"If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross." These are the words of our Blessed Saviour, recorded by Saint Matthew. (16:24)"If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross." These are the words of our Blessed Saviour, recorded by Saint Matthew. (16:24)
To bear our cross with patience after the example of the meek Lamb, who suffered Himself to be led to punishment without a word of complaint, is our duty as Christians. And we have no need of seeking occasions to exercise our patience. The cross is sure to come to us from all sides. "Turn thyself above thee or below thee, outside of thee or within thee, and everywhere thou shalt find the cross." (Following of Christ, 2:12)
"Above us" it is the hand of God that hangs over us and presses us, whether it is to satisfy His justice, or to prove our love, or to fortify us against the enchantment of the false pleasures of the world, or to give our lives the seal and sign of Christian vocation and perfection.
"Below us" it is the demon, whose undying hatred pursues us without respite, and who is industrious to torment us. It is the demon that stimulates our senses, disturbs our imagination, excites our passions, disquiets our consciences, and endeavors to drive us to scrupulosity, discouragement, and despair.
"Outside of us" it is the wicked who conspire against our repose and labor for nothing so much as to injure us; or it is the foolish, who, without intending it, offend our sense of propriety; it may be persons of ill-formed characters to whose asperities we have to submit; uncongenial natures which badly accord with ours; our dearest friends whom we see suffering; other friends who are incredulous, relatives without religion, an unfaithful spouse, wicked children, business troubles, the reverse of our fortunes, unsuccessful labors, the separation or death which makes vacant the fireside and crushes our hearts.
Within us it is the cross of sickness, inability to do what we honestly desire to do, the passions that worry us, imperfections which restrain us, defects which discourage us, sins which alarm us; and, if we are somewhat advanced in perfection, it is the grief of our exile, which increases in proportion to our love. What a cross, great God! what a cross! And do we bear it?
We are not, indeed, of the number of the rebellious who defile themselves by blasphemy, and make of the cross a cause of complaint against Providence, denying not only God's perfection but His existence, that they may be able to despise and attack at their pleasure the blind fatality to which they attribute all their evils, No, we belong not to them. But, alas! we are, for the most part, impatient. We murmur and complain; we show by our heart-breaking sighs that we wonder at ourselves for being so miserable. We even aggravate our sufferings by disagreeable comparisons, taking into account only those who appear more prosperous and happy, without thinking of those who have more trials than ourselves. If we only dared to say it, which our deep faith forbids, we would almost say that God is not just, or that He would show more justice in less severity; if we dared say it, our idea would be that God is not good, or that He would be better if He relieved us of misfortunes and gave us instead a greater share of happiness. In all this we forget our sins, which deserve to be chastised; our vocation as Christians, which obliges us to the imitation of a crucified God; our perfection, which cannot be attained without sufferings, yet we are in haste to be free.
But Jesus has said: "You must take your cross." It is not a request or a counsel, but a command - so rigorous and irreformable that our salvation is bound up with its fulfillment. "Who taketh not up his cross and followeth Me is not worthy of Me." (Matthew 10:38)
Christians, understand it well and be convinced that the cross is unavoidable, and consequently ought to be borne in patience. If we must needs drag along with us the instrument of our punishment, let us at least do so in silence. And if we speak, let it be to confess with the good thief on the cross that we deserve it all, or lovingly to beg our dear Saviour and Master to pity our weakness and to temper the severity of His strokes by sending us some one of those consolations of which He knows the secret.
The words of the great apostle are encouraging:
"Tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope." (Romans 5:4) Purified from our sins by sorrow and trial, we will await the more peacefully the eternal days in which no suffering will be lost: "For our present tribulation, which is momentary and light, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." (2 Corinthians 4:17). "Patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, deficient in nothing." (James 1:4)
- text taken from Fruits of the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.