THOUGHTS OF A NUN

Exaltation of the Cross

Mark 8:34, 9:1
April 3, 2005

On a recent visit a parishioner's grandson, Matthew, demonstrated how he could get up on her bed without help. Being four years old, the bed is too  high for him, but he managed to lay his back on the] edge of the bed rolled over, and pulled his hips and legs up onto the bed. He got on his knees and crawled up to her pillow. Then he told her to cover her ears as he was going to pray. With folded hands he gazed up at the crucifix and said, "Please, God, Jesus really does not want to die on the cross. He is willing to if he must but he’d rather not. Can’t you fix something so he does not have to die? Amen. "

Matthew is only four, but these sentiments have been said repeatedly for nearly 2000 years. God is the Great Fixer. I’d like to ponder what Christ’s words might mean about his cross.

Traveling in a plane, a teacher of religious studies tells that a woman beside him, after learning of his profession, said she preferred Buddhism or Sufism to Christianity because they embrace a way of life rather than just believing in doctrine. WELL!! It seems Jesus words "I am the way, the truth and the life" were not remembered or understood in a way applicable to this woman or to those from whom she learned about Christianity.

In today’s gospel Jesus says to take up your cross and follow him. Following Him, being his disciple, requires me to also imitate him, his way, and his life. We see him living fully, loving wastefully and having the courage to be fully human. Do we see ourselves living fully, loving wastefully or having the courage to be all we are created to be? It is within our ability to achieve Christ’s way of life.

The Holy is within each of us.  We do not need to turn away from life to make contact with the holy. We commune with God to the degree that we give our lives, our love and our being away. To be worshipers of God means to be agents of life to others. It is in giving that we receive, in forgiving that we ourselves are forgiven and ultimately through dying that we find the fullness of life.

The picture painted in the gospels of Jesus is that of a remarkably free person. When his disciples forsook him he still loved them. He still loved Peter who denied him and Judas who betrayed him. He gave forgiveness to the soldiers and comforted the women of Jerusalem on the way to Golgotha. He gave assurance to the repentant thief and cared for his mother from His cross. He was free to forgive and free to endure and free to die.

There are thousands of ways for us to give life to others. We cannot do or be all of them at once but if we have not already begun, we can start on the Way. Our Lenten practices can be the initiator of longer lasting changes in our lives.

I recently came across a questionnaire that asked; " What is one defect in myself that prevents me from living fully, that prevents me from giving life to another? Think what that is and what can be done about it. During Lent, am I working on a personal defect that would help me give more life to another? There are prejudices, hatreds, all kinds of blindness and all manner of barriers that prevent giving life. How else to become an agent of life than by seeking to build a world in which barriers to full humanity for every person have been removed, starting with the individuals with whom I live. Building that world is done by one brick at a time, one defect at a time.

Am I a complainer? Am I always wishing for this, that or the other, but never doing anything to bring them about? The child Matthew realizes Jesus did not want to suffer but accepted to do so. Let us be able to respond to life as it is because, while we may not understand why this cross or this evil, we do know that Jesus has shown us the Way by his own life and suffering.  God is with us!