Sunday Meditation: To be united to Christ means union with the Cross.

Mary Magdalene
embracing the cross.

Regular readers of the blog know how much I like the Benedictus prayer companion. I usually do the daily devotions including the meditation. Yesterday's entry was on the Mystery of Failure by Dom Benedict Baur from Light of the World. What a reminder that to be truly united to Christ means to be united to the cross. Suffering is not a curse, but a true sharing in the life of Christ. And, since suffering is unavoidable, why not make the best of it and allow the Lord to draw us close to Himself. This meditation truly called to me to change my attitude toward any suffering -- the big ones and the petty annoyances. Help me, Lord, to embrace all of them cheerfully! 

How great are the trials that beset the Christian, from the cradle to the gave! Sometimes those who are least deserving of pain suffer the most.  Te nearer they approach God, the more thoroughly they are purified by the fire of suffering. The more earnestly they strive to serve God, the more they are misunderstood, despised, repudiated, and persecuted by the world.  Sometimes they receive like treatment even from their friends."Because...I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19). Even those who are nearest to us and whom we justly hold in high esteem desert us. Even those in whom we trusted consider themselves justified in deserting d rejecting us. These sufferings are certainly the deepest and most bitter.

Sometimes God Himself seems to have taken the side of our enemies.

He often allows those who strive most honestly to serve Him to succumb to human frailty, commit foolish mistakes, contract imperfections, and compromise themselves in the eyes of others, so that their few remaining friends begin to waver. Within their souls they experience that fearful condition which makes them think that evil has entered their souls and broought ten other deveils with it, and all good seems to have fled. Their power of resistance seems to have vanished; their imagination is plagued with vile pictures; their understandiong of God and things spiritual is weakened; their will is indolent; their mind is dull; and their heart is devoid of devotion. To all this there is often added the feeling of having been forsaken by God. Such sufferings cannot be understood by anyone who has not experienced them; but we should not be surprised if they should come to us, for by our baptism we have committed ourselves to suffer and die with Christ that we might also rise with Him....

As yet perhaps we have not learned how to embrace cheerfully the sufferings of Christ, how to share the chalice of the Lord, how to love the cross as Christ loved. And yet, with every cross comes grace and strength. The interior life...thrives on the cross. The cross is our salvation. 

Now the question is, "How do we embrace the cross cheerfully recognizing that it is our salvation? Two thought come to mind. Ask your guardian angel for help and walk in the footsteps of Mary whose heart was pierced by a sword. What better model can we choose than Our Lady of Sorrows? 

Have a blessed Sunday! 

 

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