c) GOD FOR US: CHRIST CRUCIFIED

"Down with the crucifix?  The Crucified One is the foundation"

A cry has broken out from a number of people and has made the rounds of the world during our century.  It has screamed and is still screaming: Down with the crucifix!  Unfortunately, it has in part succeeded in its diabolical design.  Once, the crucifix was the most beautiful ornament of Christian homes.  Today other images have taken its place.  Once, Christian families found inspiration in the crucifix and from the Crucified One took their name and their example.  Today other ideals inspire them, other standards sway them.  But after the crucifix was banned from our neighborhoods, from our schools, from Parliament, after the only means that could cure our ills was removed, what has happened to society?  I do not for a moment disavow any of the feats our century is justly proud of: the advance of science, the disappearance of distances, and the thousand and one stupendous discoveries with which human beings have been able to wrest from nature its most hidden secrets.  But, despite these many marvelous accomplishments, everybody agrees that, at no other time in history, has society been so horrendously shaken and distressed as in our time (...).

People have declared war on the crucifix: this is the real cause of so many misfortunes.  This is a fact some people just will not admit.  They put the blame on the depravity of people and the wickedness of our times.  Not at all!  Instead they should take off the blindfolds hiding the truth from them; they should look a lot more deeply into things.  The Crucified One is the foundation of all things, St. Paul writes, and he who refuses to build on this foundation can only amass ruins upon ruins (...).

Jesus Crucified is the center of all things, the precious link that unites the handiwork of the Almighty with its Divine Creator.  Jesus Crucified is the end of all the works and designs of Divine Providence, the supreme and ultimate reason of all God's plans for redeemed humanity, which, faraway from him, behaves like a blind man staggering and falling under the rays of a resplendent sun.  Jesus Crucified is the norm of all social progress since he

alone is the true light that enlightens all men and women, hence all society.⁴³

"The world turns but the Cross does not waver"

Christ conquers, Christ rules, Christ triumphs.  Even in our day we have evidence of this. In the midst of the greatest cataclysms of history, in the midst of the broken pieces of scepters and crowns, between the rise and fall of all kinds of heresies, in the fury of the raging seas, in the midst of violent storms stands the Cross, a beacon of inextinguishable light, the tree of our salvation, the glorious trophy of him who purpled that Cross with his divine blood: "The world turns but the Cross does not waver."⁴⁴

"The Cross proclaims love to us"

More than anything else, the Cross proclaims love to us.  Yes, the Cross proclaims love, a love that became a victim of expiation for you and so loved you as to die on a gibbet for you.  But one does not hear the cry of the Cross unless one repeats with the Apostle: the world is crucified to me and I to the world.  The Cross is the best school of love.  Woe to you, then, if you live your days without remembering the mystery of the Cross!  You would show that your heart does not burn with love, that you are failing in the great commandment that requires us to put all our affections in Jesus Christ and to establish in our hearts his kingdom, which is the kingdom of love.

Love Jesus, and you will then come to understand that the Christian people, the believing people, comprises only those who honor and love the Cross or die on it ....⁴⁵

"Christ's whole life was a cross and a martyrdom"

Dearly beloved, he is the great model of Christian life, such an essential model that, in the words of St. Paul, the secret of our predestination lies in our likeness to Christ.  So I ask: what kind of life did Christ live in order to ascend into heaven?  A life of riches perhaps? of glory and pleasure? or rather one of poverty, humiliation and suffering?  His whole life, writes St. John Chrysostom, was a cross and a martyrdom!  Tota vita Christi crux et martyrium!  From the first to the last moment of his life, how much poverty, how many

hardships, how much toil, how many persecutions, how many calumnies, how much suffering, how much pain!  Do we not realize, then, that in penance we find our true good, the short, sure and only road leading to our salvation?⁴⁶

"Jesus Christ tells everyone: do penance"

What does the divine Teacher say, my beloved?  First of all, he says he came to call sinners, that is to say, everybody, to penance.  He says the kingdom of heaven is taken by force and only by the strong.

He says: he who does not take up his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.  Again he says: Do penance.  And he adds: If you will not do penance, you will all likewise perish: Nisi poenitentiam egeritis, omnes simul peribitis (...)."

From his lips I seem almost to hear only one word, one teaching, one command: Penance!  And whom does he say this to?  He says it to everybody ‑- the evangelist St. Luke tells us ‑- thus forestalling perhaps the false interpretations of many modern Christians who would like to restrict the practice of a command as absolute as this one just to those living in monasteries.  Yes, Christ speaks to everybody: to small and big, to young and old, to poor and rich, to kings on their thrones, to religious in their retreats, to priests in the exercise of their ministry, to business men in their affairs, to craftsmen in their workshops, to everybody without distinction of rank, social condition, time, place or age: "He said it unto all," because nobody, unless he first gives up eternal salvation, can dispense himself from penance, which helps him stand firm in the law of God.⁴⁷

"The exercise of evangelical mortification"

Whoever wishes to come after me -- our divine Teacher himself says -- must renounce himself, carry his cross and, with this badge of honor, follow me: "let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me." Let him renounce himself, that is to say, one's intellect, by submitting it to faith; one's will, by always doing God's; one's unruly appetites, by following the holy Gospel alone in all things.  Secondly, Let him carry his cross, that is to say, let him bear

with resignation all the evils of this present life, the tribulations, the troubles, and the labors inherent in one's state of life.  With this badge of honor, let him follow me, that is to say, let him walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ; let him be clothed with his spirit; let him enter into his way of thinking; let him be animated by his sentiments; let him behave according to his principles; let him conform to his will; let him abandon himself to his Providence.  Now, what does all this mean?  It means that to live the Christian life we must practice evangelical mortification.  It is so necessary that, without it, we would be lost, lost forever: "Unless you do penance" -- it is the Incarnate Word speaking -- "you will all likewise perish" (Lk 13:3).⁴⁸

"Two sacrifices indivisibly joined"

We must fill up what, on our part, is lacking in his Passion.  In fact, St. Paul says: "I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" (Col 1:24).

This is the supreme law on which our salvation depends.  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ and our sacrifice are two sacrifices that are equally necessary.  These two sacrifices do not appease divine Justice if they are not indivisibly joined, because our sacrifice without Christ's sacrifice is unworthy of God, while Christ's sacrifice without our sacrifice is useless to us.  This explains, in part, the great mystery of suffering which is part and parcel of the order of things in the universe.  In this way, suffering and death -- inescapable scourges of nature, as presently found -- were turned into means of perfection and glorification, hence of solace and joy, and were thus restored to the order of divine wisdom and goodness.  Hence our duty is to conform ourselves to the Passion of Jesus Christ if we want to share in his glory: "I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ."⁴⁹

"When we mortify ourselves, we do not want to destroy but to build"

Some people have a very superficial and narrow concept of Christian penance.  They think that to mortify oneself means to want to suffer for the sake of suffering.  Not at all, dearly beloved, not at all.  We are aiming at a much higher goal.  When we mortify

ourselves -- I will say with a famous philosopher -- we do not want to destroy but to build.  We want to control the flesh but only to give freedom to the spirit.  We want to put away the old self, but only to put on the new self; to deny our corrupt will, but only to put God's holy will in its place; to die to self-love, but only to live for charity; to topple the kingdom of evil, declaring war on it and on its external and internal accomplices, but only to establish the kingdom of goodness, the kingdom of truth and love in ourselves.  We want to lose a bit of the present, but only to assure ourselves of the future.  In other words, we want to recover our crown: we want to be not just human beings but Christians as well, to reign not just in time but in eternity as well.⁵⁰

"To be filled with joy in every tribulation

If you were always as cheerful as the letter you wrote me, I would indeed be surprised.  I would do anything if I could give your grief-stricken heart some comfort.  But I hope peace and joy will return to you.  Providence is leading your Eminence by ways that are uncommon and almost incredible.  This is a source of joy for your true friends, as well as for you.  Faith and reason teach us what we already feel in the depths of our being, namely, that everything we do is wanted or permitted by God, infinite love, and that sometimes, for the sake of the cross, albeit undeserved, he wants his servants to be humbled ‑- not dismayed.  He wants his servants to joyfully meditate on the ways of God, to love, to give thanks always, to be filled with joy in every tribulation.

Tribulations, even if only interior, spread a wholesome bitterness over our present life and detach us imperceptibly from everything mortal.  They bring us a priceless gift: they help us, in the midst of greatness, to understand the nothingness of greatness.  There isn't a more beautiful grace than this.

However, in his wisdom, Your Eminence, God has truly disposed everything mightily and tenderly.  If for a few hours he makes us drink a cup of bitterness, he later offers us a drink of the most intoxicating joys: it is a mysterious chalice that alternates.  Blessed is he who is able to bring it to his lips with unshakable faith, thus uniting himself intimately with God.  Our main weapon is patience and prayer.⁵¹

"Go forth, apostles of Jesus Christ, and fear not: the Cross will accompany you"

The sign of universal redemption, the sign lifted up among the peoples of the earth is the Cross.  The society of the first redeemed is the Church.  The word that moves from place to place, from nation to nation, announcing salvation, is the Catholic apostolate.  Thank God, ever since this sign of the Cross was raised on the hill of Golgotha, ever since the Church appeared in the world, the word announcing the glory of God, the word enlightening minds, enkindling hearts, and regenerating souls, the word reuniting the human family in one faith, hope, and love by attracting our dispersed brothers and sisters from all corners, this word has never ceased to make itself heard (...).

So, go forth, 0 generous apostles of Jesus Christ, go wherever he calls you.  I know you will run into great labors, serious difficulties, many tribulations, never-ending struggles and sacrifices.  But fear not: the Cross accompanies you.  The Cross accompanies you, the Cross which is the memorial of past victories and pledge of future ones.  The Cross, once an ignominy to the Gentiles and a scandal to the Jews, has now taken possession of the whole earth (...).

Fear not!  The Cross accompanies you!  The Cross is the protection of the meek, the humiliation of the proud, the victory of Christ, the defeat of hell, the death of infidelity, the life of the just, the fullness of all virtues.  The Cross is the hope of Christians, the resurrection of the dead, the consolation of the poor, the wood of eternal life, the power of God.  Fear not!  The Cross accompanies you!  It is the Cross that molds the heroes of religion, that sustains them, animates them, guides them, and enraptures them, that makes them superior to flesh and blood and to earthly joys and sorrows, that infuses into their hearts the noble aspirations of Christ's martyr who lives and dies exclaiming: Long live Jesus! Long live the Cross!  Long live martyrdom!  "May I never boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ."

The Cross is folly to the world.  But for you it becomes wisdom and life.  Just one hour spent meditating on the Cross will do you more good than long years wasted over the most erudite books, which, of themselves, puff up and leave one dry.  Without books, with the Cross alone, one soars in the knowledge of God.  Yes, the Cross will be a balm for every wound, a sedative for every pain, support for every weakness, comfort in every trouble, illumination for every doubt, light

in every darkness.  In adversity, in despair, in disillusionment, clasp to your heart the Cross I have given you; and, with a cry of utter abandon, lift up your eyes to heaven, saying again and again: "Let me be intoxicated by your Cross.  May I never boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ."  At once your heart will rejoice, your soul will open up to all the delights of Christian hope, and everything you do will become precious for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.⁵²