“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16).
During Holy Week, you and I hear two different versions of the Passion of Christ. On Palm Sunday, the Passion is read from one of the Synoptic Gospels—either Matthew, Mark or Luke. In these versions, Christ’s death on the cross is always seen as something shameful and all of the apostles run away. It is this version that is the source of the tradition in the Latin Church of covering the Cross on Good Friday. On Good Friday, we always read the Passion from the Gospel of John and the emphasis in this Gospel is very different from the Synoptic Gospels. In John’s Gospel, the Cross is presented as the throne on which Jesus saved the world. Throughout the Passion narrative in John, Jesus is in charge and is freely giving himself to save humanity. The big difference from these Gospels is that John stayed at the Cross to see Jesus save humanity through His gift of self. It was because John saw Christ save humanity on the Cross that he writes: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of God be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” In the Eastern Churches, because they follow more closely the tradition expressed in the Gospel of John, on Good Friday they do not cover the cross, but adore it with flowers.
Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Triumph of the Cross. This feast falls every year on September 14th, but is not always celebrated on a Sunday. This year, it falls on a Sunday and is celebrated as a feast of the Lord. The origin of this feast comes from the fourth century, when Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, discovered the true cross of Christ and proceeded to build the Church which now stands at the place of the crucifixion and resurrection. The fact that this Church, where the cross was found, is also built at the place of the resurrection is an important point to make in our discussion about the cross. In Christian theology, the cross and resurrection always go together. Suffering, in and of itself, is not a good thing to be desired. Only suffering that leads to the resurrection is suffering that has meaning. From the earliest days of Christianity, Christians have struggled with the relationship between suffering and the resurrection.
In the Gospel last Sunday, we heard Jesus say: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14: 27). This is a line from scripture that I think can make any kind of suffering sound like a virtue. It has been misused by some as a way of justifying, or remaining complacent, in the face of useless and sometimes abusive suffering. It is not God’s will that we suffer needlessly. In fact, it is probably not even God’s will that we suffer at all.
Let me deal first with the question of whether God intended us to suffer when He created us. One of the explanations that is given for suffering is original sin and the reality that you and I do not dwell in communion with God. In the Book of Genesis, when God created Adam and Eve, they lived in communion with God. He walked in their midst and dwelt among them. It is only after they sinned that they were no longer in His presence and were faced with the anxiety that sin and death had introduced into their lives. For many theologians, there is a question whether they would have died if they had not sinned. My own answer to that comes in considering the life of Mary. As Mary was conceived without original sin, and yet passed from this life to Heaven, I believe that we too would have passed, like her, to Heaven. As scripture tells us, we are citizens of Heaven and it is there that we are called to find our true home. Our time here, is God’s gift to us so that we might have a choice as to whether we spend eternity with Him or not. It would not be loving for Him not to offer us this choice.
So, in keeping with my explanation, the difficulties of suffering arise for us due to original sin, as we no longer live in communion with God. As Mary lived in communion with God, she passed from this life to Heaven with ease and without disease. For us, this transition is more difficult without God’s grace.
One question, sometimes related to this topic, is would Adam and Eve have felt pain before they sinned? I think the answer is “yes.” Pain is actually a way of protecting ourselves. When I put my hand in fire, pain tells me to get it out before serious damage is done. Without the sensation of pain, no species would survive. The trouble for us is the anxiety and disease that accompany our pain when it is not lived in communion with God and trust in His will. When someone today puts their hand in the oven and it is burned, they may begin to worry about their job, will they be able to do it, if not, how can they pay the mortgage, and whether they might ultimately be homeless. The dis-ease that we feel at not knowing our futures can cause us to act without God and attempt to be the masters of our own destiny. Certainly, if we lived like Mary, in complete communion with God, the passings and transitions of our lives would bring us sadness, but we would not be thrown into despair and give up as many do in the face of hardships. When we live in communion with God and His will, life still has its passings and transitions, but they are faced with a confidence and knowledge that the cross leads to the resurrection. God did not intend for our crossing from this life to the next to be filled with such suffering and anxiety. It was the choice of the human person to take matters into our own hands through sin that introduced that kind of suffering into our lives.
The other subject that I think is important when we speak about the cross, is that not every cross is intended for redemption. I think there are many situations in which the language of the cross can be abused and cause useless suffering. It is important to emphasize that Jesus states that the disciple must take up “his (or her) own cross in order to be His disciple.” Far too often, we take up the wrong cross or have one placed upon us. Many people engage in sinful activity over and over again and say that it is their cross. It might be their cross, but it is not God’s cross for them. God’s cross leads to redemption. If I keep sinning or submitting to abuse, that is not God’s will. The cross of the Lord always leads to the resurrection and our place in Heaven. If I am suffering because I am on my way to Heaven and doing God’s will, that is the suffering of discipleship. If I am suffering because of sin or a lack of faith, that is not God’s will.
Let us think of a few examples. If I drink every day and get drunk and think the suffering that I create by my drinking is God’s will and the cross that God has given me, I am misdirected and wrong. If, on the other hand, I am suffering because I am attempting to overcome my addiction and make amends for the wrong I have done, that is probably God’s will for me. Or, if something has been done wrong to me, I have been the victim of a crime, and I just give up on life and feel there is no point in living, that is not God’s will for me or the cross He intended for me. On the other hand, if I live on in the hope of some kind of recovery and healing, then I am taking up my cross. Finally, if a loved one dies and I fall into despair and think there is no purpose in life any more, that is not God’s will for me and not the cross He wishes me to embrace. If, on the other hand, I mourn the death of my loved one, convinced of seeing that person again in Heaven, while continuing my own life in faith, that is probably the cross that will lead to my redemption. For the Christian, the cross of Christ always leads to redemption and eternal life.
For the Christian, the cross must lead to life- whether that be a more life-giving existence here or in Heaven.
For many people the sight of the crucifix, with the suffering Christ on it, is a gruesome and ugly symbol. They ask why it needs to depict the suffering of Christ. The answer again is not that suffering is good or to be glorified. However, as sin has introduced suffering into our world, Christ has come to be with us no matter what we face. As today’s second reading proclaims: “Jesus Christ, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2: 6-8). Jesus wished to be in communion with our suffering, and in order to do so, took on the worse form of suffering, so that we would know we have a God who understands all that we will suffer. Imagine lying in a hospital bed as cancer ravages your body. You look up and over the bed is Christ on the cross, suffering as you suffer, and you recall that God raised Him up, as He promises to raise you up. All of us who suffer, can look to Christ, suffering on the cross, and know He will raise us up. For me this word “communion” is so important. Although we broke off communion with God through sin, He has sent Christ to be in communion with us and our suffering, so that we might find our way back to Heaven.
This is what I think the Christian life is about—trying to live our lives in communion with God. At the Sunday Mass, we remember His life, death and resurrection, so that we might live in communion with Him and share in the resurrection by taking up our own crosses.
So, let me conclude by posing a few questions:
- Are the crosses that you have taken up in your life actually ones that will lead to redemption or are they false crosses that are the result of your own sin or the sin of others?
- How can you transform the crosses in your life that are not redemptive in order to make them so?
- Is there are a cross that is intended for your redemption that you refuse to take up?
This life that the Lord has given us is a wonderful gift intended to lead us to choose to be with Him for all eternity in Heaven. In the midst of the changes and transitions it brings, there is suffering and pain. The Lord desires to strengthen us through those trials by living in communion with us. He embraced the cross for our redemption, that we might embrace the crosses that lead to our redemption. As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Triumph of the Cross this Sunday, may we accept His invitation to live in communion with Him, that we might embrace our crosses and rise with Him.
Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor, St. Peter’s Church—Toronto, Ontario
This reflection based on the readings for the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross: Numbers 21: 4b-9; Psalm 78; Philippians 2:6-11; and John 3:13-17.
