With
great clarity the Gospels show us how much our Divine Savior in His
mercy pities our pains of body and soul. We need only to recall the
awesome miracles He performed in His omnipotence in order to mitigate
these pains. But let us never make the mistake of imagining that this
combat against pain and sorrow was the greatest gift He dispensed to
mankind.
For the one who closes his eyes to the central fact of
Our Lord's life — that He is our Redeemer and desired to endure the
cruelest sufferings in order to redeem us — would have misunderstood His
mission.
Even at the very apex of His Passion, Our Lord could
have put an end to all those pains instantly by a mere act of His Divine
will. From the very first moment of His Passion to the very last, Our
Savior could have ordered His wounds to heal, His precious blood to stop
pouring forth, and the effects of the blows on His Divine body to
disappear without a scar. Finally, He could have given Himself a
brilliant and jubilant victory, abruptly halting the persecution that
was dragging Him to death.
But Our Lord Jesus Christ willed none
of this. On the contrary, He willed to allow Himself to be led up the
Via Dolorosa to the height of Golgotha: He willed to see His most holy
Mother engulfed in the depths of sorrow. And, finally, He willed to cry
out those piercing words "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
(Matt. 27:46), which will echo down through the ages until the
consummation of the world.
In considering these realities, we
come to understand a profound truth. By granting each of us the grace to
be called to suffer a portion of His Passion with Him, He made clear
the unequaled role of the Cross in the lives of men, in the history of
the world, and in His glorification. Let us not think that by inviting
us to suffer the pains and sorrows of the present life, He thereby
wished to dispense each of us from pronouncing our own "consummatum est" at the hour of our death.
If
we do not understand the role of the Cross, if we do not love the
Cross, if we do not live our own Via Crucis, we will not fulfill
Providence's design for us. And at our death, we will not be able to
make ours the sublime exclamation of St. Paul: "I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there
is laid up to me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous judge, will award to me on that Day." (2 Tim. 4:7-8).
Any
quality, however exalted, will avail nothing unless it is founded on
love of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. With this love we can obtain
all, even if we find heavy the holy burden of purity and other virtues,
the unceasing attacks and mockeries of the enemies of the Faith, and
the betrayals of false friends.
The great foundation, indeed the
greatest foundation, of Christian civilization is that each and every
person cultivates a generous love for the Cross of Our Lord Jesus
Christ. May Mary help us to accomplish this. Then we shall have
reconquered for her Divine Son the reign of God that today flickers so
faintly in the hearts of men.
Photo by: GFreihalter
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