Jesus is not content to bear with admirable patience the cross on which we see Him expire. He had passionately desired it. In the Gospel of Saint Luke, chapter twelfth, we read these significant words: "I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled? And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized; and how I am tormented with the desire of seeing it accomplished!"
Jesus crucified proposes to our hearts a strange love - a love that would be barbarous if it had not passed through a divine heart, or if this heart had not revealed to us its sublime benefits. It is nothing less than the love of the cross.
To love the cross! That is too much! cries out human nature. All that I can do is to accept it with resignation, to bear it with patience; but to love it! That is difficult indeed.
Nature, thou art deceived. Thou hast an innate horror of the cross; thou dost enter a protest with all thy power against the trials whose austere visit thou receivest every day, and without the grace of God it would be impossible for thee to accept even one of them. Be silent; we do not consult thee when there is question of our Christian perfection. In thee we are only weak and powerless; it is only by God's grace we can be Christians, strong even to heroism.
Christ has made us His children; Christ calls us to His standard and conducts us to the conquest of His eternal kingdom.
How admirable yet how terrible was the espousal of Christ with the hard and blood-stained wood of the cross! The eternal God saw it, was moved by it, and blessed it. Never before was a marriage so effectually blessed. From it has sprung " a chosen people, a holy nation." This race, this people, is made up of ourselves. Children of Jesus crucified, we ought to be living images of our Father, as He is the living image of His eternal Father. Apart from the incommunicable personality, Jesus Christ, the divine Word, is all that His Father is: "I and the Father are one." Apart from the incommunicable divinity of Christ, who has begotten us, we ought to be all that He is: one thing with Him. He suffers, we ought also to suffer; He was crucified, we ought to be crucified also; He loved the cross, with Him we should also love it.
Soldiers of Jesus Christ, we must follow our Leader on the same line of march He marked out, pass through all that He passed through, in order to enter with Him into His kingdom. Now, He chose a hard and shocking road; He kept it not only by voluntary and cheerful acceptance, by patient support of it, but also by an impassioned love of the cross.
O my Jesus! notwithstanding the repugnances of nature, Thou hast found in the ranks of regenerated humanity lovers of the cross. How noble they are! How earnestly they desire to resemble their divine Model! With what gladness they walk in His footsteps! Their good- will is sustained by so many graces that they would not live without painful trials. They demand them of God: "More! more! O Jesus, my Beloved! Either to suffer or to die. Still better: never to die, but always to suffer for Thee, if it be Thy good pleasure." If God proposes a recompense, they answer: "Lord, I wish for nothing but to suffer and be contemned for Thee."
Theirs is the triumph. Their immolated life is a never-ending canticle by which they celebrate the cross or die upon it every instant. Hear the devout author of the "Following of Christ": " In the cross is salvation; in the cross is life; in the cross is protection against thy enemies; in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the cross is strength of mind; in the cross is joy of spirit; in the cross is the sum-total of all virtues; in the cross is the perfection of sanctity " (Book 12) Hail, O cross! Hail, glory of the world! O sacred tree! press us within thy blood-stained arms and make us die of grief for love of Him who bore Thee!
My nature shudders at these strange words. I feel that without a very great grace I cannot take my place among the triumphant! O Jesus, my Master and my Model, give me this grace! O Mother of sorrows, Mother most chaste, most perfect lover of the cross, obtain for me this grace!
- text taken from Fruits of the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.