
neighbor. For this reason Our Lady of Fatima tells us to offer our
prayers and our sacrifices for poor sinners before they fall into
hell because there is no one who prays for them and offers sacrifices
for them. Few people today are willing do as Jesus on the cross in
order to offer graces of true conversion which means to change one’s
life according to the Gospel explained by the Catechism of the
Catholic Church for adults.
We
are wired (created) by God to desire happiness. Thus if we
have faith that the sufferings that God sends us is for OUR GREATER
GOOD, and if we are faithful and
generous, we accept the suffering. We rest not to escape from
suffering but to regain our strength to continue to go forward with
our cross, to deny ourselves in order to love God and neighbor.
- - -
The
Bible supplies us with examples of grumblers
and the trouble they brought upon not only themselves but also many
others.
A
simple walk through the history of the Israelites as they made their
exodus from Egypt and wandered in the desert for 40 years is rife
with such examples. Let's review some of them.
The
Israelites:
Exodus
15:22-27. Only three days after
being miraculously delivered through the parted Red Sea, the
Israelites grumbled against Moses due to a lack of drinking water.
Exodus
17:1-7. Again, the Israelite community quarreled with Moses because
there was no water to drink. Moses warned that they were putting the
Lord to the test. Instead of listening, however, the
people continued to grumble against Moses.
Ignoring the fact Moses had followed God's instructions, they falsely
accused him of bringing them out of Egypt to die.
Numbers
11:1-3. A year into their journey (Numbers 10:11), the people were
again found complaining about their hardships. God heard it and
became angry. How angry was He? Fire
from the Lord burned among them and even consumed the outskirts of
the camp! It was only after Moses
prayed that the fire died down.
Numbers
11:4-35. The rabble with them began to crave other food and caused
the Israelites to start wailing for
meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. ("Rabble" refers to the
non-Israelite mixed group of people who followed the Israelites out
of Egypt.) This wailing came from people in every family!
Numbers
14. All the Israelites grumbled against
Moses and Aaron because 10 of the 12
men sent to check out the promised land came back with a poor
attitude and no faith in God's ability to deliver what He had
promised. Again, they wished they had died in Egypt or the desert.
They began to plot about choosing another (their own) leader.
Numbers
16. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram became
insolent and rose up against Moses.
They gathered 250 council members (well-known community leaders) and
opposed Moses and Aaron as a group. They alleged that the whole
community was just as holy as Moses and Aaron, insinuating that Aaron
hadn't really been appointed by God to be the high priest. They also
accused Moses of trying to make slaves of them and not delivering on
his promises. God prepared to destroy the whole assembly, but Moses
pleaded with God to only punish the sinners. Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, along with their entire families and all their belongings,
were swallowed up by the earth. And the 250 council members who had
rebelled were consumed by fire from the Lord. Even so, the very next
day, the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron, accusing
them of killing the Lord's people! God immediately sent a plague upon
the people. At God's instruction, Aaron offered incense and made
atonement for the people, stopping the plague--but not before 14,700
more people died.
Numbers
21:4-9. “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to
go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient on the
way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why
have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For
there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food."
Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the
people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to
Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the
LORD and against you; pray to the LORD, that he take away the
serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD
said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and
every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses
made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any
man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live”.
The
Israelites became impatient on the way, a small cross. But “the
LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people,
so that many people of Israel died”, but offered the solution “a
fiery serpent, and set it on a pole”, which prefigured
the future Messiah on the cross (Jn
3:13-17), that is, a cross, a suffering,
much greater.
Psalm
106. This Psalm supplies an overview of
the history of Israel, including their
rebellion and grumbling. Here you can find the grumbling and its
nasty consequences "in a nutshell."
Grumblers
in the New Testament:
Examples
of grumbling certainly aren't restricted to the Old Testament. There
are several examples and commands in the New Testament concerning
grumbling.
Matthew
20:1-16. In Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard, they
grumbled when they received exactly what was promised
and they had agreed upon when taking the job. Jesus' point here is
that grumbling is equal to saying God is unfair and doesn't have the
right to do as He sees fit.
Luke
5:30. The Pharisees and teachers of the law complained
when Jesus ate with tax collectors and
sinners.
John
6:41-70. The Jews grumbled about Jesus saying He came down from
heaven. Jesus told them to stop
grumbling among themselves. This led to
an argument among the Jews and eventually to Jesus' disciples
grumbling and many turned back from following Him. A little grumbling
goes a long way. Listening to grumbling from outside the group can
lead to grumbling within the group, and eventually to disunity.
1
Corinthians 10:10. We are commanded, "do
not grumble."
Philippians
2:14. We are commanded, "do
everything without complaining or arguing."
James
5:9. We are commanded, "don't grumble against each other."
If we do, the penalty is that we'll be
judged.
1
Peter 4:9. We are to offer hospitality to one another without
grumbling.
Jude.
This book is about those who have slipped in among Christians but
really are godless men who change the grace of God into a license for
immorality. They are identified as grumblers and faultfinders who
follow their own evil desires, boast about themselves, and flatter
others for their own advantage.
Conclusion:
Through
this review of the scriptures, we can see how grumbling can start
small but end up having a very big and very bad affect.
We can surely identify with some of these examples ourselves. It can
seem so natural to grumble. We can even delude ourselves into
thinking that we need to grumble or are even entitled to grumble. But
the fact of the matter is that God does not want us to grumble. He
does want us to share our problems with Him, but it's all in the
attitude. Think about the Israelites. Was there ever once an example
in any of those cases we reviewed in which they first asked God for
what they needed or wanted? No, in each case, they grumbled first,
second, and last. And after the first couple of times, punishment
followed their grumbling.
Even
though God is very patient and loving, scripture makes it clear that
there is a limit to the grumbling He will endure before there are
serious consequences. It can be
individual grumbling, family grumbling, community grumbling, or mass
"official" grumbling, but it is all sin and unacceptable in
God's eyes. Every time we grumble, we stumble. Worse, each time we
grumble, we do so in the presence of at least one other person. And,
as we see from the examples set forth in God's Word, that leads to
others becoming "desensitized" to grumbling. The next thing
you know, we have caused someone else to grumble and stumble. And
then they "infect" someone else with the sin of grumbling,
and on and on and on spreads the plague
of grumbling and its far-reaching consequences.
Just
as the Israelites were instructed in Exodus chapter 15, we
would be wise to follow God's simple commands
to (1) listen to the voice of God; (2) do right in God's eyes; and
(3) pay attention to and keep His commands and decrees. If we do, we
can manage not to grumble and stumble.
A
good example in the Old Testament of one who accepted and embraced
well the sufferings that God sent him was Joseph of Egypt.
Joseph was rejected by his family, thrown down a pit, sold into
slavery, falsely accused of rape by the wife of his master,
imprisoned. He helped people in prison, but nothing coming back. In
the midst of this story there is a line, and this line is for you and
me: “God was with Joseph” (Gen 39:2).
Whenever
we are going through suffering, God is
with us, when the suffering is for His
plan and purpose to come forth in our life.
Afterwards
Joseph is brought out of prison, he is placed in a high position for
Egypt at that time.
While
Joseph is going through this God-given process, what was Joseph’s
attitude? Joseph does not curse that
fact that his brothers abandoned him and was thrown in prison. He
does not curse the fact that he was accused of rape. He does not
curse it and he does not nurse it. When we start to nurse something,
it starts to grow in us, it literally grows. And how does it grow? We
continue to rehearse it, we say it over
and over in our minds. And that which
was a small thing, all of a sudden comes this huge giant in our
lives, this giant of un-forgiveness, or of resentment, or bitterness.
It could just swallow us up, and it just suffocates life in us. But
Joseph does not nurse it, he does not curse it and he does not
rehearse it. What does he do? He disperses it to God. Joseph trusts
God more than himself. And what does God do? God reverses it. That
which could have been a stumbling stone in his life, becomes a
stepping stone into the very thing God was preparing him to do which
was to feed his people in a time of famine.
But
see the process he had to go through. Was it fair? No it was not
fair. Life is not fair. God is fair. But as he partook of what he was
going through, he was one in preparation
who would literally give life to his own family who had rejected him
and sold him into slavery.
Joseph
had two sons; one was called Manasseh. And here is the point where
Joseph allowed his suffering to be fulfilled in the perfect plan and
purpose of God. Manasseh means: “for
God has made me forget all my hardship”
(Gen 41:51). He forgot the problems of the past; he forgot the
difficulty that happened. Only God can make us forget at that level.
Joseph’s
other son, Ephraim, means: “God has
made me fruitful in the land of my affliction”
(Gen 41:52). When we look back over our lives, some of the most
difficult hard times, the times of great suffering, as we look back,
we can see how the Spirit of the Lord, how the hand of the Lord, was
taking us through these times to perfect us, to confirm us, to
establish us, to strengthen us, to develop character in us, to
prepare us for works the Lord had prepared for us to do.
“For
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (our
identity), which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in
them” (Eph 2:10).
“For
while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So
death is at work in us, but life in you”
(2Cor 4:11-12).
“Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For thy sake
we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35-39).
Saint
Paul is a free man because he is ready to die for Jesus, and thus no
none can take away his interior peace.
Paul totally trusts in the love and the providence of God. The more
we arrive at this Christian maturity, the more we are not worried
about the future or “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword”! If we do not go in this
direction of maturity, when the cross arrives in our lives, we
complain, as if God made a mistake in sending us the gift of the
cross, as well as having more and more anxiety and less interior
peace! The choice is ours as to which direction we want to go: more
trust in our own intelligence and human wisdom, or more trust in God!
And
one of the greatest works that we can do here on earth is to pray and
offer our sacrifices for the souls, for the salvation of other
people, especially those who have been
entrusted to us, whether it is sons and daughters, loved ones, our
own family, extended family. We have a sacred duty, we have a sacred
trust to bring them to the Lord everyday in our prayer time,
especially before the Blessed Sacrament and in our Holy Rosaries.
- - -
- - - -
Here
are a few passages from Sacred Scripture, from the documents of the
Church, from the writings of the saints as well from other sources:
“Then
Jesus told his disciples, "If any
man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. For whoever would save
his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will
find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world
and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his
life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of
his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done"
(Mt 16:24-28; Lk 9:23).
“For
Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but
we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling
block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God
is stronger than men” (1Cor 1:22-25).
Papal
Wisdom: “Prayer joined to sacrifice
constitutes the most powerful force in human history.”
– Pope John Paul II.
“From
that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to
Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter
took him and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid, Lord!
This shall never happen to you." But he turned and said to
Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You
are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of
men." (Mt 16:21-23).
When
the disciples “were amazed at His words”, and even “exceedingly
astonished”, Christ did not offer false and empty and destructive
compromises as so many leaders in the Church today are offering to
the gullible “Christians”, but rather said: “With
men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible
with God” (Mk 10:23-27).
“SUFFERING
IS THE GREATEST TREASURE ON EARTH; it
purifies the soul. In suffering, we learn who our true friend is.
True love is measured by the thermometer of suffering. Jesus, I thank
You for the little daily crosses, for opposition to my endeavors, for
the hardships of communal life, for the misinterpretation of my
intentions, for humiliations at the hands of others, for the harsh
way in which we are treated, for false suspicions, for poor health
and loss of strength, for self-denial, for dying to myself, for lack
of recognition in everything, for the upsetting of all my plans.
Thank You, Jesus, for interior sufferings, for dryness of spirit, for
terrors, fears and incertitudes, for the darkness and the deep
interior night, for temptations and various ordeals, for torments too
difficult to describe, especially for those which no one will
understand, for the hour of death with its fierce struggle and all
its bitterness. I thank You, Jesus, You who first drank the cup of
bitterness before You gave it to me, in a much milder form. I put my
lips to this cup of Your holy will. Let all be done according to Your
good pleasure; let that which Your wisdom ordained before the ages be
done to me. I want to drink the cup to its last drop, and not seek to
know the reason why. In bitterness is my joy, in hopelessness is my
trust. In You, O Lord, all is good, all is a gift of Your paternal
Heart. I do not prefer consolations over bitterness or bitterness
over consolations, but thank You, O Jesus, for everything! It is my
delight to fix my gaze upon You, O incomprehensible God! My spirit
abides in these mysterious dwelling places, and there I am at home. I
know very well the dwelling place of my Spouse. I feel there is not a
single drop of blood in me that does not burn with love for You. O
Uncreated Beauty, whoever comes to know You once cannot love anything
else. I can feel the bottomless abyss of my soul, and nothing will
fill it but God himself. I feel that I am drowned in Him like a
single grain of sand in a bottomless ocean. (Diary
of St. Faustina, no. 342-343; 774).
“Would
that mortal men might know how wonderful is divine grace, how
beautiful , how precious; what riches are hidden therein, what
treasures, what joys, what delights. If
they but knew, surely they would direct their energy with all care
and diligence to procuring sufferings and afflictions for themselves.
Instead of good fortune all men everywhere would seek out troubles,
illness and suffering that they might obtain the inestimable treasure
of grace. This is the final profit to be gained from patient
endurance. No one would complain about the cross or about hardships
coming seemingly by chance upon him, if he realized in what balance
they are weighed before being distributed to men” (St.
Rose of Lima; Office of Readings;
August 23).
“Would
that men might at last understand that it is impossible to attain to
the ticket of manifold riches of the wisdom of God without entering
into the ticket of manifold suffering, making that its consolation
and desire! And how the soul which
really longs for divine wisdom first longs for suffering, that it may
enter more deeply into the thicket of the cross! For this reason
Saint Paul encouraged the Ephesians not to lose heart in
tribulations, but to be strengthened, and rooted in love, that they
might have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height and depth; and to know the love of
Christ which surpasses knowledge, that they might be filled with all
the fullness of God. For the gat whereby one may enter into these
riches of his wisdom is the narrow gate of the cross. Many long for
the delights to which that gate leads: but few they are indeed who
are prepared to pass through it” (St. John of the Cross; 14
December; Office of Readings)
The
cross is called the glory of Christ, and his exaltation;
it is the chalice for which he longed, the consummation of his
sufferings on our behalf. It is the glory of Christ – listen to his
words: ‘Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in
him, and God will glorify him at once” (Jn 13:31-32)” (From the
homilies of St. Andrew of Crete, bishop; September 14; Office of
Readings).
Do we
believe to arrive to the glory of heaven without following Jesus with
the cross?
“I
have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries
usually hurt, those who keep silence
hurt more.”
“God
allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us
lessons that we could learn in no other
way.”
“Pain
insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures,
speaks in our consciences, but shouts in
our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse
a deaf world.”
― C.S.
Lewis
“Today
I heard the words: In the Old Covenant I
sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending
you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to
punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My
Merciful Heart. I USE PUNISHMENT WHEN
THEY THEMSELVES FORCE ME TO DO SO; My
hand is reluctant to take hold of the sword of justice. Before the
Day of Justice I am sending the Day of Mercy.
I replied, "O my Jesus, speak to souls Yourself, because my
words are insignificant." (Diary of Saint Faustina, no. 1588).
“Jesus
complained to me of how painful to Him is the unfaithfulness of
chosen souls, and My heart is even more
wounded by their distrust after a fall. It would be less painful if
they had not experienced the goodness of My heart. I
saw the anger of God hanging heavy over Poland. And now I see that if
God were to visit our country with the greatest chastisements, that
would still be great mercy because, for such grave transgressions, He
could punish us with eternal annihilation. I was paralyzed with fear
when the Lord lifted the veil a little for me. Now I see clearly that
chosen souls keep the world in existence to fulfill the measure [of
justice]” (Diary of Saint Faustina, no. 1532-1533).
No
pain no gain; no cross no crown!
Alleluia,
dear Father _____ ! Our great vocation is to share with Jesus
everything, also his passion and crucifixion! But afterwards is the
true eternal resurrection, the true
EASTER! There is no resurrection
without the crucifixion; there is no Easter without Good Friday!
The
True Easter!
Our
Lady not only indicates to her beloved sons (the priests) the way to
follow, but she also gives the medicine of which all of us have need
of, in these time in which we are surrounded by much evil, especially
with the sins of impurity, Satan gathers in a great number of
victims. She gives us the remedy in order to be healed from these
wounds which, especially in the priestly souls, block out every
virtue.
“Give
me all your suffering. Today it is the misunderstandings, the
attacks, the calumnies of your brothers. Tomorrow
it will be persecutions, imprisonment,
condemnations on the part of atheists and enemies of God who will see
in you the obstacles that must be eliminated. Walk with me, and
follow me along the path of my Son Jesus, along the way of Calvary,
along the way of the Cross. Never as in these moments will you have
to live so profoundly that which is the vocation of every Christian:
'He who wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross
and follow Me!' (Mt 16:24). Follow
me, beloved sons: today it is necessary to follow your Mother if you
want to travel without fear the path of my Son Jesus." (Our Lady
to Don Stefano Gobbi; May 28, 1976). (“To The Priests Our Lady’s
Beloved Sons”; http://our-lady-priests.blogspot.it/).
“Jesus
does not ask for great achievements: only surrender
and gratitude.” - St. Therese of
Lisieux
“Now,
water without the proclamation of the cross of the Lord is of no
avail for future salvation; but after
it has been consecrated by the mystery of the saving cross, it is
make ready to serve as a spiritual washing and as a cup of salvation”
(St. Ambrose; OT 15, Tuesday; Office of Readings).
“… The
sweet Cross will be the refuge of Christians
… the Cross will be so luminous that in full daylight it will be
brighter than the sun; during the night it will not go out, it will
stretch out over an immense distance … A red cloud and a rumble of
thunder will pass through the whole sky … due to the expiation
which have been offered to me I delay the disaster.” – November
21, 1912, Jesus’ message to Maria
Giulia Jahenny, Blain in Francia (stigmatist).
“Before
the great tribulation there will be a sign. We
will see in the heavens a great red cross during a day with a calm
sky, without clouds. The red color
represents the Blood of Jesus which redeemed us and the blood of the
martyrs chosen by God in these days of darkness. This cross will be
seen by all: Christians, pagans, atheists, etc. and also by all those
who are “prepared” (there are people who even though they never
heard of the Gospel have the voice of God imprinted in the sanctuary
of their consciences) who will be guided by God toward Christ. These
will receive the grace to interpret the meaning of the cross.” –
September 11, 1987, account written by
Fra’
David Lopez about the revelations of Our Lady received by him at
Medjugorje
“Write
this: before I come as the just Judge, I am coming first as the King
of Mercy. Before the day of justice arrives, there will be given to
people a sign in the heavens of this sort: All light in the heavens
will be extinguished, and there will be great darkness over the whole
earth. Then the sign of the cross will
be seen in the sky, and from the openings where the hands and the
feet of the Savior were nailed will
come forth great lights which will light up the earth for a period of
time. This will take place shortly before the last day” (Diary
of St. Faustina, no. 83).
“Share
my suffering, privileged sons of mine.
At the time when the whole world was once for all redeemed and
purified, the Father accepted the Son's divine suffering together
with my human suffering of the Mother. Your suffering, my sons, is
truly contributing to the purification of the earth. If the
chastisement comes, it will be only as an ultimate and solemn demand
for suffering to bring about the renewal of the world and the
salvation of so many poor children of mine. But nothing contributes
so much to the triumph of my Immaculate Heart as a priestly heart
which suffers. In you, my sons, it is Jesus who continues his mission
of purification. Only his blood can wash away all the evil, all the
hatred and all the sin of the world. And so, now that the moment of
the purification is here, you will be called upon to suffer more and
more. For you, my sons, this is the hour of the cross. But you will
suffer with me, with your Mother who begot you under the Cross. Be
ever with me, in the present moment which the Father gives you: to
offer and to suffer in the Heart of your sorrowful Mother" (Our
Lady to Don Stefano Gobbi; May 28, 1976).
“Their
only concern is exclusively directed toward social problems, and they
forget that Jesus died on the Cross and rose again to obtain for you
the great gift of redemption and to save souls.
And thus the teaching of the theology of liberation, which is a true
betrayal of Christ and of his Gospel” (Our Lady to Don Stefano
Gobbi; February 25, 1988).
“I
should hope that you would not be counted among their number. Their
homes are peaceful and complacent. They
live in security and never feel the touch of the Lord’s rod. They
pass their days in plenty and in the end go straight to hell.”
(Saint Raymund of Penyafort, breviary, January 7).
Sister
Mary Gabriel (in purgatory) communicated to Sister Mary of the Cross:
December
8th - 2:00 o'clock - The Immaculate Conception - Alas,
how many lives seem to be filled with good works and at the death are
found empty. This is because all those
actions that appeared to be good, all those showy works, all that
conduct that seemed irreproachable - all these were not done for
Jesus alone. Some will have their eyes opened when they come here to
this life (in Purgatory). On earth they
wanted to be made much of, to shine, to
be thought very exact in religious observances, to be esteemed as
perfect religious. This is the mainspring of so many lives. If you
only knew how few people work for God and act for Him alone. Alas, at
death, when they are no longer blinded, what regrets they will have.
If only sometimes they would think of
eternity. What is life compared to that
day which will have no evening for the elect, or to that night which
will have no dawning for the damned? On earth, people attach
themselves to everything and everyone except to Him, who alone ought
to have our love and to whom we refuse it. Jesus
in the Tabernacle waits for souls to love Him and He finds none.
Hardly one soul in a thousand loves Him as it should. You love Him
and make up to Him for this guilty indifference which exists all over
this world.
“On
a certain occasion, I understood how very displeased God is with an
act, however commendable, that does not bear the
stamp of a pure intention. Such deeds
incite God to punishment rather than to reward. May such deeds be as
few as possible in our lives; indeed, in religious life, there should
be none at all. I accept joy or suffering, praise or humiliation with
the same disposition. I remember that one and the other are passing.
What does it matter to me what people say about me? I have long ago
given up everything that concerns my person. My name is host-or
sacrifice, not in words but in deeds, in the emptying of myself and
in becoming like You on the Cross, O good Jesus, my Master”
(Diary of St. Faustina, no. 484-485).
“For
many, of whom I have often told you and
now tell you even with tears, live as
enemies of the cross of Christ. Their
end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their
shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Phil 3:18-19).
“For
it was to strengthen your heart that he came to suffer, he came to
die, to be spattered with spittle, to be crowned with thorns, to
listen to insults, finally to be fixed to the wood of the cross. He
suffered all these things for you; you have suffered nothing.
They were not for his benefit but for yours. What
kind of pastors are they who, fearing
to hurt those they speak to, not only do not prepare them for
imminent temptations, but even promise the happiness of this world,
which God did not promise to the world itself?” (Sermon of St.
Augustine on the Shepherds; Office of Readings, Week 24, OT, Friday).
“For
that supreme wisdom, which flowered on the cross, proved that the
proud boasting of worldly wisdom was folly.
The beauty of all the good gifts which grew on the cross cut out the
shoots of evil. … In the cross every apostle has gloried; by it
every martyr has been crowned and every saint made holy” (Addresses
of St. Theodore the Studite, abate; Easter, Week 2, Friday).
“Jesus-Host,
if You Yourself did not sustain me, I would not be able to persevere
on the cross … “(Diary of St. Faustina,
no. 1620).
“It
is the soul that God loves most that He crucifies on earth, but this
cross sent by God has always a certain sweetness mingled with its
bitterness. It is not so with the crosses that come to us through our
own fault; in them we find unmixed bitterness” (May 1886; “A
Manuscript On Purgatory”; http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
Cardinal
Palazzini wrote about Saint Veronica Giuliani: “That
of Veronica is a great prophetic message
which seems really reserved for out times: to correct the dangerous
deviations of those who seek a Christianity without the Cross, of
those who whimsically settle into abundance of those consumer goods
of which Christ moderation for everyone, and for the strong
renouncement”.
It is
very difficult for priests today to offer “the truth” which “sets
us free” (Jn 8:32; Jer 6,16), because so many people are used to by
now a Christianity without the cross. According
to POPE PAUL VI the temptation perhaps
more aggressive in our times, which means “to
empty the Cross of Christ” (1Cor
1:17), is hedonism, that is wellbeing, entertainment, pleasure,
licentiousness, vice, uplifted to the abusive honor of primary
finality of human existence” (Catechism, November 26, 1975).
“The
maximum cupidity of the demons is deception. In fact they succeed to
possess only those who they seduce with
the lie” (Saint Augustine; The City
of God, 4:32).
“Every
deed of Christ is a cause of glorying to the Catholic Church, but her
greatest of all glorying is in the cross; and knowing this, Paul
says, ‘But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ’ (Gal 6:16). … Let us then not be ashamed of
the cross of our Savior, but rather glory in it. ‘For the word of
the cross is a stumbling-block to Jews and folly to Gentiles’ but
to us salvation: and ‘it is folly to them that are perishing, but
to us who are being saved it is the power of God’. For it was not a
mere man who died for us, as I said before, but the Son of God, God
made man. … Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but
hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution also; do
not be a friend of Jesus in time of peace and his foe in time of
wars” (From the Catecheses of St.
Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop; Week 4, Thursday).
Father
Benedict Groschel said: “You love
Jesus as much as you love an ungrateful beggar that you did
everything to help.”
"I
ought to seek the company of those Sisters who according to nature
please me least.” - St. Therese of
Lisieux
And a
moment later, the Infant Jesus disappeared from the arms of His
Mother, and I saw the living image of Jesus Crucified. The Mother of
God told me to do what She had done, that, even
when joyful, I should always keep my eyes fixed on the cross,
and She told me that the graces God was granting me were not for me
alone, but for other souls as well” (Diary
of St. Faustina, no. 561).
“My
sacrifice is nothing in itself, but when I join it to the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ, it becomes all-powerful and has the power to appease
divine wrath. God loves us in His Son;
the painful Passion of the Son of God constantly turns aside the
wrath of God” (Diary of St. Faustina, no.
482).
“I
want to carry out this action today through you, my beloved sons.
This is why I have wanted to withdraw myself into I desert of your
life, where I have set up my safe refuge. In this way I mold you as
Mother so that, through you, I may carry out the great work of
co-redemption. And so, I call you
prayer, to the perfect offering of yourselves, to suffering, to
self-immolation. I lead you along the
way of the cross, and gently I help you to climb Calvary in order to
transform you all into sacrificial victims, pleasing to the Father,
for the salvation of the world. This is the time of my silent action.
In the desert of your life, I daily work the great prodigy of
transforming you more and more, that Jesus Crucified may again live
in each one of you” (Our Lady to Don Stefano Gobbi; July 13, 1980).
“I
am your sorrowful Mother. The sword, which pierced my Heart beneath
the Cross, continues to wound me through the great suffering which
the Church, the Mystical Body of my Son Jesus, is living through at
the present time. All the sufferings of the Church are in my
Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart. It is in this way that I still carry
out today my maternal duty, begetting in pain this Daughter of mine,
to a new life. For this reason the function of the Mother becomes
ever more important at the present time of its painful purification.
All the sufferings of the Pope, the
bishops, the priests, of consecrated souls, and of the faithful are
enclosed in my motherly Heart. I too share with you in living out
these hours of great pain. And the
passion of my Son continues in his Mystical Body.
Today, with Him, for the Church I relive the very hours of
Gethsemane, of Calvary, of the crucifixion and of his death. Have
trust and patience; have courage and hope! Soon from our pain will
rise a new era of light. The Church will again flourish, under the
powerful influx of the love of God..." (Our Lady to Don Stefano
Gobbi; September 15, 1980).
“Live
together with me each day, to be
comforted in the carrying of your cross and in following Jesus all
the way to Calvary” (Our Lady to Don
Stefano Gobbi; April 1, 1988).
“How
he loves you, this beloved son of mine! He is one of the greatest
gifts that I give you, and you will understand this later on. He
will be called upon to wear himself out on a cross of true martyrdom,
a martyrdom of love and of pain, which will make him into a living
copy of my crucified Son. Let
him not be troubled over the difficulties that surround him. They are
allowed by God for his sanctification. Let him always pronounce his
generous and total “yes”. This
is so necessary and pleasing to me” (Our Lady to Don Stefano Gobbi;
June 21, 1974).
“As
for one, so also for all the priests of my Movement. All little
children, nourished, kissed, caressed and cradled by me. So that I
may place them all, with much love, on the wood of their cross, I
must prepare them for this ineffable and painful moment. They, like
my Son Jesus, will have to be immolated
on the cross for the salvation of the world.
Let them entrust themselves therefore to me like little children. The
Heart of their Mother will be the altar on which they will be
immolated, victims acceptable to God for his triumph" (Our Lady
to Don Stefano Gobbi; November 19, 1974).
March
28, 1975; Good Friday; The Way of the
Cross:
"The
reason why I have wanted you here today, far from all preoccupations
and activities, is that you might remain alone with my Son Jesus. The
path along which I wish to lead my beloved sons, the priests who are
consecrated to my Immaculate Heart and who belong to the Movement, is
that of the Cross.
I want them all on the Cross with my
Son, in prayer and in suffering. This
is the road that Jesus took to carry out the work of redemption and
to save all men. This
is the road which the priests called to form my cohort must follow,
in order that men redeemed by my Son, but snatched from Him by Satan,
may yet be saved today through a special intervention of this
motherly Heart of mine. The way of the
Cross, my little children, is the only
way that I have traced out for you because it is that which your
Mother has first traveled, together with her Son Jesus. journey along
it without fear, because you will be led by the hand, by me,
enheartened by my motherly tenderness. Journey along it with me, in
my Immaculate Heart; near your cross you will thus feel the presence
of your Mother who will comfort and help you.
This road must be traveled by you,
because only in this way can you become similar to my Son Jesus in
all things. My duty is that of making
you in every way similar to Him. Now that I have detached you from
everything to make you ready to do the Will of the Father, and formed
you once again into little children to make you priests according to
the Heart of Jesus, the time has come when you are being called to
climb Calvary with Him. This is the hour of Calvary for my Church,
for the Holy Father, and for all the priests who want to be faithful
to my Son and to the Gospel. But
it is also, beloved sons, your most beautiful hour for which I have
prepared each one of you for a long time.
Say with me: `Yes, Father, your Will be done!' (cf.
Mt 26:39). Even if this hour is one of
darkness, you are called by me to reflect the light of the Will and
the plan of the Father. You will be called to bear witness to the
fatherhood and the merciful love of God. This then is your hour, and
this is why I am calling you to nothing but prayer, suffering and a
total immolation of yourselves. Forget every other preoccupation, and
entrust yourselves to me; and by your great love, second this plan of
my Immaculate Heart" (Our Lady to Don Stefano Gobbi; March 28,
1975).
“Christ
Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did
not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the
likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:5-8)!
“Now
the order of the Levites is more glorious, the dignity of the elders
more exalted, and the anointing of the priests more holy: for
your cross is the source of all blessings,
the cause of all graces. Through it those who believe receive
strength from weakness, glory from shame, life from death” (Office
of Readings; From the sermons of Pope St. Leo the great; Lent, Week
5, Tuesday).
Chiara
Lubich tells us that suffering is the personal presence of Jesus
Crucified in our lives!
Chiara
Lubich: “I have only one Spouse on earth”
This
is a prayer written by Chiara on the 20th September 1949 after a time
of special grace in her life and the life of the Focolare Movement
During
the summer of 1949 Chiara
Lubich, who was 29 years old at the
time, had an experience of light and life.
Leaving that “paradise”
up in the mountains was very difficult, but she understood that God
wanted her to be immersed in the sufferings of humanity “drying up
the waters of tribulation” in those who suffer the most.
There and then she wrote these words:
“I
have only one Spouse on earth: Jesus
Forsaken.
I have no other God but Him.
In Him there is the whole of Paradise with the Trinity
and the whole of the earth with Humanity.
Therefore what is His is mine, and nothing else.
And His is universal Pain, and therefore mine.
I have no other God but Him.
In Him there is the whole of Paradise with the Trinity
and the whole of the earth with Humanity.
Therefore what is His is mine, and nothing else.
And His is universal Pain, and therefore mine.
I
will go through the world seeking Him in every instant of my life.
What
hurts me is mine.
Mine
the pain that grazes me in the present. Mine the pain of the souls
beside me (that is my Jesus). Mine all that is not peace, joy,
beautiful, lovable, serene… in a word, what is not Paradise.
Because I too have my Paradise, but is that in my Spouse’s heart.
I
know no other.
So it
will be for the years I have left: athirst for pain, for anguish, for
despair, for sadness, for separation, for exile, for forsakenness,
for torment, for… all that is Him, and He is Sin, Hell.
In
this way I will dry up the waters of tribulation in many hearts
nearby and, through communion with my almighty Spouse, in many far
away.
I
shall pass as a Fire that consumes all that must fall and leaves
standing only the Truth.
But it is necessary to be like Him: to be Him in the present moment of life.”
But it is necessary to be like Him: to be Him in the present moment of life.”
“On
this earth everyone has his cross. But we
must act in such a way, that we be not the bad, but the good thief”
– Saint Padre Pio
Pope
John Paul II warned us in 1976: “We are
standing before today the greatest fight that humanity has ever seen.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY HAS TOTALLY UNDERSTOOD
THIS. We are TODAY before the FINAL CONFRONTATION between the Church
and the anti-Church, between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel”.
Pope
John Paul II said to a group
of pilgrims in Fulda, West Germany, in November 1980, speaking about
the secrets of Fatima, that: “We have to be prepared to suffer,
before long, great trials which will require of us the disposition to
sacrifice even our life for Christ. Through your prayers and mine,
it is still possible to diminish this trial (predicted at Fatima),
but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only in this manner
can the Church be effectively renewed. How
many times has the renewal of the Church been brought about in blood!
It will not be different this time.”
Soon
No More Eucharist
Take
courage friends. Jesus and Mary are nearer to us when we are in great
suffering if we continue to pray and do not lose hope. The next few
years will be more difficult than in any time in human history. We
are the “generation” (Mt 24:34) of which Jesus spoke about: “For
then there will be great tribulation,
such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no,
and never will be” (Mt 24:21)! We must not neglect the simple
things that we learned as children: a good monthly confession with an
examination of conscience based on the Catechism of the Catholic
Church for adults (not the TV), the Holy Mass every Sunday, and to
pray the Holy Rosary everyday and to seek to live what we pray.
May
God bless you!
Father
Joseph Dwight
- - -
P.s.
There
is less prayer than ever before, more
sin than ever before, even worse, indifference as if sin no longer
exists, and so we have given much greater power to “the father of
lies”, Satan (Jn 8:44). In particular Satan has more power to
“disguise himself as an angel of
light” (2Cor 11:14), to offer his
very deadly beautiful lies as if they were the “truth that sets us
free” (Jn 8:32)!
Thus
it is very important in these times of
great confusion, when even Catholic
bishops are no longer in agreement about the fundamentals of our
faith and morals, to not only pray much and to study the Catechism of
the Catholic Church for adults, but to
keep our eyes open so as not to fall into the beautiful lies of Satan
presented as if they were the Truth!
FOR
UPDATES on some of these fundamental, hidden, and disguised
deceptions of the ancient serpent, visit one of my index web sites to
see the more important, latest articles:
(as
well as the DOCUMENTS REGARDING ECCLESIAL APPROVAL of the TESTIMONY
OF GLORIA POLO):
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