Contemplate,

meditate,

penetrate the

great mystery of the Cross

to be lovers of the Cross

by Father Mathurin of the Mother of God

Father John Gregory of the Trinity was called home by God on December 31, 2011. That night, according to custom, the Community began the New Year with a Midnight Mass and the celebration of the feast of the Eternal Father. Also according to custom, in spite of a situation that was painful for everyone, Father Superior proposed the Watchword and the Wish for 2012. Words do not come easily in our present circumstances. For all of us gathered here, members of this great family established by our heavenly Father, and by our Father whom we have just lost on this earth, it is not easy to express what we feel. Each one of us feels more or less the same things, we bear them within us. It is a tremendous sorrow. On the other hand, if we consider it from another perspective, we can say that two Fathers are happy today. The heavenly Father is happy! And our earthly Father, whom we have just lost on earth, is happy too. That thought gives us the strength to open our mouth and manifest a bit of joy in spite of everything, though very awkwardly. We weep, but that is a little selfish. We cry over ourselves, because on earth we are losing a Father. We are losing his presence, his company, his direct counsels, but he remains with us in a different manner. We are not really losing his counsels, because we have had those counsels, we have heard them, received them. We possess them in all sorts of ways. On paper, on tape recordings and through electronic media. But above all, we have received them in our heart. Everything our Father has given us by way of counsels and instructions is there, engraved in our heart. We know that the greatest sign of gratitude and love that we can show this Father whom You gave to us, good heavenly Father, is to follow and keep deeply engraved in our hearts the great teachings he has given us. We wish never to deviate from this teaching, this totally evangelical doctrine that we have received. Yes, my brothers and sisters, let us keep deeply engraved in our heart the teaching we have been given with such magnanimity and generosity, with such fullness. The pages of the Gospel give us comfort, but they also come and touch us personally, they implicate us. This is certainly what our Father, who has just left us, applied himself to make us understand, with his words and even more with his examples. It was not so much with His speeches that our good Jesus, our great Master, the Son of God made man, worked out our salvation. He worked out our salvation on the cross. It is the same thing with this Work entrusted to our Father, who began it by a direct will of Heaven. In him the work of Christ was continued, through his generous, earnest acceptance of the cross that was imposed on him. Jesus worked out our salvation on the cross. What has been asked for here is a renewal, a rescue mission, a salvation. And salvation is worked out by the cross. My brothers and sisters, we give you as the watchword for this year: contemplate, meditate, penetrate the great mystery of the cross. Make it the object of your study. Open up your heart to this study, not so much your mind — a little of that, too – but above all, open up your heart to the study of this great mystery. The Cross will always remain a mystery, but open up your heart, beneath the eyes of God, by contemplating the Son of God who came on this earth to save us... through suffering. Now we are contemplating Him in the Manger, full of charm. But our salvation was achieved on the cross, the ignominious cross, the cross that ridicules and humiliates, the cross that hurts, the incomprehensible cross that crushed Jesus to such an extent that He said, “My God, My Father, why have You forsaken Me?” And we poor humans would like to understand the cross, would like it to be clear, would like the way to be obvious, well drawn out, complete with road marks; we would like everything to be spelled out in advance and have it all unfold as in a book. That is not how it is.

The Royal Way of the Cross

During this year, my brothers and sisters, let us study this road of the cross, the way of the cross. Let us penetrate this mystery in order to imbue ourselves with it. The salvation of the human race was accomplished on the cross, and every supernatural salvation is accomplished through the cross. It is THE way, it is THE road. We would like another, but the cross is the only way. Even when we feel annihilated by the cross — that can happen — let us submit to God. We are so frail, so weak, that a very little cross can make us exclaim, like Jesus from the height of Calvary, “Father, why have You forsaken Me?” But even when we feel that way, let us adore the holy Will of God, the incomprehensible cross. Incomprehensible... our reason need not understand. Faith cannot be explained. We make the act. We bow down before God. We obey. My wish for you is that you be lovers of the cross. I wish that this year, the greatest possible number among us — brothers and sisters, dear friends, affiliated members, everyone who supports in any way this Work that was asked of our Father by God — may we be lovers of the cross. It is a wish; I will not make it a watchword, for being a lover of the cross is not a grace that you can give yourself. But it is a grace we must ask for, which God will not refuse to give. He says in the Gospel, If anyone wishes to be My disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. This is not a command, but it is an invitation stronger than a watchword, because if we refuse it, we cannot be counted among His disciples. If in our heart we do not want to take up the cross and follow Jesus, we cannot be counted among His disciples. Certainly these are austere words, my brothers and sisters. It is not any more pleasant to formulate them than it is to hear them, but it is what God is expecting. Our Father John Gregory carried the cross all his life. By the grace of God, he really loved it to the point that he came to desire it, to desire scorn, to be humiliated, to be at the feet of all. He desired it in order to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and he got more than he bargained for! In our turn, all together, my brothers and sisters, I beg of you, let us unite in this willingness, and let us help one another with great charity and humility. We can help others love the cross more by our charity than by reprimands that are too direct. Most of the time, we succeed in persuading souls to accept crosses by our humble words better than by reprimands or harsh words. We must not be “holier than thou”. Let us speak humble words to our neighbor. In the world today, I believe that we have never heard so much about woes, scourges and cataclysms of all sorts, about wars and conflicts among nations, between individuals. That is all you hear in the news. The world has rejected the road mapped out by Jesus Himself because it does not want His cross. And look at the results! A beautiful, smiling Jesus would be acceptable. But the cross! People reject Jesus because of His cross. That is the truth. The cross scandalizes us, shocks us, repels us, so we turn away from it. And what happens? All sorts of bitter things that are much worse. We do not want the cross of Jesus, and bitterness is spreading over the earth as never before. The cross of Jesus brings incomparable peace of soul with it: My yoke is sweet and My burden light, said Christ. But without Jesus, only confusion, bitterness, aggressiveness and rancor prevail. God wants to change things. Now and then we hear about the “glorious cross.” It is a fine expression, a very exciting one, and with reason. My brothers and sisters, don’t forget that the glorious cross comes through the ignominious cross. That is the road, that is the way. We must thoroughly convince ourselves of it. All the Saints wanted the cross. And when the suffering got too hard, in moments of trial and dejection, you see them turning to the crucifix and meditating on the sufferings Jesus endured out of love for us, for our salvation. Saint Francis of Assisi is certainly one of the greatest examples of this love of the cross. Two little pieces of wood tied together in the form of a cross were enough to make him fall into ecstasy. Saint Francis of Assisi was ready for everything for God. His heart was inflamed and desired the cross, enough to make Jesus say, “No one, no other Saint on earth, has loved and contemplated this mystery of the cross, this sorrowful way, this way of the cross, with so much ardor, so much compassion.” My brothers and sisters, many of us have often heard our Father thanking God for the ignominious cross, not the glorious cross. If he did desire the glorious cross, it was only for God’s glory. But for himself personally, in his own life, for himself as a personal good, as a gift, he wanted ignominy — like many other Saints, like Saint John of the Cross; Jesus asked that Saint, “John, what gift would you like Me to give you?” and he replied, “Lord, to suffer and be scorned for You!” In the Magnificat hymn, the Blessed Virgin says, God exalts the humble. It must have been a great celebration, a great exaltation in heaven when Father John arrived, for God exalts the humble. An exaltation, a joy great enough, my brothers and sisters, for us to be exalted ourselves at the thought of this great virtue of humility and to make us desire it with our whole soul. Let us ask God for the grace first to accept, and then to love scorn, annihilation, the cross that humiliates us. We would like an honorable cross, the one where everybody would look at us like heroes carrying the cross of Jesus, a little like in a theater play. But life is not a play, and the cross on earth is not glorious. Sisters, do you have the beautiful hymn, “In the Cross We Find Life”? If you would, please sing it now.

In the Cross we find Life

1. In the cross we find life And consolation; It alone is the royal road That leads us to heaven. The cross is a tree of life, tree of life. And a delightful path that leads us to heaven. 2. It is a precious olive tree, The fruitful and holy cross, Which with its oil heals us And gives us light. My soul, embrace this cross, embrace the cross! It is the shining path that leads us to heaven. 3. The cross is the luxuriant tree, The desire of heaven Where the Beloved takes His rest, Consuming Himself with love. It gives joy with succulent fruit, with succulent fruit. It is the shining path that leads us to heaven. (According to Saint Teresa of Avila)

That is really it, that is the shining path, because that is where the Beloved is found. It is the only explanation of the beauty of the cross, of what makes it desirable. We human beings cannot understand why God has chosen this road. Why? It is His secret, and we need not understand. God has chosen this road, He gave us and manifested His Infinite Love by embracing the cross for our salvation, and that is our argument for following the same road. When we embrace ignominy and everything that crucifies us, that is when we mysteriously find the luminous cross. But if we reject it, we reject Jesus, who is the Light of the world. So this is my wish, my brothers and sisters: that we may all become lovers of the cross. Let us make a prayer for one another, an entreaty. God wants to save humanity, and to do so He needs poor infirm human beings who attach themselves to His cross. That cross is to be manifested to the whole world; it is God’s design to manifest His cross to the whole world. To make His cross known and reveal it to the world — which is attached to all sorts of futile things — and to make the cross loved, He wants to use instruments. God could act all alone, but generally He employs instruments. He wants to reveal His cross, to make it loved, and to this end He wants to use us. My brothers and sisters, let us enter fully onto this way of the cross. Let us beg God to make us lovers of the cross. It is our salvation; it will be the salvation of the whole world. It will have to be transported, and it is in our hearts that we transport it. We cannot give this grace to ourselves, it is impossible. We must ask for it, beseech God, tell Him all the desire we have for it, for ourselves, our brothers and sisters, all His children, especially those He calls more particularly to follow Him. May He be so kind as to give us that grace. Good heavenly Father, Word of God incarnate and crucified for us, Holy Spirit, on the occasion of this loss on earth for us, the loss of our dear Father, we make this earnest entreaty to You: In our turn, may we embrace the cross, may we not reject it. I repeat, this cross must be carried. It is an appeal to each one of you, my brothers and sisters. It is an appeal that I am making to myself and to each one of you. This year, 2012, is the 1700 th anniversary of a very singular event that marked the history of the world. It is the victory of Constantine the Great, the son of Saint Helen, against Maxentius. One day in the year 312, Constantine was marching to Rome at the head of his army. That evening he saw an immense luminous cross bearing this inscription: “By this sign you shall conquer!” In a dream he had afterward, Christ commanded him, although he was still a pagan, to have the divine Sign of the Cross engraved on his soldiers’ shields. Constantine obeyed and also put the cross on the labarum, the imperial standard. On October 28, 312, he encountered his adversary Maxentius outside of Rome and engaged him in battle. The enemy troops were rapidly scattered. Constantine thus remained the sole emperor of the West; he attributed this great victory to the sacred Sign of the Cross. He was later baptized and became the first Christian emperor, putting an end to the anti-Christian persecutions which had lasted for three centuries. It had been said to him, “By this sign you shall conquer!” and he won the victory as promised. Constantine, a pagan emperor with his pagan army, obtained a victory by the cross! My brothers and sisters, God says the same thing to us this year: “By this sign you shall conquer!” But for us it is not simply an exterior sign. It is a sign that we must carry in our heart, that we must love and cherish. By this cross we shall conquer. The great victory promised against the forces of evil will come through the cross. Do we want the victory? The road to it is mapped out. Had Constantine had not obeyed that command from heaven, had he not placed the cross on his insignia as it was asked of him, he would not have carried off that great victory. For him it was a material victory, with two material armies facing each other. God wants to win a great victory over the forces of evil, over His enemy and all His enemies, against the proud and against their prince. We will obtain this great victory by this sign, which we must carry within us, which we must have, keep, love and carry in the center of ourselves, in our heart. Once again, I repeat, it is not a gift that we can give ourselves. This year, may we all together make an assault on heaven, an entreaty: “O Lord, the way of the cross is the one You chose: it is the way that we too want to follow. But see how powerless we are, see our cowardice which is sometimes extreme. O Lord, come to our assistance!” May that be our prayer. At each prayer of the hour let us say, “O God, come to my assistance! Lord, make haste to help me! May I truly belong to You. Do not let me act like an enemy of Your cross. O Lord, engrave the cross in me. Give me love, make me understand, comprehend and even experience the cross if You see fit. You are almighty. By embracing the cross, it is You that I embrace.” My brothers and sisters, I wish for you that God may make you experience this: that by embracing the cross, by accepting it wholeheartedly, it is Jesus that you accept, Jesus Himself that you press to your heart. May God make you experience it. Let us ask our good Father, who has just left us, to intercede for us with God. What an immense power he must have in heaven! O victory! You will reign! O Cross! You will save us!