Where would we be without the cross?

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Let us reflect first on one simply reality: if it were not for the cross, we wouldn’t be here now. I would never have written these words, and you would never have read them. Without the cross of Christ, our lives would be so much different, and, dare I say, so empty and meaningless and ultimately hopeless. So let us first of all give thanks for that.

Without the cross, where would we go to make sense out of the many sufferings, big and small, that are part of the fabric of our lives?

Without the cross, where could we go to be fed the Food that leads to eternal life?

Without the cross, how could we realize that our God is a God who did not look upon suffering from a safe seat in heaven, but who entered into human reality and endured suffering Himself so that we may be united with Him in both the misery and the triumph of existence?

Without the cross, how could we endure the many contradictions that are part of our lives, considering that the cross itself is a “sign of contradiction” itself and that Our Blessed Lord literally bore the tensions between the two cross-bars of the tree?

And when we look upon the cross and consider it as a sign of contradiction, can we realize that reality itself is a contradiction. It is neither fully perfect nor totally miserable and defeated. Can we also acknowledge the fact that we ourselves are neither perfectly holy nor miserably un-holy, and can we bring that contradiction itself to the cross and to our prayer, and accept the fact that the two exist side-by-side. It is only when we evolve to the point where we can do this, without trying to insist that only one side is true or that only one side is valid, that we begin to experience a mature spirituality.

Fr. Richard Rohr writes that “The price you pay for holding together the contradictions within yourself, others and the world is always some form of crucifixion, but the gift you receive and the gift you offer is that—at least in you---“everything belongs” (Things Hidden, p. 205).

May the Lord bless you this day!