"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me" said our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me" said our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The cross is the summary of the Gospel and the standard of the Christian. Through the cross, Jesus Christ repaired the glory of His Father, appeased His anger, and reconciled Him with the world. But the cross which our Lord bore for us, and by which He redeemed us, does not dispense us from bearing our own cross; on the contrary, it is for us an indispensable engagement to walk in the footsteps of our Divine Master. His cross has sanctified our cross; His cross has given the value to ours, and makes it worthy of an eternal reward! Without the cross of Jesus Christ, all our sorrows, all our sufferings, could never have satisfied God for the least sin, and Heaven would always have been closed against us. We know this well enough; but what we do not know, or rather what we cannot make up our minds to practice, is, that to make the cross of Jesus Christ our true Salvation we must deny ourselves, we must die to ourselves, and this not once, or twice, but every day, and continually. If we do not do this we are not true Christians: Jesus Christ will not acknowledge us: He will renounce us. His own words are quite clear on this point. Whether we will love God, or whether we will love ourselves: we have to decide: there must be no hesitation.
Let us see, then, in what consists this necessity of bearing our cross, and if it is really as hard as it seems at first sight to human nature.
The necessity of carrying our cross consists first and principally in avoiding sin and all occasions of sin. This is quite just: every Christian will agree to it: but it is a thing which extends very far in practice. Sin has its attractions; it has its temporal advantages; the occasions of sin are frequent and even daily; the temptations are very great, and most Christians, who find themselves incessantly exposed to these temptations, must do themselves a continual violence, that they may not yield.
This necessity consists, in the second place, in mortifying our passions, in moderating our desires, in keeping our flesh subject to the spirit, in watching over our senses, in guarding carefully all the avenues of our heart: for the source of sin is in ourselves and in our own evil inclinations. We are naturally inclined to evil; we are not ignorant of this, and a sad experience teaches us, that without a continual vigilance our falls are inevitable.
This necessity consists, in the third place, in separating our mind and heart from all terrestrial, carnal, and temporal objects, that we may occupy our thoughts and affections only with celestial, spiritual, and eternal things; and to do this, we must struggle incessantly against the weight of our corrupt nature, which is always- drawing us towards the earth. If we watch over ourselves, we shall constantly surprise in ourselves thoughts and desires which attach us to the earth, like animals, and which bring us back incessantly to the needs and the well-being and the comfort of our bodies, and the means of procuring them. That which is physical occupies us far more than that which is moral, unless we make continual efforts to raise ourselves, as it were, above ourselves.
This necessity of carrying our cross consists, in the fourth place, in receiving patiently, as from the hand of God, all the adversities which happen to us, whether they come from natural causes, or from the malice of men, or through our own fault. These crosses from the hand of God are very frequent; the more He loves us, the more crosses He will send us, because they tend to detach us from earth and to attach us to Him; and they are more especially calculated to sanctify us, because they are not our own choice, and for that reason are more mortifying.
This necessity consists, in the fifth place, in embracing willingly all the trials and sufferings of which the spiritual life is one continual tissue; this is a cross which belongs especially to those interior souls who have made a resolution to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Our Divine Saviour, in accepting them for His spouses, lays upon them His cross, the very same cross which He bore for them: a cross formed of two branches, which are humiliations and sufferings both interior and exterior; a cross which the devil, and men, and God Himself will agree in laying upon them; a most intimate cross, which will penetrate to the very depths of the soul; a cross beside which all the preceding crosses are absolutely nothing; a cross, in fact, which ends in the total extinction of self-love and the voluntary sacrifice of our dearest interests.
This last cross is the portion of only a small number of favoured souls; it is not a cross of necessity, but a cross of love; and for that reason it is much heavier, because the motive of love is immeasurably stronger than that of duty. To this cross we may associate all those which the soul voluntarily embraces, as austerities and penances, the vows of religion, and the religious state itself.
These are some of the crosses which enter more or less into the life of every Christian, and from which the wicked are not exempt any more than the good; for they are not less exposed than the good to all the crosses of Providence, without speaking of those particular punishments which belong to them especially, and which are the consequence of their passions and crimes.
Let us now examine if this necessity of bearing our cross is as hard as it appears to human nature. And upon this subject, I shall first lay down as a general rule, that there is not, and never can be, upon this earth any real happiness but by the way of the cross. I say that it costs us far more to be lost than to be saved; that the wicked have in one sense, even in this world, far more to suffer than the good, because they suffer without consolation and without hope; that they are in a continual trouble and agitation, never daring to look within, or to reflect; never at peace, always condemned by the secret reproach of their conscience. If there were only this single reason for carrying one's cross as a Christian, viz., that by so doing we escape the remorse which tears the libertine and the unbeliever, we should need no more to defend the doctrine of the Gospel and exculpate it from unnecessary harshness. But let us consider again all these different kinds of crosses, and let us see the consolations which grace attaches to them.
The first cross, then, consists in avoiding sin and all the occasions of sin. This is painful to nature, and often costs us many sacrifices. But does it cost nothing to our reason and our conscience to offend God? Do we not pay dearly for a moment of unholy pleasure, followed by inevitable regrets, as long as we have a vestige of religious feeling remaining? And, on the contrary, what peace is so sweet as the peace of a good conscience? Is it not preferable to a moment of madness? What a joy to overcome ourselves, and to resist a temptation instead of yielding to it! With what confidence and gladness we then draw near to God, and unite ourselves with Him by prayer and the holy sacraments; whilst the guilty man dares not appear before Him, and all the duties of piety are for him a constraint and a punishment!
The second cross consists in the mortification of the passions. But is it not more painful to become the slaves of our passions than to overcome them? Are not all the passions in themselves, tyrants and executioners? Do they not excite in the soul an insatiable hunger? We may appease this hunger for a time; but does it not come back again with renewed vehemence? The ambitious man, the avaricious man, the voluptuous man, even if nothing opposes their desires, which scarcely ever happens, are they happy? Can they be happy? Are not the consequences of many passions frightful, even according to the judgment of the world? Compare in any manner you like, either by the light of reason or of religion, the state of a man who is a complete slave to his passions with that of a man who wages war with them, and ends by becoming their master, and you must confess that the Gospel, in ordering this war, has in view our happiness even in this world.
The third cross is the violent separation of the soul from herself; that is to say, the separation of the higher and spiritual part of the soul from that which is low and animal. This separation is very painful, because the body is incessantly trying to draw the soul down to its own level. But is there anything more humiliating than this miserable body? Is it ever content? As fast as we grant it one thing, does it not demand another? And this continual care of the body, this constant attention to its wants, this anxiety to avoid everything that may hurt it, is it not a real torment? On the other hand, is there any exercise of authority more worthy of a man, and more agreeable to him, than that of mastering his body, of forcing it to be content with what is necessary, of hardening it to endure labour and suffering; of taking no notice of the importunities of the body, but instead, to be able to give all his attention to those higher things which the duties of religion, of his position, and of society impose upon him?
The crosses from the hand of Providence, which are the fourth kind, are inevitable. The wicked are not less exposed to these than the good. But by their resignation, their patience, and submission to the Will of God good Christians sweeten all that is bitter in these inevitable crosses; and their religion furnishes them with motives for bearing them in peace, and even joyfully. It is not so with those who are in rebellion against God, who give way to sadness, depression, and despair, and who make their crosses infinitely heavier by the bad disposition with which they receive them.
Finally, those spiritual crosses which come only from God, to prove and try those who love Him, and which, as I have said before, are crosses of pure love, these are the delight of the favoured souls who bear them. They accept these crosses of their own free-will and choice; far from asking to be delivered, they beg of God incessantly to add to them, crying out with a great Saint: "Yet more, Lord; yet more:" they wish to die fastened to the cross, like their Lord and Saviour. These crosses, which are the most terrible of all, are also those which are borne with the most courage, with the most love, with the deepest interior peace, with the greatest strength and support from above; and they lead in another life, and sometimes even in this, to an ineffable and inexpressible happiness. In this matter, which is above our comprehension, we must believe the Saints of God, on their own experience. Now, the Saints have no two languages on this subject: they are unanimous; and we cannot suspect that they have all conspired to deceive us.
It is, then, true, unmistakably true, that even the present and temporal happiness of the Christian consists solely in the cross; and that, on the contrary, those who fly from the cross, and seek only what will content nature, find neither happiness nor peace, but only disappointment in this life, and eternal misery in the next.
- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou