We are here, now--Holy Saturday has arrived! Praise God for getting us moment-by-moment through this Lent! I've thanked His Real Presence for a blessed Lent--not as arduous, it seems, as past Lents, but it could be that all God's blessings and graces have helped me handle the trials better than what I've done in past. Regardless, I am so grateful to God!
A friend emailed yesterday this commentary by St. Augustine. I've been returning to it off and on during pain rest breaks. I love the final line: They did not despise the humility of Christ.
I also love and can relate with the realities of world as an ocean, metaphor. And that anyone can cross this temporal world's ocean by holding onto the wood of Christ's cross--yes, we can--even if in pain, or blind, or deaf, or not all that religious or if at all religious. Christ's cross is for all of us sinners, for we all are in various ways.
Reminds me of one time when I was struggling mightily, when much younger, and was not yet with the strength to pull away from a situation in which I knew I was sinning but was ensnared. I'd beg for strength from the Lord and would hate my weakness, yet He let me suffer in weakness until the day He gave me strength to free myself.
(Well, indeed, it was actually the Lord who freed me, as it was His strength He gave to me, when He willed to give it and not before. I learned invaluable life-long lesson in recognizing not to despise humility, for that is Christ's gift, as well.)
Anyway, one morning when I was acknowledging the sin yet again and begging for strength to extricate myself, I asked Jesus within my mind, in thought flashing while at Mass: Lord, how can you love me? He immediately replied, also in thought-flashing: Because you are so pathetic.
Now, to share the commentary written by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church (354-430 AD). I hope and pray you find strength and meaning in the reading of it, pondering how great is the cross of Christ, as we await His Easter morning Resurrection from the tomb!
When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said, "Truly, this man is the Son of God!" (Mk 15:39) "In the beginning was the Word, the Utterance of God" (cf. Jn 1:1). He is one and the same with him; what he is he is always, he is without change he is being. This is the name he made known to his servant Moses: "I am who I am" and "you will say: I AM sent me to you" (Ex 3:14)...
Who could understand this? Who could reach him--supposing he were to direct all the powers of his soul as best he may to reaching him who is? I will compare him to an exile who sees his homeland from afar; the sea is separating him from it; he knows where he has to go but has no means of getting there. In the same way we want to reach that final haven which will be our own, where is the One who is, for he alone is always the same. But the ocean of this world blocks the way...
He who calls us came here below to give us the means of getting there. He chose the wood that would enable us to cross the sea; indeed no one could cross the ocean of this world who is not borne by the cross of Christ. Even the blind can cling to this cross. If you can't see where you are going very well, don't let go of it, it will guide you be itself.
So then, brethren, this is what I should like to impress on your hearts: if you want to live in a spirit of devotion, a Christian spirit, cling to Christ just as he became for us so as to rejoin him as he is now and as he has always been. This is why he came down to us, for he became man that he might take up the weak, enabling them to cross the sea and disembark into the homeland where a ship is no longer needed because there is no more ocean to cross.
In all events, it would be better for one's soul not to see him who is and to embrace Christ's cross than to see him spiritually but despise the cross. So, for our own happiness, may we see where we are going and cling to the whip that is taking us there...! Some have succeeded and have seen what he is.
It was because he had seen him that John said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." They saw him, and to attain to what they saw from afar, they clung to the cross of Christ. They did not despise the humility of Christ.
~ Sermons on St. John's Gospel, No. 2
What does pride keep us from in life--both temporal and spiritual? Can we aspire to imitating Christ if laden with pride that we most often do not even detect in ourselves? Are we in a mode of body, mind, heart, and spirit in which we recognize how pathetic we are, how needful to a point of clinging to the cross of Christ?
In that physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual "action" of clinging to His cross, we will not despise Christ's humility. We will embrace it with humble gratitude and praise.
God bless His Real Presence in us! Little children, let us love God above all things (especially self-love), and let us love others as God loves!
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