Your Cross Is You

"Remember, you are only an instrument.  Not yours to decide how or when or where you act.  I plan all that.  Make yourself very fit to do My work.  All that hinders your activity must be cured.

Mine is the Cross on which the burdens of the world are laid.  How foolish is any one of My disciples who seeks to bear his own burdens, when there is only one place for them - My Cross.

It is like a weary man on a hot and dusty road, bearing a heavy load, when all plans have been made for its carriage.  The road, the scenery, flowers, beauty around - all are lost.

But, My children, you may think I did say, "Take up your cross daily and follow Me."

Yes, but the cross given to each one of you is only a cross provided on which you can crucify the self of yours that hinders progress and Joy, and prevents the flow through your being of My invigorating Life and Spirit.

Listen to Me, love Me, joy in Me.  Rejoice."

Jesus, in God Calling

Today, in my women's study, On The Christian Meaning of Suffering, we reflected on the life of a woman named (Saint) Gianna Beretta Molla, who voluntarily gave her life at age 40 for her unborn child.  Upon discovering a large ovarian cyst during her second month of pregnancy, she refused an abortion or complete hysterectomy, both of which would have spared her life at the expense of her child's.  Instead, she chose surgical removal of the cyst, which would not compromise the baby, but would leave her vulnerable to further complications.  "A few days before the birth, anticipating that the delivery might be dangerous, she said to her husband, "If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate:  choose the child - I insist on it.  Save him!" She had a healthy baby girl and died one week later.  She already had 3 children, ages 6, 5, and 3. 

Our room full of mothers took a collective deep breath, and followed it with "Well, she must have known her family would take good care of her children..., But...".  We admired her conviction but felt reasonably sure we lacked the same.  "I don't know if I could do it." echoed around the room.  There was a palpable weighing of consciences and the discomfort which always follows coming up short.

In the conversation that followed, we discussed our awareness of God's grace, and the fact that it only accompanies real situations.  Most of us have not been given that grace, because that situation is not our own.  Abandonment to Divine Providence offers the perfect advice at this uncomfortable juncture. "If it [the soul] should feel neither attraction nor grace to do those things that make the saints so much admired, it must, in justice to itself, say, 'God has willed it thus for the saints, but not for me.'"

We are all called to shoulder different crosses because we are unique, and the part of ourselves that "hinders progress and Joy" is what needs to be crucified.  However, most of us focus our attention outwardly, instead of focusing on what needs to change within.  We live in fear and wait for the next big cross to be lashed to our back.

 Etty Hillesum, a 29-year-old writer who died in Auschwitz, said, "Man suffers most through his fear of suffering."  "Reality is something one shoulders together with all the suffering that goes with it...But the idea of suffering (which is not the reality, for real suffering is always fruitful and can turn life into a precious thing) must be destroyed.  And if you destroy the ideas behind which life lies imprisoned as behind bars, then you liberate your true life, its real mainsprings, and you will also have the strength to bear real suffering, your own and the world's."

We throw away our peace in times of calm, when all is well.  We feel justified in skimming over the joys of today because we're "waiting for the other shoe to drop".  We want to be ready!  We're not sure for what, but we want to be ready. 

Instead of borrowing suffering, let's borrow a page from the diary of Sister Faustina, "I regard the time of peace as a time of preparation of victory..."

The Lord has already carried His Cross.  He is proven.  He is calling us to follow Him.  "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" (Matthew 16:24-25).  Let's climb out from under our cross, and get on it.  It's the only way we can be like Him, and it's a lot easier for Him to carry.

Dear God of All That Is Good, Thank you for the gorgeous weather and so many opportunities to experience You.  Thank you for God Calling, and continually revealing Yourself and Your plan to us.  Thank you for the examples of the saints, and people who model heroic charity and courage.  Thank you for the reminder that real suffering is always bearable, because Your grace is abundant in reality.  Help me to destroy imagined suffering in my life.

 Lord, please give me the courage to climb upon my cross.  Help me to see and know those things that hinder my progress and Joy, and to do whatever is necessary to remove them.  Please give me and all others who are pursuing You, the grace of knowing when we are comparing our relationship with You to someone else's relationship with You, and spare us the confusion and feelings of inferiority that come with that comparison.  Thank You for making our burdens light and for the rest we find when we come to You.  Amen.

Three hours

February 29, 2012 - Adoration Chapel
Dearest Jesus, I'm in Your physical Presence again and I am trying to follow Your call.  I feel like You are asking me to share my experience with the women in my parish.  Please tell me exactly what message You want me to bring to them.  I don't want to do anything of my own volition, but only Your holy will...

(This is what poured out from my pen in the following hour)
Three hours.  For three hours, Jesus lived on the Cross.  10,800 seconds of dying.  Of pouring His life, breath, and blood out for us.  And at the very same time, pouring out His forgiveness upon us and interceding for us before His Father.  This doesn't even begin to account for His agony in the garden, the merciless scourging, the crown of thorns, carrying the Cross, His falls, and the endless mockery He endured.
Can you imagine standing at the foot of the Cross and telling Jesus that His sacrifice is insufficient?!!  That you need greater proof of His love?!  This is what we are saying when we fail to trust Him.  That we need something more.
If your trust is the measure of your love.  Do you really love Him?  Ask yourself if you have received His mercy, His forgiveness.
If you haven't or feel like you are unable to, beg Him for the grace to accept it.  Only He can do this for us, but we have to ask Him.  He poured out His life for us moment by moment to give us this gift.  He will not refuse you. 
If you can accept His forgiveness, you can accept His love, with His grace.  Ask Him for it.  Once we can begin to truly love Him, we can begin to trust Him.
It is only when we begin to trust Him, that His total and perfect sacrifice is made perfect in us.  It is only then that we stop adding to His agony.
During our retreat Fr. Scott said "God's greatest joy is forgiveness.  Our own forgiveness is what makes us most like God.  Jesus wanted the nail marks to remain after His resurrection to remind us how much He loves us and how important the Cross is in our lives.  This Lenten season, cast yourself freely and fully into the merciful arms of Jesus. Ask God for the grace to take this step.  Take the Nestea plunge of faith".

At the Foot of the Cross

During my silent retreat this past weekend, I felt like I was on the mountain with Jesus for 3 days.  I am convicted now, more than ever before of His love for me and for each one of us.  I learned that I continually underestimate Him, which with His grace I hope to stop doing!  He is asking me to be bold for Him and to tell you of His great longing to be trusted.  By each and every one of us.  So, as a response to His call, I would like to share my journal entry with you about my experience at the foot of the Cross.

I begin here because it is when everything changed for me. I got it. God loves us and it hurts Him beyond our wildest imagination that we neither love nor trust Him. There are many, many writings I will share with you before this time and a few after, but I have never been more convicted than at the foot of the Cross.

 February 23, 2012 - 8:44pm

I just came in from outside.  I was looking for the moon as Fr. Scott suggested, but I found Jesus instead.  Jesus hanging on the Cross, in the cold, dark night.  I stood under Him and saw the space between His back and the Cross.  I saw His elbow and his stretched shoulder joints.  I saw the nail penetrating His foot, but I could not see His face in the shadow.  His chest seemed to rise and fall just once to remind me that before He died on the Cross, He was alive on the Cross.  Alive and in agony - forgiving us.  How can I fail to trust Him?!  He gave everything.  Not just in a moment, but in thousands of suffering moments.
He did all of that for love.  He asks that we trust Him.  There was NOTHING more He could do.  If we still don't trust Him, what recourse does He have?
Oh, sweet Jesus, please forgive our lack of trust.  You have proven your love.  Help us to prove ours. 
You have suffered so much already.  I shudder at the thought of adding more pain because I'm telling you that your sacrifice wasn't enough.
Please, let me never forget the sight of your naked body hanging on your Cross in the shadows.
Please, don't hide Your face from me.  I love you.

That is the end of the journal entry. It occurred to me later that this was the first time I ever REALLY saw Jesus’ body on the cross.  I wear Him around my neck.  I see Him at Mass and every time I walk in and out of a room.  But, He’s always “over there” or behind the altar.