Salvation through the Lord’s Cross

As a boy I remember joining the Stations of the Cross. And one thing that has stuck with me is that verse sung by the leader after he announces the station: We adore, O, Christ and we bless you. And then the People respond: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. 

Later in our liturgy, we shall have the veneration of the cross. As the priest raises up the cross, he sings: Behold, behold, the wood of the cross, on which is hung our salvation. Then the people respond: O, come let us adore.

Last night, the eve of the Lord's Passion, we celebrated the Lord’s supper. Speaking of this, Paul says that as often as we eat the Lord’s bread and drink his cup, we proclaim the death of our Lord. 

Why do we pray this way? We pray this way because this is what God has revealed to us, this is what we believe in. God, in his gratuitous love, has saved us from sin and death through the death of his Son on the cross. Thus, our rule of worship flows from the rule of our belief: cult follows creed. But not only does our rule of worship come from what we believe in; how we live, the rule of our life flows from our creed too, from what God has done for us, from what God has revealed to us: code follows creed.  

That’s why many a saint desires and rejoices when they are given the grace to share in the suffering and death of Christ. Paul says that he rejoices in the grace given to him as an apostle; the grace of being able to share in Christ’s suffering for the sake of His body, the Church. Indeed, in Christ, God the Father has blessed us immeasurably, conforming us to His Son and giving us His Spirit. 

One of the earliest things I did as a young Jesuit priest was to teach Theology in college. While teaching Theology, there was one question that I wasn’t able to answer right away. But, the answer was there all along, it was in my experience of the Spiritual Exercises when I was a novice. Anyway, someone asked me: how can you distinguish fatalism from the cross? 

Fatalism (is the belief that) holds that all events, including human actions and decisions, are ultimately governed by fate or destiny, and that individuals have little or no control over the outcome of their lives. Fatalism often implies a sense of resignation or acceptance of whatever happens, as individuals believe that they are powerless to change the course of events.

In order words, how can you distinguish the acceptance of one’s suffering as a sharing in the cross of Christ (which is, an act of obedience to God’s will, therefore an act of faith, hope, and love) from simply accepting one’s suffering as fate, a suffering we are forced into. But ultimately, either there is fate or there is God. There’s only one ultimate reality.  

Before we say what is truly involved in an act of faith, as distinct from fate, we need to point this out. The revelation through Isaiah (which we read in our first reading) about the suffering servant is this, the suffering of this servant - who is innocent - is not because of sin (as is usually thought of) - but that it is the will of God in Israel’s redemption and justification. In other words, this servant recognizes his suffering as something willed by God, and in freedom, the servant accepts it as such. 

We have to make it clear that It is ONLY God who can so attract a person to Himself without destroying that person’s freedom. And it is ONLY in accepting God’s will that a person’s freedom becomes truly his. Only in God can a person find his true freedom. 

Having said this, we can clearly distinguish faith from fate if we consider what Ignatius says in the Spiritual Exercises. As you know Ignatius composed the Exercises to help a person find the will of God in his life. Here is how Ignatius describes such an act of choice. Let’s begin with the negative. It is an act that doesn’t involve sin. In other words such an act cannot mean an act that avoids or runs away from one’s responsibility. If it means that, such an act can hardly be an act of faith. Moreover, what is decisive in such a choice is clearly not one’s attachment to it nor it is simply one’s detachment from it. What is decisive is what God wills in regard to the person’s object of choice, which Ignatius believes the Lord will point out to him in this discernment process. This process presupposes interior freedom, what Ignatius calls, indifference. So, even when Ignatius talks about the 3rd degree of humility (which is what the cross is), Ignatius sees it as subject to indifference (interior freedom). Suffering with Christ is a gift, it is not something we simply choose for ourselves. It’s a call, a vocation. We choose it because we are given the freedom to choose it and we choose it because such a choice is also our own responsibility.

Maybe a concrete example from our passion narrative can illustrate this. We found this scene only in John’s gospel. It’s a scene where Jesus is being interrogated by Annas. 

[I quote] The high priest questioned Jesus

about his disciples and about his doctrine.

Jesus answered him,

“I have spoken publicly to the world.

I have always taught in a synagogue

or in the temple area where all the Jews gather,

and in secret I have said nothing.  Why ask me?

Ask those who heard me what I said to them.

They know what I said.”

When he had said this,

one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said,

“Is this the way you answer the high priest?”

Let me pause the narration here. Imagine how the Lord would react to this abuse? I suppose some would imagine the meek and humble Lord doing nothing and simply taking the blows from the guard. For they might reason out, isn’t that what the cross is? But, interestingly, no, this is not what our Lord did. At this moment, we are told: 

Jesus answered him (the guard, saying),

“If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong;

but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”

Ah, there is a time to take a stand for one’s rights, for justice, a time not to run away from such a responsibility, a time not to let evil simply have its way. And there is a time (in God’s grace) to be silent, as what we would see the Lord do after this. The Lord believed that evil did not have the last word in life, that the Father was the one in control, and yes, even in death, for his Father alone could save him from death. That’s not fatalism, that’s faith, that’s sacrificial love, that’s salvific.    

Part of life is suffering (well, not all of life is suffering) and not all of our suffering is because of our sins. God has revealed to us that there’s a suffering that is His will. He showed this in the suffering of his Son to show his great love for us. And, in Christ, God has shared this grace to everyone. This is the great mystery we proclaim today and we pray we may be given the grace to live out, for it is in sharing the Lord’s death that we share in his resurrection.  

ab

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, March 29, 2024

St. Ignatius Chapel, Jesuit Retreat House, Malaybalay