The crosses in our life

WE should be quick to relate all the crosses we can

encounter in this life to the Cross of Christ whose feast of its

exaltation we celebrate on September 14. That way, we infuse these

crosses with a lot of meaning and with redemptive value. We convert

them into a means of our victory, and not just a state of suffering

and defeat.

  

            To be sure, all our earthly crosses have already been

subsumed by Christ’s Cross. There is no negative event in our life

that is not taken care of by Christ’s redemptive death on the Cross.

This truth of our faith should sink deep in our consciousness so we

don’t waste time feeling bad and sad because of our crosses.

  

            In other words, we should make these crosses lead us to

Christ, because Christ can surely be found in his Cross where he

showed his supreme act of love for us. That’s because by dying on the

cross, Christ showed his tremendous generosity and love for everyone.

  

            We should frequently meditate on the Passion and Death of

Christ so as to correspond generously to the gift of his own self to

us. And such correspondence actually does us a lot of good.

  

          By meditating on the Passion and Death of Christ, we are

shown how to handle our suffering and ultimately death. The Son of God

has to become man to assume all the sins of men and with his passion

and death and later his resurrection, convert those sins into the

basis for a new creature, the new, re-created man in Christ.

  

            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.

  

            The cross, which is the symbol of all our sinfulness and

the death that is the consequence of our sin, has not led God to hate

us and to condemn us forever. Rather, it has moved God to love us with

a love greater than that of creating us to be his image and likeness.

   

            Yes, there is justice also involved, and there is

punishment, divine anger and retribution always in play. But in the

end, God is always moved to mercy and compassion for us, and this is

actualized and personalized in God becoming man, Jesus Christ, who in

the end offered his life on the cross as a supreme act of love for us.

  

            We need to make some drastic adjustments in our

understanding of love, in our attitudes, and the relevant practices

and skills involved in this divine love. We should not be afraid of

the cross. On the contrary, we have to look for it, in all its forms

and expressions, with eagerness.

  

            Loving with the cross of Christ makes our love spiritual

and supernatural, a love that leads us to our eternal destination. It

extricates our loving from the mere play of our passions and urges. It

purifies and elevates our love without annulling its human, natural,

physical and emotional dimensions.