Finding Joy in Our Crosses
The Paradox of Christian Happiness
Happy beginning to Lent.
This is the first of a series of lenten reflections I’ve created for you. I pray that they will give you meaning as you carry your cross and swords.
“The Divine Redeemer wishes to penetrate the soul of every sufferer through the heart of his holy Mother, the first and the most exalted of all the redeemed. As though by a continuation of that motherhood which by the power of the Holy Spirit had given him life, the dying Christ conferred upon the ever Virgin Mary a new kind of motherhood—spiritual and universal—towards all human beings, so that every individual, during the pilgrimage of faith, might remain, together with her, closely united to him unto the Cross, and so that every form of suffering, given fresh life by the power of this Cross, should become no longer the weakness of man but the power of God.”
St. Pope John Paul II
Ash Wednesday | In the Beginning
The human body is a miracle of molecular innovation. The nervous system relays messages from the brain to almost every cell through interconnected synapses and nerves that make the New York City public transportation maps look like a child’s finger painting. The circulatory system instinctively knows where to push blood and nutrients to the places that need them most while working with the digestive system to break down our food into forms suitable for each organ to receive its nourishment. Inlaid between them, the muscular system interacts with the respiratory system to give us breath and movement, both necessary in acquiring everything from physical sustenance to spiritual enlightenment. The skeletal, the cardiovascular, the endocrine, the lymphatic, the reproductive etc… all of our systems operate together like a symphony– melodic, rhythmic, with purpose.
Our bodies, however, are fragile. Bones break. Diseases spread. Mental stability wavers. Our bodily instruments fall out of tune.They honk and tweet in ways their Inventor never meant for them to sound. Screeches ring out and, Instead of adding to the divine sound, echoes of discord disrupt the perfectly dancing notes that waltz in the air. Our backs hurt. Headaches dominate our days. Noses run like open fire hoses.
Of course, God never desired for His creations to feel pain. His original plan in the Garden of Eden was perfection. It was a place where man and woman lived in harmony with nature. Their bodies and that of mother Earth lived seamlessly in perfectly played notes through which the Father was glorified.
In a way, that seraphic symphony still plays today. Our bodies mimic the world around us. The respiratory system joins with the air cycle as oxygen is converted into carbon dioxide and purified over and over again. The circulatory system takes the baton from the water cycle as rain, rivers, and ground water carry nutrients through the earth like veins and capillaries spreading spirals of new life to everything it touches. Bees impregnate flowers. Symbiotic species work together to defy death. Even spiritual beings like angels choose to spend moments of their eternity basking in the perfection of an earthly sunset.
But perfect we are not. The serpent slithered into the celestial song that our Father composed in Genesis and plucked the reeds out of our clarinets, slashed the skin of our drums, stole the sound of our voices. As a result of Adam and Eve’s original sin, we were forced to experience pain. We lost perfection.
For centuries, the ominous discord racked the ears of humanity. The eternal song played itself in every life thereafter, but each tune terminated in the same endnote– death. Some songs were beautiful like those of Samuel and Solomon. Others were downtrodden like Job and Sampson. Still others were a mix of darkness and light like David and Joseph. All, however, were silenced by death.
That is, until Mary was written into the song.
She came in quietly. Her soul was wrapped in the perfection known as the Immaculate Conception. This simply means that she was saved from Original Sin prior to being born. She was chosen by God to be the Mother of His Son. If you were the Creator, wouldn’t you make the one you would call “Mother” as perfect as she could be? So, He made her perfect. In doing so he gave us a blueprint to transcribe onto our hearts.
Our Lady was not spared the effects of Original Sin, only original sin itself. Therefore, she experienced pain. She was the first to be called to the cross as, even before Our Lord entered her womb, the angel requested she become the Mother of God. She was “greatly troubled,” just as all of us are when God calls us to forego our comfortable lives and live as His disciple. She responded by saying “How can this be?” She questioned the Most High, worried that her soul was not worthy of the mission the Father wanted her to carry out.
The angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God…. for nothing is impossible for God.”
For the first time since the first note of creation was played, the sacred song fell silent as the angel awaited her response. The angelic choirs stood still in the cosmos. The souls of the living, the dead, and those not yet born hushed. And God Himself bade the wind to stop, the earth to pause, and the heavens to still so as to listen to Mary’s answer…
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
-Lk:1:38
Fiat.
A perfect note.
The song of salvation was set into motion by the divinely tuned woman. Through this new Eve’s song, the divine chorus began to quietly overcome the chaotic screeches of Adam and Eve’s error.
But…
the serpent snapped back.
Why do We Suffer?
You are a note played by God meant to spread His Good News throughout the world. This is why Jesus’ last words to His apostles in the Gospel of Luke read, “Go therefore, and make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Some of us have “gone” further than others in our zeal to save souls– like trumpet blasts and cymbals clashing, their saintly sounds still echo to us today. Others, however, have played quieter symphonies– their humble lives and day-to-day love play an almost silent melody and their notes fill the mystical air around us. Even those who simply exist, and believe, play in the neverending chorus.
And Satan tries to silence us all.
He accuses us of our sinfulness. He bends our will. He deafens us to the communal sounds and traps us in our own self-loathing. He sends us into a spiral of mental instability and it is in this confusion that we commit our most viscous sins. As a result, we feel even more guilty, and less worthy, to be called Sons and Daughters of God. The devil keeps us in this cycle, peppering us with every temptation he can to keep us willingly chained to our personal desires. In the end, we become nothing– we are silence.
This is sorrow.
And sorrow, too, is God’s will.
There are few witnesses to this truth greater than Father Walter Ciszek, S.J. This humble servant of Our Lord was moved by zeal for souls to the point of entering communist Russia, where he was captured, interrogated as an alleged Vatican spy, and sentenced to years of work in the Siberian labor camps. After experiencing the worst of all human pains, including starvation, hours of difficult work in sub-zero degree temperatures, malice and hatred from inmates, and the lack of almost all spiritual comforts, he was still able to write the following:
“Pain and suffering do not thereby cease to exist; the ache and anguish of body and soul do not vanish from man’s consciousness. But even they become a means of nourishing this joy, of fostering peace and conformity to God’s will, for they are seen as a continuation of Christ’s passion—not in the distorted, senseless acts of bloody butchery I had shuddered over as a boy, but as purposeful, redemptive, healing acts by which the world is reconciled to the will of the Father. Such suffering can only bring with it deep spiritual joy, for from it springs redemption and salvation, the ultimate victory over sin and further suffering and even death itself.” (He Leadeth Me)
Sacrifices, pain, sorrow, suffering… these are the checkpoints on the “narrow road” upon which the Christian travels. We do not truly know who we are until we experience suffering, for when we are stripped of our comforts, we strip away our very selves, erasing our hand-drawn directions upon the map of life so that Jesus can lead us to His perfect destination of Paradise. St. Peter wrote, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10) Pain, then, is the road that reveals not only who we really are, but it also provides the pathway to salvation.
And our destination is Christ.
But, we have a guide.
Her name is Mary.
Mary - The Cure
Mental health issues abound in today’s world. It is easy to see the causes– the breakdown of family, the rise in behavioral addiction, the increase of prescribed medication to handle depression, and the digress of humanity into isolation of self add to the constant deluge of our identity crisis.
However, Mary, the antidote to all of our pain, stands before us in the mystical realm, waiting for us to give her our problems so as to nail them to her Son’s cross once and for all. This lenten seres explores how Mary’s virtues can conquer our mental struggles and identity crises by discovering the joy of the cross.
Is there an apostle who knew more sorrow than Our Lady? No- there has not been a single soul from the ancient world to modern times who knew more misfortune. And there will never be someone who has suffered more than Mary, save her Son, Jesus.
However, there also has never been a more joy-filled human than Mary.
So, how did she do it? How did she retain her joy through such pain?
Simple– she knew she was superior.
The holiest of us know how to live joyfully in a world of desolation. We do not have a scorn for our sorrows, but rather a superiority, a knowledge of how to handle them.
Today, you begin your journey toward joy upon the road of Golgotha. It will not be easy, but I promise you– if you remain open to the mystery of sorrow, the Queen of all happiness will teach you her secrets.
Continue this series by clicking the chapter titles below:
Chapter 3: Coming soon
Chapter 4: Coming soon
Chapter 5: Coming soon
Chapter 6: Coming soon
Chapter 7: Coming soon
Conclusion: Coming soon