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In my
culture we have the concept of
honor,
and if someone insults me or my family, I won’t take it.
 n His own time, many men and women
wanted to follow Christ—and many persons, who had too much honor and
prestige to lose if they followed Him, tried to challenge Him. In answer
to one of their “tests,” He told us the greatest commandment:
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your mind”
(Matthew 22:34–40).
In this regard, Christ also told
us two other important things:
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If anyone comes
to me without
hating [1]
his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even
his own life, he cannot be my disciple. |
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—Luke 14:26 |
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Whoever does
not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. |
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—Luke 14:27 |
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This tells us that love of God
has priority over everything. Why do you think the Church is called
Catholic? Catholic means universal, and that sets it above all nations,
all cultures, all races, all languages, and all other human
identities you can think up.
In other words, when Christ died
on the cross for our redemption, he opened up
the possibility of salvation for everyone. And to “carry your
own cross” is no esoteric abstraction. It means to tolerate insult as
Christ did—and to forgive others, and
pray for them, even as they are crucifying
you. Why? Well, to pray for those who injure you is to hold out the hope
that they will eventually repent their sins and accept
the salvation God holds out to them.
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 Above
all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ grants to
his friends, is the grace of overcoming oneself, and accepting willingly,
out of love for Christ, all suffering, injury, discomfort and contempt; for
in all other gifts of God we cannot glory, seeing they proceed not from ourselves
but from God, according to the words of the Apostle, “What hast thou
that thou hast not received from God? and if thou hast received it, why dost
thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” But in the cross of
tribulation and affliction we may glory, because, as the Apostle says again,
“I will not glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” |
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The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi
Chapter VII |
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It should be clear, then, that
all love comes through the
cross. There is no honor in the cross, however;
that’s why almost everyone runs from the cross. In fact, that’s
what pride means: to run from the cross
by taking up yourself, not the cross, and to follow your own
will, not Christ.
For you to be a Christian, therefore,
your pride must die. It’s that simple,
and there is no way around it. And if you say that pride is not an
“issue” for you, that claim is itself an act of pride.
Moreover, not only must all pride
and honor die in you, but you must rejoice in that death as the only
path to holiness.
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Count it pure
joy when you are involved in every sort of
trial. |
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—James 1:2 |
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Therefore, in regard to your
desire to defend cultural or personal honor, keep in mind that when you pray
the fifth petition of the Our Father
(forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us)
you are making a covenant with God. In so far as you
forgive others, you will be forgiven; but in so far
as you hate others and seek revenge, you disavow
forgiveness, not only for others but also for yourself.
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But if you do
not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your
transgressions. |
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— Matthew 6:15 |
In effect, to tell someone to
go to hell—no matter what language you say
it in—is to send yourself there as well. Think about that. When you
run from the cross, there is only one place you can
go . . .
___________
1. Innocent readers tend to feel confused about
this passage. They wonder, “How could Christ tell us to do something
so contrary to love?” Well, Christ did not use the word hate
here according to its common, emotional meaning of “loathing” or
“wishing harm upon someone or something.” Instead, Christ used
the word with a theologically specific meaning: “to remove your emotional
dependence on someone.”
  
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