The Transformative Power of the Cross
Summary of Headings
- The Feast Days of the Cross
- The Cross in Our Homes
- Transforming Family Life
- The Sacrificial Love of God
- The Cross and the Mass
- Overcoming Distractions
- The Power of Contemplation
- Turning to Our Lady of Sorrows
- Embracing the Cross
The Feast Days of the Cross
Tomorrow and Tuesday we have two of the more beautiful feast days in the liturgical year. We have the exaltation of the Holy Cross tomorrow. And then we have Our Lady of Sorrows on Tuesday. They're also both very important feast days, especially for our situation we find ourselves in today. Because, unfortunately, being human beings, we tend to overlook so much of what the importance of the cross is. We look upon the cross and we see a very poignant image of a man nailed to a piece of wood. We understand the religious significance of it. This is our Lord Jesus Christ who has sacrificed himself.
He has sacrificed himself for us.
The Cross in Our Homes
All of us have this image in our home. Or at least we should. And not just in our home, but it should be in a prominent part of our home. We all have the understanding and the knowledge of the historic fact of our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for us. We all have more or less an idea of the import of it. And yet, for some reason, we are not saints. Because the one thing necessitates the other. If we truly understand and appreciate the mystery of the cross, we will sacrifice ourselves in the service of Christ wholly and entirely. We will be saints. Just by a comprehension to some degree of the extent of the love of God.
We will be so utterly holy. We will be so utterly holy. We will be transformed and transfixed by the idea of how much God loved us. How much he loves us. That there is not anything that we would not give to him. The reason that we are not saints is not because anything lacks in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's because we are not paying enough attention. Our faith is not deep enough or pure enough or clear enough. Therefore our love is weak. Our response is often times weakened or even selfish. Yes, we may have the cross in our home. But I ask you, what takes center stage in our home?
Is it the dining room table?
Transforming Family Life
Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. Is it the television? Or is it the cross? Generally speaking, those are the big three. In each home. Which of those three is the center, the hearth of the home? We all know which one it should be. It should be the cross. But it's not enough that it's in a position or a place of pride and honor in our home. The cross is also supposed to be something that influences the very life of the family. When we are at home and we are under the watchful eye of the crucifix. Do we behave any differently? Probably not. Because it's just part of the furniture.
Yes, it may have a pride of place. But it doesn't transform the home into a place of sacrificial love. Because one of the things that binds a family together is the comprehension, the understanding that a family cannot exist without the love of God. Without the love inspired by God for each other. Without, in a word, charity. And the one place we will always find charity is on the cross. The one place where we know charity exists. And the one place that is the inspiration for all charity on earth is the cross. Which is why the crucifix must have a prominent place in the home.
Not just so that we can have it for when Father comes by. Not just so that we can have it as a beautiful reminder of the fact that we are Catholic. But as a way to transform our family into a place of love. And to be a place of worship for the saints. This is the reason why the altar is supposed to have the crucifix above it. This is in the rubrics of the Old Mass. It has to be there. Even if it's just sitting right above the tabernacle. Or on a little ledge. Or something large and beautiful like what we have right here. That crucifix has to be there because when the priest looks up, he must look upon the sacrifice that he is performing in the Holy Mass.
The Sacrificial Love of God
And he must be looking at that moment. Because again, being human, our mind wanders. Being human, we forget what the purpose of a family is. And what the heart of a family is. Being human, we start to disregard accidentally, or by distraction or whatever else, the essence of what our mission here on earth is. Which is the sacrificial love of God. Why did God create us? To know Him, love Him, and serve Him so that we may be happy with Him in heaven. We don't jump over the first three to get to the last one. We have to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. So if we don't love Him enough, if our family and our home and our time in the chapel is not influenced enough by the love of God, which is evident on the cross, it is because we do not know God well enough.
We don't have a sufficiently strong faith. We don't appreciate the fact that we are here in the presence of God Himself. That this is His home. That He is truly, physically, really present. We don't look upon the cross and think about the marvelous miracle of His love. That He actually became man so that He could sacrifice Himself on the cross, so that we can be saints, so that we can be eternally happy with Him in heaven. He revealed Himself to us in the most extraordinary fashion. Not in the burning bush. Not in a cloud. Not in the strumming of the harp of David.
Not through writings and scriptures, but through His physical, real presence and His words. That is how He revealed Himself to us. He reveals to us the path to salvation, not anymore just through commandments, but through example and through guidance. Through His own life, through His own death. And now, we have no excuses. We can't claim it's too hard because He makes it all easy for us. We can't claim that we don't know because He revealed Himself to us. We can't claim that the world and the flesh and the devil are just too much for us. Because He's beaten them.
He's overcome them. And He did so by His sacrifice on the cross. One of the dangers, and this is one of the things that is most attacked in modernism, is the concept of the historicity of what occurred in the crucifixion. The error of modernism divides the Christ of history from the Christ of faith. They're one and the same. They're exactly the same. Our Lord Jesus Christ was a historic person. He truly existed. And He is the Son of God. And He truly sacrificed Himself on the cross for us. We know this. Beyond any doubt whatsoever. When we look upon the cross, when we look upon the crucifix, it has to go beyond just simply a recognition of a pious fact or a pious realization.
It has to transform us. It has to change us. It has to make us want to love God more. And that means we have to want to know God better. We have to desire to know Him intimately, as intimately as He knows us. And we have to want to choose Him above all other things. To sacrifice ourselves for Him. To love Him as completely as He did for us. A true victim of Holocaust. Burned up completely and entirely. Lost in His sacrifice. That is what our goal must be. And that is what we must be reminded of every time we look upon the crucifix. Every time we see the sanitized version of what our Lord actually did.
The sacrifice that He actually sacrificed for us. We have become so insensitive to the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ has done this by simple, everyday, commonplace, just simply not caring enough. Or by hearing it so often that it doesn't leave a mark on us. By getting used to it, we make it commonplace. But there is nothing common in God. And there is nothing common in the fact that God loves us. And there is nothing common in the fact that God loves us so much that He did that for us. One of the other dangers that we have many times is the fact that we tend to forget about the crucifixion or place the crucifixion as something that was at a specific time and a specific place.
It happened in Jerusalem 2 ,000 years ago. But no, our Lord Jesus Christ even protects us from that particular human defect where we just tend to pigeonhole things, historically speaking.
The Cross and the Mass
Because He renews that sacrifice again and again for us in the sacrifice of the Mass. It is the same sacrifice, one and the same, exactly the same, just in an unbloody fashion. But it is the exact same sacrifice, same priest, same victim, same offering. But how often when we go to Mass, and the Church obliges us to go to Mass, precisely to renew this spirit of love, of sacrificial love, within our hearts every Sunday so that we can learn to give ourselves to Him each and every Sunday. How often do we take that opportunity to come to Mass to see what our Lord is giving to us and not take advantage of it?
How often do we come and are simply just here because we were told to come? Or because the Church said so? Or Mom and Dad said so? Or because it's just what we do? How often do we come and are distracted by everything around us? And not by the one essential thing, which is the action of our Lord Jesus Christ on the altar, on the cross. Contemplate this. How many times does the priest turn around and say, Domino subiscum, the Lord be with you. What does he do right before he does that? Each time he kisses the altar and he extends his hands. He is Christ on the cross, which is why he extends his hands.
The Carmelites extend their hands much wider. The Dominicans raise their hands like this to demonstrate this fact. The priest is Christ nailed to the cross when he says those words. He kisses the altar, which is the cross upon which the body of the victim is laid. And he gives that blessing from the cross to you. Domino subiscum, from the cross to each of your souls. That is what is going on in the Mass. That is what is being said in the Mass. That is what you are receiving in the Mass. How often do we come? How often do we hear those words? Do we see that action?
And it doesn't even register in our brains. It doesn't even click. Someone recently told me there is no replacement for good old Catholic guilt. And the sermon is kind of based on that. But it is also supposed to try to encourage us to look beyond what we see each and every day. What we have hanging in our homes. What we have, hopefully, in our hearts. Many times hanging around our neck. What we see whenever we come into church. To see beyond just the facsimile. And to see the love of God. How much He loves us. That He gave His only begotten Son to that. To that end.
To that extent. He sacrificed Himself so completely and so purely. That He removed all obstacles for our salvation. Now the only obstacles are the ones that we, the world, the flesh, and the devil put in our way. But we do that by our own means. Because if we truly know and love God sufficiently, the world, the flesh, and the devil are not obstacles. But in order to get to that point, we have to have a true understanding and knowledge of the love of God. And we have to respond love for love, as St. John says. Look at the prayer of St. Paul in today's epistle.
How he is praising their sacrifices. And he is praising, and he is also encouraging, by saying that he prays that they may be able to know the fullness of the charity of Christ. And if we have any doubts about that, you are going to witness the sacrifice of Christ once again, right here, right now. You are going to be able to receive Holy Communion, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, made into our food so that we may be able to be sustained by Him. Today. In just a little while. And then, we will have a little piece of the cross that He died on for us, placed here on the altar, that you will be able to witness and to see and to know the love of God in a more intimate, more perfect way.
And then on Tuesday, we get to see the suffering that Our Lady Herself, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, voluntarily offered up in union with that sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ for us. We get to contemplate the immense love of Our Lady of Sorrows. There can be no doubt of the love of God when we actually stop and contemplate it. There can be no doubt of our ability to be able to overcome anything that this world has to throw at us. That there is no enemy sufficiently great enough to overcome this sacrifice and this love. That there is nothing in this world that can actually attract us more than that love and that joy that comes along with the sacrificial of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we understand, when we comprehend even just a little bit of the love of God, we will die of joy. St. John Vianney said that if a priest truly understood what he said, when he said the words of consecration, he would die in that instant. Imelda, when she received her first communion, because of her immense love of the Eucharist, died of joy at that moment. St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, were given brief glimpses into their place in heaven because of their immense love of God. Now why did they die? Well, while we should not expect those kinds of particular graces, that is the love we must strive toward.
That is the desire of our heart that we must long for with all of our being. And yes, we are not those great saints. But we can absolutely learn to love God. We can long to love God. We can desire to love God. St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, to want to love God is to begin to love Him. One of the reasons why we don't ever get to that point is because we get distracted, or we get confused, or the cross becomes commonplace, or we don't actually stop to look at the cross and understand what it is that we have in that example of sacrificial love. That needs to stop.
All of those things need to stop.
Overcoming Distractions
The world longs to distract us, which is why it's so noisy and so active. And so angry all the time. Between the emotions and the speed of everything, and the multitude of devices that keep us engaged in other things that are not our Lord Jesus Christ. And the constant barrage of scandals and problems and controversies and all the like. All of that is simply to distract us from the one simple fact that God loved us so much that He sacrifices Himself for us. And that we are invited to sacrifice ourselves in union with Him to be perfectly united to Him. That's all it is.
So let's end the distractions. Let's stop making the crucifixion and the sacrifice of our Lord commonplace, something we don't even think about or contemplate. Let's make it the center of our very being, the essence of our very lives. Let's make it our everything, because it is, whether we recognize it or not. Nothing is the same since the coming of Christ and His sacrifice and death. Everything has changed. The old law is perfected. The new law is the sum total of all perfection and all life.
The Power of Contemplation
And it is born on the cross of Christ. When we doubt, when we fear, when we suffer, the cross is the solution. Saint Teresa of Avila says, The one meditation which will always bear fruit, is the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, because it is infinitely powerful. That contemplation must become an essential part of our everyday life. We should not pass a crucifix without contemplating the love of God. We should not pass a church without thinking about the love of God. We should not make the sign of the cross without knowing the love of God. We should not do anything without knowing that God loves us and desiring to love Him back with every part of our lives.
We should dedicate and consecrate our lives to Him. Complicated and difficult and painful as that may be, it's never as bad as what it seems. And it's always more rewarding than what we could possibly hope for. This is what our lives must be. And if we have any confusion or doubt about how to make that a reality, turn to Our Lady of Sorrows. She will never turn one of us away because we are her children. She will never not support us because we are her children. And she is our mother. And she loves us as perfectly as any creature could possibly love us. The only creature that loves us with the same zeal and desires, our Lord Jesus Christ, because she is perfectly united to Him.
Turning to Our Lady of Sorrows
Not in the same quantity because He's infinite and she's not. He's divine, she's not. But as much as a creature can love, she loves. If we have any doubt, confusion, pain, that we don't know how to turn to the cross of Christ, or to learn how to love our Lord Jesus Christ, she is the answer. Turn to the cross. Love the cross. Embrace the cross. Make these things a reality. And not just pious sayings.
Embracing the Cross
Transform your life into the cross. Lose yourself in the cross. Become a part of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Because it is the key to heaven. And once we have done so, the doors will be opened to us. And we will be able to be eternally happy in the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Summary
This homily explores the significance of the Cross in our daily lives, emphasizing its role in transforming our homes and hearts. The upcoming feast days of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Sorrows serve as a reminder of the profound love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The preacher challenges us to reflect on the centrality of the Cross in our lives, not just as a symbol but as a call to live a life of sacrificial love. By embracing the Cross, we align ourselves with the path to holiness and eternal happiness. We are encouraged to overcome distractions and let the Cross transform us, leading to a deeper understanding and love of God. Turning to Our Lady of Sorrows can guide us in embracing this sacrificial love.