Learn to love the cross

IF there’s any message or lesson the celebration of Good Friday is imparting in us, it is that we should learn to love the cross the way Christ loved it. He knew from the beginning of his earthly life how his redemptive mission would end. But that did not deter him from carrying out the will of his Father and his own will that actually are just one, since the will of the Son is the same as the will of the Father.

In that way, loving the cross the way Christ loved it is the ultimate expression of love to which we are also called to live, since we are God’s image and likeness. That’s why Christ gave that new commandment that summarizes all the previous commandments given to us—and that is, that we love one another as Christ himself has loved us.

So little by little, let us take away the usual obstacles we have in pursuing that love for the cross. We all know that we have a natural aversion of the cross and everything that it connotes. We have to overcome that aversion by identifying ourselves more and more with Christ, activating our faith and availing ourselves of certain practices that would help us understand and love the true value of the cross as shown to us by Christ.

This will obviously involve constant prayer, having recourse to the sacraments, growing in the virtues, waging a life-long ascetical struggle, and doing certain mortifications and other practices of self-denial, etc. We have to live a certain detachment from the things of this world, to guard our senses, practicing temperance, restraint and moderation in the use of things.

We need to know the true value of the cross because the cross, through Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, is where everything in our life is resolved. Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is the culmination of Christ’s redemptive mission on earth.

Yes, Christ preached. He performed miracles. But in the end, he had to offer his life on the cross because no matter what he did, our sins are such that they simply cannot be undone and forgiven through the preaching of the truths of our faith and the tremendous effects of the miracles. Christ has to offer his life on the cross!

We might ask, if Christ is God, why did he have to go through all that suffering and death? Why not just say, “Everything is now all right, guys.” After all, for God, nothing is impossible with him. With the movement of his will, with a flick of his hand, everything would be as it should be.

I must say, it is a good question to ask. Indeed, nothing is impossible with God. He does not have to do anything spectacular to repair what was damaged. A word from him, and everything would be as he wants it to be.

Be that as it may, the fact is that Christ chose the way the Father wanted it. “Not my will, but yours be done,” Christ said. (Lk 22,42) And I imagine the reason behind this is because God respects our human nature as it is, as it has been created by him, capable of loving and hating, and also capable of being faithful and unfaithful and faithful again after some conversion, and some consequences that would follow.