Ad Jesum per Mariam

Conf #2: The Beauty Jesus Sees in Suffering When We Embrace the Mystery & Exaltation of the Cross

Conference #2: The Beauty Jesus and Christianity Sees in Suffering When We Embrace the Mystery and Exaltation of the Cross After reciting a hymn that is at least 1400 years old about The Cross, the Homily tells us of the fate of The Cross. The Persians in conquering Rome, also conquered Jerusalem. In doing so, they carried away numerous icons. They also carried away Jesus’ Holy Cross. We also hear of its return to Jerusalem. Listen more within the Homily. We hear about the requirements The Cross has upon its bearers. The king of Jerusalem tried to carry the Cross and could not until he was properly disposed. Hear more within the Homily and its implications for us! The Cross is Glorious, Exalted, Luminous and even Radiant. Hidden within these ideas is something very important. Normally, when our bodies weaken with advance age, when illness can dimmish, humans see things differently. We see Poverty, and Victims of violence differently. All of these things break us down. The normal tendency of man is to look away from these things. Exalting the Cross Says Something Different Exalting the Cross says something different. It is into these conditions that something glorious happens in the Mystery of the Cross. There is a hidden radiance inside the life that normal humans look away. There is value in the life of those that suffer. Hear more within this Homily. In this Mystery, one sees beauty in the suffering that comes to all of us. Not because it is suffering. But because Jesus has brought it upon Himself. When we can embrace this Mystery, it changes how we frame everything. This is important for the history of the world! One of the impacts of the Church’s spirituality of Jesus Christ is this: Prior to Jesus, there is no culture on earth that valued its sick. There is no society that finds dignity in the weak. There is no culture, prior to Christianity, that values suffering. Note what that means. Listen to this conference. Listen to: Conference #2: The Beauty Jesus and Christianity Sees in Suffering When We Embrace the Mystery and Exaltation of the Cross

Broadcast on:: 16 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Mary, Queen of all hearts, Saint Louis-Marie de Montford, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, continuing, then, our reflections on the cross of the Lord. It's important to note that we're going to hear some of this again tomorrow at Mass, where we have the gospel reading of Jesus insisting if one would be my disciple, let him pick up his cross and follow me. The, in engaging the mystery of the cross, one of the very, very old hymns, composed in honor of the cross, goes back to the sixth or seventh century in the city of Poitier, France. And the interesting thing is many of us, because of our experience of benediction and Holy Thursday, are familiar with the ponge lingua of Saint Thomas Aquinas. That's the second ponge lingua in the Christian tradition. The earlier one, which in a sense Thomas ripped off the tune, he ripped off the melody, was a ponge lingua to the cross. This magnificent hymn to the cross is still found in the present liturgy in the options for music to be used on Good Friday. And it's a marvelous hymn, but again, sing by tongue. Let by tongue sing of the greatness of this mystery. It catches the idea again of what it means to say the exaltation of the cross, the proclamation of the greatness of something. We don't exalt what is trivial. We only exalt what is mighty, great, and valuable. The ancient hymn is marvelous, it's long, but it begins in simply enough. O faithful cross, the saints rely on. Never was a tree so fair. Nor ever was a nobler scion, nor leaf, nor limb, nor branch so fair. Sweet the timber, sweet the iron, sweet the burden that they bear. And this remarkable image of out of all of the trees that have ever stood on earth, none is mightier, none is greater than the tree of the cross. It is the tree that is more fruitful than any other, the tree that is more beautiful than any other, the tree that is more significant than any other, precisely because of that combination of wood and iron, the beams and the nails that hold the burden of salvation for us. As a remarkable image, it's a remarkable image. During Mass Today, Father Felix mentioned the historical events that underlie the liturgical celebration today. In fact, the name exaltation of the cross was properly applied to this particular feast on the occasion of that second great event when the cross was recovered. The Persians invaded the Middle East. They ran through Jerusalem, the cities in the area, and as part of their attack on Rome, they sacked Jerusalem and they carried away from there a number of treasures including the cross. And it was after a military action that led to the defeat of the Persians and the recovery of the cross. The emperor himself, the Christian emperor, is in Jerusalem and it was a remarkable moment because they were going to carry the cross in possession back to the site of Calvary, where, as they said, the Lord first planted it. What an interesting way of expressing it, where the Lord first planted it. And note there again the insistence that there is something living about the cross. You don't plant a piece of wood, plant a tree. And this image, this image of the truly fruitful tree that is planted, that is rooted in the world, and rises up out of the world between earth and heaven, lifting all of us up. And so a great procession is formed in Jerusalem and with no small festivity, with no small pomp and pageantry, the emperor himself is going to bear the cross. Through the streets of Jerusalem, a longer route which is roughly similar to what Christ himself might have walked on. The city has changed so much over the years, nobody walks the exact route anymore. But something strange happened. The attendants bring the cross forward. The emperor places his hands on the cross, takes a step and finds he can't go any further. This is too heavy. It's too large, he can't balance it correctly, it's overwhelming. He sets it down, the attendants come, and this mysterious cross they handle, you know, it's heavy, but it's not that bad for a couple guys. And the emperor tries again, and nothing can move forward. And everyone pauses in wonderment over this. Until the patriarch of Jerusalem approached the emperor and said, "How is it that you're going to carry the cross of the true king, wearing the garments and the trinkets of an earthly king?" And the emperor stepped aside and took off the crown and took off the robes, took off the jewelry that marked his status. And in the tunic of a common man, he embraced the cross and the procession move forward. Again, it's a remarkable tale and a remarkable incident in terms of, again, that whole idea of what does it mean to embrace the cross? Because the cross has requirements. Not anyone, and this was the curious thing, not just anyone can carry the cross. One has to be properly disposed. One has to be ready. It could be anyone who carries the cross, but on any given day, it's not going to be just anyone. It's going to be that one who knows how to meet it, who knows how to embrace it, who can lay himself aside for the sake of putting his hand to it. And so here it is, as long as the monarch is wearing garments that exalt him, he will not carry the cross rightly. The cross will go nowhere. But when the monarch lays aside the outward form of earthly glory and recognizes that glory is found in the cross, then everything moves forward. And so it was then that the humbled emperor bears the cross through the streets, the very site where Christ first planted it, and there is tremendous rejoicing and celebration. And again, the symbolism is remarkable. The cross is planted. It's not placed. It is planted there. And there's a sense of permanence and a sense of abiding, a certain sense of accomplishment that comes with all of this, that moving forward tinges now the annual celebration of the cross with this notion of it must be valued, it must be lifted, one must surrender to it. So coming out of that, we step back again, this idea of the cross as glorious, the cross as exalted, the cross as something luminous, even radiant. And hidden in those ideas is something very important. Normally, when we experience things like, just let's read blood, the way the body weakens with advanced age, the way illness can ravage us and diminish us, the way certain demeaning and dehumanizing conditions, extreme poverty, being the victim of violence, all of these things that break us down. The normal tendency with the eye of man is to want to look away from those things, to don't want to be anywhere near those things. It's completely understandable. It's completely understandable, but the eye looks and sees no value. This idea of exulting the cross says something different. It is into that diminished and pain-racked life that that same glorious mystery is found. That there's something luminous about that one neglected in the nursing home. That there's a hidden radiant, say, substantial beauty, a substantial goodness in that one whose life seems to have no value to anyone. And it's this ability to see in the cross of Christ a mysterious beauty in the suffering that comes to all of us. Not because it's suffering, but because Christ has brought it on to himself. And when we can recognize that and can embrace that, it changes how we frame everything. This is vitally important for the history of the world. One of the effects of the church's theology and spirituality of the cross of Jesus Christ is this. Prior to Christianity, there is no culture on earth that valued its sick. There might have been individual exceptions, but as a rule there is no culture that does that. There is no society that finds dignity in the weak. There is no nation prior to Christianity that sees value in the suffering of many. And know what that means. How easy it is to write off others. How easy it is to have a society like Sparta of old, where if the infant was born weak, he was left out to die in the elements. Because strength matters. How easy it is that, and we still see this around us all the time, the one who doesn't look like everybody else is somehow less. The one who can't do what everybody else does is somehow less. This idea that if there is something that you struggle with, something that you struggle with, you are merely a burden, and that's all. To be warehoused or set aside, but not to be valued. Christianity changes that, and Christianity changes that because Christianity is saved by the one who suffers. And when we recognize that, we see something. The world wants to be saved by the strong man. The world wants the strong man, and the strong man does save us, but he doesn't save us with an outward show of obvious strength. You know, when we're frightened as a culture, what have societies done all across history, they embrace the strong dictator who will fix things and get it done. We love the strong man. And the strong man of Rome puts Jesus to death, and there's something in his weakness that is stronger than that. And all of a sudden, as the Christians are looking at this, and they see their fragile brothers and sisters, they see them differently because Jesus looked like that, and Jesus suffered like that. And they see that in this mystery is the embrace of the woundedness that we shy away from, the embrace of the struggle that overwhelms us repeatedly, and that this is what Jesus takes to himself. And that recognition was absolutely vital for formulating the orthodox confession of faith in the humanity of Jesus. We say Jesus is God and man, right? Well, the interesting thing is what does that mean? What does it mean to say that, and you know, what does it mean to say that Jesus is truly human? And if we just pause right there, and that he's also truly God, well, God doesn't suffer, but men do. God is not weak, but men are. You know what I'm doing? I'm not talking about the fundamental greatness of humanity that we'd like to celebrate. Man is intelligent. Man accomplishes things. The human race can do so much and fail so often. You see, the simple fact of the matter is what we have in common is often failure. Not everybody succeeds. Not everybody is healthy, but sooner or later everybody gets sick. Not everybody is happy. That's the truth. Sooner or later everybody's not happy. Notice what we really have in common? What really makes us us together? It's not our accomplishments. It's our weakness. It's not our self-sufficiency. It's our need. And so the question was, do you really mean to say that God becomes that? And the answer that the church gave was, if God didn't take it to himself, he didn't save it. If God is too good to suffer, then you haven't been redeemed. If God is too good for your weakness and doesn't take it to himself, where are you? If God is only going to save the perfect, the mighty, the bold, and the strong, well most of us are out of luck. Note the radicality of that statement, and it's the experience of the cross that demonstrates it. Each step he takes along the way of the cross is a step deeper and deeper and deeper into the mystery of human weakness and human struggle. He's rejected. He's abandoned. He's made fun of. He's beaten. He is unjustly condemned as an innocent man by a governor who says, I know he's innocent, kill him anyway. And so he is condemned not for being guilty. He is condemned as being not worth bothering about, not worth rescuing. Well, that's a lot of the world. That's what he goes into. And it is this experience of this is exactly who Jesus Christ is that penetrated the early believers. And so when they looked at their brothers and sisters who were wounded and struggling, they remembered who it was that saved them. They remembered that Christ took that onto himself, that somehow he connected himself with it. He didn't come to take the pain out of the world. He came to take the pain of the world onto himself. And as the church began to grow, one of the ways it quietly began changing the world was this insistent, steady sense that the weak are valuable, that the poor are to be respected, that the mighty aren't the most important. It turns everything completely upside down and on its head. But if we live in a world today which takes those things for granted, the origin is in Jesus Christ and nowhere else. No earthly philosophy produced this. No earthly political system naturally gave rise to this. This is a direct result of the church taking the mystery of the cross seriously, because it meant that we take ourselves seriously in the right way. Not the false way the world wants to be taken seriously, which values the wrong things and values it in a way where only a few have access and many are left aside. You know, and why do we have fear of missing out? Because we don't want to be left behind. We don't want to miss something. And the church says that's the wrong attitude. The one thing worth having is already here. The one thing you need. The world still lives in the spirit of Adam stretching out his hand to a false savior, a false goodness. But there's only one tree that saves us. And that gets back to the other story the Father Felix told. I'm assuming you guys all paid attention to Father's homily this morning because it was very, very good. And he mentioned that finding in the tomb of Jesus the three crosses and the need to determine which was the cross of Jesus. And again, just note the symbolism hidden in that historical reality. Only one cross gives life. It's not just any of them. Thousands upon thousands died on crosses. Only one cross gives life. The others just have dead men. And note so that note the importance. We have to determine which is the one cross that gives life. We don't get to take our pick. We must know which one it is. And but but also the sense. If we really have the cross of the Savior here, it will give life. And that is how we will know it. Again, note the just in that that basic fundamental spiritual instinct that St. Helena and the others had. If his cross is really here, there will be life that comes from it. And so it is that when a person whose life is failing touches the other crosses, nothing happens. There is no life that comes from those crosses. Only one cross gives life. That's like stretching out your hand to the wrong tree. It might be a nice tree, but it's not the one that gives life. And then there's the other tree. The tree of the Savior. The true tree of life. And when that one whose life is failing stretches out the hand to that tree, then there's life. Note how wonderful that is. This insistence that this isn't just words. We don't just say only in the cross of Jesus. We live it. We believe it. And the evidence that the cross of Jesus Christ is here is not just because we're struggling, but that within the struggle of his life. Within the hardship there's dignity. Within everything that's going wrong, there is something to be valued. It's as if when we really embrace this, there is this mysterious ability to look into the darkest corners of the world where we are most afflicted and see this mysterious light. Beautiful and present. It doesn't take that darkness away, but it's there. But it's there. And that's the spirit behind this feast day, the exaltation of the cross. Because the reality is, as the cross is lifted high, the cross is lifting us. That's the beautiful paradox. Note what Jesus says. When I am lifted up by definition, if he's lifted, he's high, right? And note what he says. When I am lifted, I will draw everything to me. That's not just draw it forward. It's draw it up to where I am. When we lift the cross, when we exalt the cross and fix our eyes on the Savior, our hearts get lifted, our spirits get lifted. We get lifted up above the pettiness, the fragility, the impermanence of this world to something better, even while we still have to live here. That's a reminder. If you're exalting something, and again, sometimes it's as the silly exercise of asking really stupid questions is really helpful. So when you are exalting something, which way are you looking up? Ordinarily, when we're living, where are we looking? Note the difference. Note the difference. This is also the church building a feast day in that says, look up and fix your eyes in the right direction at the right thing. Because that will allow you then to look out at this world you live in, in a different way. The problem is, God does this all the time. When Jesus is born, there's a star in the sky, right? Well, to see a star, you have to do two things. You have to go outside and you have to look up. What do we do? That's a little chilly, I think I'll stay in. Then it might be icy, let me keep looking down. And so we miss it. It's not that the star is in there. It's not that the light isn't there. It's not that the grace isn't there. It's we're looking in the wrong place. It's not like Adam and Eve didn't already have the image of God within them. They already had that, but they were looking outside for something more. It's not that goodness wasn't there for them, but they were looking the wrong way. So we have this feast day, the exaltation of the cross. Look up, but it's like fill your eyes. Look up and see how it puts everything into this incredible order. An order that doesn't toss the weak and the imperfect aside, but an order that actually includes them and privileges them. And this is why the worldly heart can't bear the cross. The worldly heart is focused on preserving itself, saving itself, advancing itself. The symbolism of the emperor, as long as he was dressed as the emperor, the earthly ruler, vest it with earthly power, earthly wealth, and earthly authority, he would never move that cross forward. But the minute he recognized that those were not the important thing, and the important thing was the cross, and he set those things aside for the sake of that cross, then that cross was well and truly planted once again in the original spot, and again note, in the original spot where Christ first planted it. That's the final note on this. It's not, let's grab the cross and put it where we think is best. It's not, let's grab the cross and find a spot for it. It's, we find a cross and we let the Lord show us where to plant it, because we want to, he's the one who sows the garden. We want the cross planted where he is pleased to place it within us. And the place he's pleased to place it within us is in our hearts. When the founder of my religious community, the company of Mary, was preaching, there were, when he died, he was referred to as the apostle of the cross and the rosary. And everybody who is aware of St. Louis de Montfort's profound devotion to our lady is often surprised by the order of those words, not the apostle of the rosary and the cross, but the apostle of the cross and the rosary, because that's what he would lead with. It's always the cross. And when he would be preaching in France, the parish mission was generally a significant transformative event in the history of a parish. What didn't happen back then was there was no such thing as an annual Lenten mission. Okay? You know why? Do you know how long a Lenten mission was? Lent. Not a four day retreat with an hour and a half long service in the evening. All day long into the night every single day for several weeks. It shook and affected the parish. The missionaries would come in. They'd invade the parish. They'd take it over. Father could put his feet up in here confessions. The guys did everything. They taught the catechism. They preached to the people. They led the prayer. They led the songs. They did all of it. And the idea being to transform the community from top down and bottom up. And so a mission would hit a parish like a thunderclap. And a really successful mission would be permanently commemorated. Because these are once in a generation realities, not once a year. And the custom would be at the end of a mission to erect a cross on the church grounds or even within the church to commemorate the mission and its fruits. Father Dabonfer did that. But he did it differently than anybody else. First was he never talked about erecting a cross. He talked about planting the cross. That ancient language of the church. It must be planted. Not erected. We don't put it up. Again, note the image. We don't put it up. We plant it. Putting it up sounds temporary. It's sitting on something. Planting it is no. It has to put roots into something. So the idea is we plant the cross so it puts roots into this parish, into its families, into those who will come and pray here. We want the cross to be rooted here. Not an ornament, not an accessory, but something deeply integrated into what this is. And it was out of this idea of wanting to deeply root this mystery in the people that Father Dabonfer very quickly realized I can't just put a cross up. Because the cross comes with people. And so instead of just erecting a cross, he began the custom of putting up calvaries, life-size calvaries in the parish. The cross with Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, and St. John. That became one of his standards because the cross always comes with people. The cross isn't separate from us. The cross is for us. It's the cross that lifts us. It's the cross that gathers us. And just note that, this sense of scale, there's something bigger here than just wanting to put a cross that remembers something. There's a reality that we want to root here, a mystery, a life, and a goodness. And it's a mystery that comes with people. And so now we turn to that basic form of the calvary, which we all know. There's the cross, there's Mary Magdalene, there's Mary the mother of Jesus, and there's John the beloved disciple. Let's look at the people. Let's look at the people that are at the cross. And the first one we see is Mary the mother of Jesus and we're not surprised that she's there. It makes sense that she's there. She's his mother. She's the holiest and best of all of us. She is that living and perfect saint. Of course, she would be here. And then we look at the other side and we see John the beloved disciple, the hot, headed guy that Jesus called son of thunder because he wanted to call down fire from heaven on people who wouldn't receive the message of love. You've got to like that guy. You know, the guy, the guy who angled for one of the top spots in the kingdom, this is Jesus' best friend, the guy who never seemed to get it right. He's faithful, he's loyal, he's trying, and he gets it wrong as often as he gets it right. And he's there. Well, there's hope for us then. But look at that. You've got the guy, you've got the minister, you've got the servant, you've got the volunteer who really wants to do this and struggles to get it right. The one who really wants to grow in goodness and often goes backwards. But it's the guy who keeps trying. So it makes a certain amount of sense that the guy who keeps trying is there too. You know, there's a fondness for Jesus, a belonging to Jesus even though he gets the belonging wrong all the time. But you know, when you look at those calories, isn't it amazing who the closest one is, who's right up against the cross? It's Mary Magdalene. Saint Mark writes that Jesus freed her from seven demons, whatever that means. What it means minimally is that she had something so out of control in her life. She had no chance of overcoming it on her own. The only word for it was evil. Disordered, overwhelming, destructive, and she's afflicted by that seven times over. And she found freedom from Jesus. Now, isn't that interesting? And she's the closest. Not the holiest, but the neediest. Not the strongest, but the weakest. Not the healthiest, but the most afflicted. The cross comes with people. And if we look at the people, look at what we see. We see our role models and our good examples. We see the ones who do get it right. We see ourselves and that guy who just stumbles and tries to move forward. And you know, and we see all of those others who seem to have no chance and no possibility, and their place is actually the privileged one. The other lesson in the people we see at the further crosses on any given day, I could be any one of those three. I can have that day where, man, I am nailed it. And then I can have that day where it's like, oh God, I got this wrong again. You know, and then I have those other days where it's like, I got nothing. No, whichever one of them I am on that day, I've got my spot. And the closer I am to I've got nothing. The closer I should be to the cross, not further. And it's a marvelous reality. And this is one of the things the father-demographer tried to teach people is the cross comes with us and all of our different versions of being us. There's a place for us right there and we're most truly us when we're together there. And the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thank you all for coming out and praying with us today.