3.2 The cross, heart of the world

It pleased the Father to make all fullness dwell in Christ, bringing together and reconciling all things in him and in the sign of his cross. (Cf. Col 1:20; Eph 1:10)  The cross is symbol and icon of virginal love, because the cross is the maximum fullness of love, human and divine, for God and for every man, which embraces all and excludes no one.  It is a synthesis of the highest level of love received and given, of love crucified and already risen or illumined by the glimmers of the  dawn of the resurrection.  The cross is the heart of the world; that is how its has been in the history of salvation; and  the young person who chooses virginal love must be disposed to have this heart.

Nothing, in fact, can give those two certainties strategic for the choice of virginity as can the cross; so, the cross attracts a young person, too…on a rational level, because it can give meaning to everything, even to the most irrational suffering “nothing escapes its warmth”, Ps 18:7), and on the affective level,  because nothing, like the cross, gives him the absolute certainty of being loved, from all eternity and forever, and nothing, again like the cross, provokes him at the same time, to give love, take the initiative, make the first step, and love those who are not lovable… “The true face of God, said Moltman wisely, is the crucified one.”  If then, “Christ is presented to the young person with his true face, they find him a convincing response and are able to accept his message, even though as demanding and signed by the Cross.” ⁶

The vocational pedagogy that leads to this choice must then be in some way a pedagogy of the cross, as a cross…road.  Virginal love is fundamentally Paschal love, crucified-risen; therefore it must travel that precise itinerary, so that the young person may learn to have the same sentiments as the Son who gives life while he receives it from the Father, and may choose virginity as a way of receiving and offering his/her own life.

On the pedagogic plane it will then it will be important not to fear proposing the icon of the cross, demonstrating that we’ve understood the lesson of the World Youth Day (as a Tor Vergata), where the cross was the great protagonist, not only of the final vigil, but of the World Youth Day 2000 in all  its phases, from the preparation to the concluding ceremony.  It was moving to observe the attraction of this sign elevated above the earth, precisely as Jesus had prophesied: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (Jn 12:32)

Why this attraction?

3.2.1- That mysterious wood…

There is a mysterious bond between mystery of sexuality and Paschal mystery.  It may seem unusual and strange, but pedagogically it is extremely effective.

Because nothing like the cross of Jesus, heart of the world, can “bring together” (recapitulate) all things, give full meaning to everything, precisely everything, also to uncontainable  youthful sexuality and to that need for relationship and fecundity hidden in it,  even when it is disguised as wanting to play with the other, even using him/her; also to that visceral need for love that the young person carries inside like a pregnant woman, even when he/she doesn’t realize he/she expects everything and only for him/herself, like a baby who’s never grown up. Sexuality is mystery.  The cross helps to reveal it, to grasp its nature and richness, to give order to that energy so that it is not lost, and does not kill itself.  The cross, in fact, reveals that…

-         any gesture of love, from the smallest to the greatest, is always preceded by a love received (Jesus would never have been lifted on the cross if he had not been sure of his Father’s love, even though on the cross he will experience the most absolute loneliness);

-         but in every case love cannot choose half-measures: it is by nature radical and total, and the cross is the greatest sign of the greatest love;

-         and therefore, a certain extreme and painful outcome, of passion, of painful gift of self, is a natural part of love: one who loves, in short, must by force of circumstances “die”; this is the inevitable drama in the life of one who takes relationship with another seriously; with one different from him/herself, and wants the good of that person at all costs, whatever be their vocational choice;

-         and this very death makes love fruitful, makes it enter into the Pascal dimension of the resurrection; it is itself Paschal mystery, it is death which is transformed into new life, it is salvation, as the death of Jesus was salvation.  Love crucified and risen thus becomes the maximum realization of the relation and fecundity, the two essential characteristics of sexuality. But it is love which has an intrinsic Paschal structure and which therefore always continues to have the stigmata, as the Paschal Preface says! ⁷

-         Sexuality…in summary---necessarily meets the reality of the cross along its journey; the cross gives an order and corrects, purifies and grants full expression of one’s sexuality; virginity is a particular manifestation of the capacity of relationship and fecundity of sexuality, in some way it is a sexuality that has passed through the cross and resurrection; it is Paschal sexuality free and freed, moderate and rich with life, capable of renunciation and relationship, fully human and fully capable of hosting divine love.

3.2.2- Paschal love and virginal love

All of this might still seem theoretical and needing further pedagogic mediation in order to promote a choice for virginal love.  In reality, it constitutes an indispensable premise for it, like the phase of a route that can lead to the impression of a certain life orientation.

The choice for virginity, as always and today more than ever, cannot be an extemporaneous and spontaneous decision, nor can it be entrusted to an unpredictable and often stormy wave of sentiments and sensations in a frequently confused heart of the young person; much less can one count today on favorable cultural or environmental conditioning, nor can we think anymore that a certain atmosphere of believers is enough to awaken it or the usual example of the “father” or the “sister” wholly dedicated…  But it can be only prepared with patience and infinite care, standing beside as an older brother or sister, who knows the walls and basements of the heart, who, above all, knows how to touch the right registers.

I believe that the thematic and systematic contact with the mystery of the cross and of Paschal love is one of these registers.  Which perhaps we utilize little, frightened by the idea of frightening. In the same way that we perhaps are still frightened, in spite of appearance and a certain vain exhibitionism, by sexuality and by its exuberance or by its potential disruptive force.  And consequently we are not yet able to grasp that fruitful and mysterious link that binds cross and sexuality together, and of which virginity is the equally fruitful and mysterious consequence.  Virginity which belongs to the Pascal dimension of the Christian mystery, because virginity is expression of love, and love either lives in a Paschal mode or does not exist.

If our catechesis and vocation ministry, if our talk about God and about the human being, if our running and wearing ourselves out do not transmit the idea that love lives in a Paschal mode, we have run in vain, and no choice of virginal love will be able to be born from that vain labor.

I would not want to do superficial or unjustified interterpretations, but I wonder if also the N.A. crisis is not linked to this forgetfulness or to lack of courage or to lack of clarity in the presentation both of the vocation and of virginity, or of the very precious and positive link between the cross and sexuality, between Pasch and virginity, with all that this means from the point of view of youth ministry and vocation animation, but also of ongoing formation.

The events of World Youth Day 2000, from this point of view, told us a very consoling thing, in fact. The success of the Rome days of the Jubilee of Youth had a secret, recognized by those few who were attentive. It was not a sudden firecracker or the effect of the charm of the Pope’s personality, but the fruit of the tenacious work of preparation by many tenacious educators, priests, religious men and women, and laity. The pilgrimage of the Jubilee cross in all the Italian dioceses (as is now happening in Canada) was a great example “of the power of community preparation, high profile, done with formation experiences of great impact and of essential Christian value”.

If the cross will continue to be for us “the heart of the world”, the North Star/Polaris, and pilgrim in our life, and we will be able to maintain or rediscover the taste for being educators, without hiding the gift of virginity in our kerchief, there will still be those in the Church who will experience the fascination of the choice of virginal love.

And then, also for this reason we will be able to say that, if on the one hand Christianity seems to crumble from a social point of view, “Christianity is barely beginning” today, at the beginning of the third millennium like that great prophet  Fr. Alexander Men said. And young people well be the “morning watchmen”, faithful and joyous witnesses of the Gospel, jealous and attentive custodians of Jesus’s cross.