By Father Rich Tomkosky
We now enter the mystery of Holy Week, into Jesus’ journey of spiritual combat with the powers of satan, sin, and death and His glorious triumph over those powers of darkness on Easter Sunday.
It is also the time to reflect on the fickle nature of the weak human heart: exulting Jesus on Palm Sunday with Hosannas, as the possible Messiah, to five days later screaming “Crucify Him” as a frenzied mob in front of Pontius Pilate. What a sad reality! But Jesus is so good that He didn’t allow the fickle human heart to stop His mission to save the human race.
Thankfully, by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, He has won for us the graces, so that we can love Him and our neighbor with consistency over time and not with an ongoing fickle heart if we cooperate with the graces Jesus won for us on the Cross and through the power of the Holy Spirit received in Baptism and the other sacraments – especially Holy Communion and Confession.
How does this new consistency in love and virtue occur in the human heart, rather than ongoing fickleness and wavering? By embracing our own cross daily with more love, which means bearing it in union with Christ.
When we bear our daily sufferings in this imperfect world with love, it gives us peace of soul and a more eternal perspective on things, as well as spiritually helping other souls. When we don’t bear our cross with fidelity and love, we ignore the Lord and lose an opportunity to draw other souls to the Lord as well.
So as not to turn away from the Lord during suffering in the mystery of the Cross, we need to pray daily that God gives us a renewed spiritual mind (see Romans 12: 1-2), so that we will not be spiritually blind to the things of God! What does this daily Cross consist of? The little or big sufferings borne in love connected with our state in life and the fulfillment of our daily duties in our vocation; the physical ailments caused by poor health; economic restraints; the fatigue resulting from overwork or anxiety, either at home or at work; the moral sufferings resulting from differences of opinion on important matters, the clash of temperaments and personalities or simple misunderstandings; the sufferings that come from others rashly judging our actions or attributing evil or ill will when there is none, the sufferings that come from losing people we love to earthly death, etc. (taken in part from meditation 129 “The Daily Cross” in the great book Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of Mary Magdalen, Baronius Press).
May the Lord also enlighten us to the sufferings of others and help us to carry the crosses of others instead of adding to them in our pride and spiritual blindness.
This spiritual dynamic is part of the daily cross which you and I are called to bear based on our life circumstances. It should be noted each person’s cross is somewhat unique based on God’s Providential plan for our life and molded specifically for our eternal benefit, but the way we respond to it is the same for everyone. It calls for our daily Fiat or Yes to the Lord; to bare on our spiritual shoulders and open our hearts and carry it with generosity and love; to repeat with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will Father, but Yours be done;” and with our Lady at the Annunciation, “Let it be done to me according to Your Word.” Mary, pray for us!
The Cross is the source of all spiritual fruitfulness in this now redeemed, but still sinful world. In the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, humanity receives new life. It is renewed at every Mass, and made spiritually present for our salvation, which is why the Mass is the center of our life as Catholics.
Our daily life is to be a continuation of the fruit of the Mass, in making of ourselves a living sacrifice to the Father, in union with Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us ask God this week in humility and sincere love to help us enter mystically into Jesus’s Passion, through embracing our daily cross and prayerfully entering the Liturgical events of this week (try to come to as many as possible), so we also may share in the life of His glorious Resurrection, beginning now and brought to fulfillment after we depart this earthly life.
O Blessed Mother Mary, please pray for us sinners that we may have a living knowledge of your Son, Jesus, our Redeemer who leads us from the suffering of the Cross to the glory of the Resurrection.
May the Lord draw all of us close to His Heart during the most Holy Week of the Liturgical year and help us to grow in daily union with Him.
Father Rich Tomkosky is the Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish in Bedford and the Pastor of Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Beans Cove.
