Mission Monthly – November 2000
“To suffer lovingly is to suffer no longer. To flee from the cross is to be crushed beneath its weight. We should pray for a love of the cross, then it will become sweet.” ‘One day’, said Fr. Monnin, ‘I asked Fr. Jean whether his trials ever caused him at any time to lose his interior peace. He replied,’ “What, the cross make us lose our inward peace? Surely it is the cross that bestows [peace] on our hearts. ALL OUR MISERIES COME FROM OUR NOT LOVING IT”
St. Jean Vianney, +1859, a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church
Wouldn’t it be nice if everything in life worked out according to our plans? We seek Christ and live a feast of faith from the harvest of seeds planted in the good soil. We seek marriage and we meet the true mate of our dreams. We take a new job and it lasts to retirement, becoming a source of personal fulfillment and security. Our relationships with our families are never strained, and our companions always admire us and never disturb the blessed unfolding of each new day. There is always plenty of time to attend to our homes, to our hobbies and to rest. The peace that each day brings is only compounded in the peace of yesterday. Wouldn’t it be nice… ?
The facts of this life, however, are substantially different, though I have known people and occasions when the blessed gifts of peace have existed in these important matters of life. But even when there is peace in one’s marriage, job, family, home, is this the type of peace that St. Jean Vianney was speaking about? Was this the abundance of life Jesus promised in saying, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Not necessarily! If I put my hope and trust in the worldly peace that may come from the mere temporal elements of life, I fear that I may be gravely “missing the mark.”
It is because of our fallen nature that our eyes are veiled to the very realities of the fallen nature. One main “goal” of spiritual warfare and ascetical discipline, and our total and complete submission to it, is to see life as it really is: beautiful but always tainted with the effects of sin and in continual need of the Savior! A real awareness of the fallen nature must be deeply rooted within us, otherwise inevitable trials and suffering will have no meaning and become a cause and source of bitterness towards others and ultimately towards God.
It is up to us, just as it was for all the glorified Saints of the Church, to seek continual entry into the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and into the meaning of suffering, both our own and that which is in the world. Once we understand suffering, by the grace of God, and its direct connection to the Cross of Christ, nothing should ever interfere with our desire to rest in the “sweetness” of it.
Many do prefer, however, to blame God or other men for their circumstances, or to take a cynical view of life, even tragically of life in the Church. It makes sense that misery lies in this spirit of blame and cynicism. Contrary to this, there are countless examples in the lives of the Saints who lived in the fullness of joy despite bleak circumstances and violent persecutions. Adam, the first man, failed his “cross” with a yearning towards self-determination. See the misery that accompanied it! In the true spirit of self-examination we must also admit to knowing the weight of this miserable yearning!
There is only one answer to the question of seeking true peace, God’s peace, and escaping the crushing weight of the Cross of Christ; it is by joyfully joining Christ upon it! The life before us is beautiful and guided clearly by the wisdom of the Church. Let us therefore seek to understand and live the words of St. Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20), and that we might “know the peace of God, which passes all understanding” (Phil. 4:7).