Take Up Thy Cross
As Christians we have the duty to follow Christ. This Holy Week we must again follow him where we do not want to go—the hill of Calvary with all its pain and suffering. We do so actively, by our own voluntary penances. But sooner or later we must also do so passively, accepting the crosses our loving and merciful Saviour places upon our own reluctant shoulders. Any unwillingness to do so must be rejected, and in the following passage from that well-known treatise on the spiritual life, Divine Intimacy, Belgian Carmelite Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen explains why we should not be puzzled or overwhelmed by these unexpected sorrows that come our way. Take these words home with you in your hearts, meditate upon them, and discover how a loving God wills us to suffer.
“The Cross is suffering viewed in the supernatural light of faith as an instrument of salvation and sanctification, and therefore, as an instrument of love. Seen in this light, the Cross is certainly worthy of love: it is the outstanding means of our sanctification. Our union with God cannot be accomplished except through suffering. St. John of the Cross has explained the means by which the soul is to be purified, scraped to the bottom in order to reach this life of divine union. A program of total mortification is required to break all our bonds, for we have within us many obstacles which keep us from being entirely moved by God: and the accomplishment of this work is impossible without suffering. But active suffering, that is, the mortifications and penances inspired by our personal initiative, is not sufficient. We especially need passive suffering. In other words, the Lord himself must make us suffer, not only in our body, but also in our soul, because we are so covered with rust, so full of miseries that our total purification is not possible unless God himself intervenes directly. To plunge us into passive suffering is, therefore, one of his greatest works of mercy, a proof of his exceeding love.
When God acts in a soul in this way, it is a sign that he wants to bring it to very high perfection. It is precisely in these passive purifying sufferings that the concept of the cross is realized pre-eminently. In The Living Flame of Love (2, 27), St. John of the Cross asks why there are so few souls who reach the plenitude of the spiritual life: and he answers: ‘It is not because God wants to reserve this state for a few privileged souls, but because he finds so few souls disposed to accept the hard task of purification. Therefore, he stops purifying them, and they condemn themselves to mediocrity and advance no farther.’ It is impossible to become united to God without these spiritual sufferings, without bearing this ‘burden’ of God. Suffering and interior desolation alone enlarge the powers of the soul and make it capable of embracing God himself.”
In reading these words of the holy Carmelite father, we should remember above all that suffering is part of God’s plan for us. Our willingness to accept it is the yardstick by which our love of our merciful Saviour is measured. How far are we willing to follow Christ? Only halfway up the Via Dolorosa? Or all the way to the nails and spear and manifold disgrace of the Cross? If we love our Lord, we will truly find his yoke easy and his burden light.