SPIRITUAL LIFE COMMITTEE 

Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity

Monthly Reflection:  January 2003

LIFT HIGH THE CROSS

Fr. Gary Banks, ST

Anyone who lives intensely the Christmas liturgical season cannot but be perplexed to see the blood and violence that interlaces itself within the mystery of such overwhelming joy and hope. Why St. Stephen the very day after Christmas? Why celebrate the beloved friend, St. John the Divine, to be followed by the horror of the Holy Innocents? All Christian life is always ambiguous. Every moment of joy encloses some sorrow, as every moment of sorrow contains the seeds of joy. This is because our victory and hope is in that paradoxical sign of the Cross.

So much of Father Judge's theology and motivation centers on this powerful Christian symbol. "The Cross is a sign that provokes us to love, to worship, to gratitude, to thanksgiving, to service."  He asks his followers to love and venerate the Cross, to have the Cross very present in our lives, to allow the Cross to sustain us in our mission.

On Friday, we have the Cross particularly present. Three o'clock is the moment when we remember Jesus' sacrifice for the life of the world. The Cross spurs us on to ACTION. Because we see how totally Jesus gives of himself for us, we likewise want to give ourselves to our brothers and sisters in mission. It spurs us on to concrete ACTION. In my daily examen, as I review the day hour by hour, I can say what have I done for others, in what concrete ways have I served them, how have I helped them draw closer to our loving God, and especially, as a Cenacle member, how have I encouraged them to be an apostle.

The Cross moves us to self giving and SACRIFICE. We give of ourselves to others, freely and lovingly, in imitation of Jesus. Sometimes there is the great joy of giving, the satisfaction of doing what we most want to do in a meaningful and significant way. Other times, we wrestle with ourselves while we do for others what we do not necessarily want to do, nor think it really beneficial for them, but come to respond to their needs, to help them to grow in God. My daily examen must review how I give of myself each day, the acts and tasks that cause me tiredness and fatigue, but that I do as part of my call from God. Moreover, there is the need to examine myself in terms of sacrifice and self giving. Ours is a selfish, self-centered world of instant gratification. Each day, to grow in the spirit of the Cross, I must be able to enumerate the ways in which I have sacrificed, done for others what I did not want to, responded to their needs at an inopportune moment, struggled to be cheerful and present in the face of fatigue, etc. When I can name my sacrifices, I can see my closeness to the Cross.

The Cross inspires me to diligence, to zeal, to give my all. It is the quality of my service, of the way that I treat people, especially my kindness, respect and patience with the poor and simple. It is the way I answer the door, my promptness to leave anything undone to be able to respond to the needs of another, the presence and the attention that I show them, the preparation that I give to my prayer and liturgical life, the quality that I demand of myself, the particular intensity and degree because of our missionary commitment and dedication. All of these qualities grow in my contemplation of the Cross.

One of my favorite devotions is to try to position myself at the foot of the Cross and to look up into the face of Jesus. I try to picture his face with my imagination. Sometimes I try to talk with him and ask him things. Very rarely has he answered me. What I have noticed over the years is that the more I contemplate the face of Christ on the Cross, the easier it becomes to recognize his face in his abandoned brothers and sisters. These are the people that I most readily try to seek out and serve. Another helpful prayer of the imagination is to try to position myself at the foot of the Cross and to try to recognize the other people who surround me there. This has revealed to me some interesting surprises. In some of his meditations Father Judge has us position ourselves at the foot of the Cross, to see the Sorrowful Mother at our side and to hear Jesus say to us "I thirst, I thirst for souls." I have tried to see what Jesus would say to our modern Church, one that speaks more of "evangelization" than of "saving souls." I have not heard the words yet, but I do feel the love, concern and drive to try to make others aware of how much we mean to God and what a different place the world could be. How God draws so especially near to us in the person of Jesus! The Cross does inspire me to want to share this vision and hope!

The Cross also shows us simplicity. Father reminds us: "…our Jesus is the naked , poor Jesus of the Cross, who was buried in the sepulchre of a stranger."  Our lives are so encumbered and complicated by material goods. The Jesus on the Cross is down to the bare essentials. Our contemplation of him should move us to unclutter our lives and quicken them for service. If in my examen, I find myself saying, "I can't, because I have to do this, and then I have this, and later it is this….," it's time to unclutter some more.

To contemplate Jesus on the Cross is to see how much God loves us and freely gives of himself to us. We can only be thankful. There is only WORSHIP, there is only GRATITUDE, there is only THANKSGIVING. St. Paul had the right answer: "what do you have that you have not received? (1Cor 4,7)" Everything is a gift from God and our only possible response is thanksgiving and Eucharist.

The Cross moves me to SERVICE. I wish I could say that it ended here, but I am haunted by the words of Martin Luther King: "the Cross, it's not what you carry, it's what you die on."  Father chose a rugged pinewood Cross as our symbol. There is no corpus. Was that by chance, or by design?  Is he asking something special of his missionaries that we do not yet fully fathom?

The Cross is the symbol of love that inspires and strengthens us in service, especially to the naked and abandoned Christ in our sisters and brothers!

 

Reflection Questions:

1) What new actions did the Cross inspire me to do in 2002?

2) Has the Cross inspired me to any new sacrifices, or to thank God for adversities and difficulties?

3) What particular customs, devotions, practices do I follow to venerate the Cross?