Lent - Week 05b
Love for the Cross
(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)Jesus called his disciples, and leaving everything behind, they followed him. They accompanied the Master on the roads of Palestine, to villages and towns. They shared joys and fatigue and hunger. At times they risked their reputations and indeed their very lives for Jesus. At first they accompanied him externally, but little by little an interior disposition to follow him took root: their souls were transformed. This deeper disposition requires more than mere detachment, and even more than abandoning house and home, family and material possessions. In the Gospel our Lord says, "He who wishes to come after me, let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me."
Denying oneself means refusing to be the center of one's own attention. The true disciple must be centered on Christ, to whom must be directed all thoughts and cares, so that our entire day truly becomes an offering to God.
To carry the cross means that one is willing to die. Whoever picks up the cross and carries it squarely accepts his destiny and knows that his life will end on that cross. Carrying the cross means that a firm resolution has been made; it indicates that we are willing to follow him - if necessary unto death - that we wish to imitate him in everything without placing obstacles between us. To follow Christ we should identify our will with his; He took up his cross without hesitation. He carried it to Calvary, where He offered himself to God the Father in an offering of infinite merit and love.
We should consider frequently that his Passion and Death on the Cross are the greatest expression of his love for the Father and for us. Certainly, the smallest act of love He performed, his most insignificant work - even as a child - had infinite merit, sufficient to obtain for all men over all of time the grace of salvation; to obtain for them eternal life and all the grace they would need to obtain it. In spite of this He was still willing to suffer the horrors of his Passion and Death on the Cross to show us how much He loves the Father, and how much He loves each of us. Some times He expressed to his disciples the urgency that filled his soul: ?I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished." Holy Spirit has written through Saint John: "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son." Jesus freely gave up his life for us because He loved us, for "greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends."
Jesus Christ cannot restrain his desire to give his life for our love. If we want to follow him, not just externally but deeply, identifying ourselves with him, how can we reject the Cross, the sacrifice so intimately related with love and self-giving? Being close to Christ will lead us to complete self-surrender, to true love, to the greatest joy. Forgetting ourselves, identifying ourselves with his holy will in all things, cleans, purifies, makes transparent and divinizes our soul. To have the Cross is to have joy: it is to have you Lord!