Lose the fear of suffering

AND of death. If we believe in Christ and follow what he

has taught and shown us, we will realize that there is nothing to be

afraid of suffering and death, and all the other negative things that

can mark our life.

  

            He bore them himself and converted them into our way for

our own salvation. Yes, even death which is the ultimate evil that can

befall us, an evil that is humanly insoluble. With Christ’s death, the

curse of death has been removed. “Death has been swallowed up in

victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your

sting?” (1 Cor 15,54-55)

  

            So, we just have to be sport and cool about the whole

reality of suffering and death. What we need to do is to follow Christ

in his attitude toward them. For Christ, embracing suffering and

ultimately death, is the expression of his greatest love for us. We

have to enter into the dynamic of this divine logic and wisdom so we

can lose that fear of suffering and death.

  

            Thus, we have to understand this very well. Unless we love

the cross, we can never say that we are loving enough. Of course, we

have to qualify that assertion. It’s when we love the cross the way

God wills it—the way Christ loves it—that we can really say that we

are loving as we should, or loving with the fullness of love.

  

            We have to be wary of our tendency to limit our loving to

ways and forms that give us some benefits alone, be it material, moral

or spiritual. While they are also a form of love, they are not yet the

fullness of love.

  

            They somehow are forms of love that have traces of

self-interest. They are not a total self-giving, completely rid of

self-interest, which is what true love is. And if they are not

corrected, if they are not oriented towards the fullness of love, they

can occasion a lot of danger and worse anomalies.

  

            Loving the cross the way Christ loved it is the ultimate

of love. It is the love that is completely deprived of selfishness. It

is total self-giving, full of self-abnegation. St. Paul described this

kind of love in Christ when he said:

  

            “Though he was in the form of God, Jesus 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 2,6-8)

  

            You can just imagine what we have to go through to develop

this kind of love. We obviously can only do that if we are vitally

united with Christ, if we have God’s grace. Outside of that, there’s

no way we can attain that kind of love.

  

            Aside from grace, we have to make an effort to seek the

cross, not just wait for it to come to us. The cross is where we find

Christ, and Christ completing and perfecting his work of human

redemption.

  

            It is the instrument of our salvation, the tree of life

that counters the tree of death. No wonder that he commands us to

carry the cross: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself

and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mt 16,24)

   

            Christ’s cross is the effective counterbalance of our

freedom, which can swing in any which way. It keeps our freedom in the

orbit of truth and charity that can only come from God, our creator

and father.

  

            It heals what is wounded, cures what is sick in us,

especially our tendency to be lazy and complacent. It makes us humble

and simple, protecting us from the dangers of pride, bigotry, conceit

and self-righteousness.

  

            It assumes all our sins, mistakes and other stupidities,

and atones for them, repairing what they damage, making up for

whatever we ourselves cannot anymore resolve humanly. It also serves

to strengthen us, making us more resistant to the different evils of

this world.