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The Way of the Cross |
Sacrifice, Obedience, and Prayer |
What You Can Do
The Way of the
Cross
Living a devout Christian life,
in general, does not require any great intellectual skills. Christ, after
all, had no need for Plato and Aristotle in order to preach about surrendering
to God in pure love. True religion is a matter of
heart and will, not of reason. The essence of Christianity is not in feeling
good about ourselves or
 feeling
special because of what we know or
who we know; the essence of Christianity is in sacrificing
ourselves in every moment through pure love
so that we, and others for whom we pray, might be saved from
sin. And, for that matter, that’s why Christ
preached in parables: to bypass the intellect and pierce right into our hearts
and souls.
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In the Parable
of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9; Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-8), Christ poignantly
described what would happen to the very Word He preached.
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Some persons,
because of indifference, ingratitude, and
contempt, reject the Word even as they hear it and refuse to
believe. Their hearts are like hard rock. |
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Some persons
accept the Word intellectually and think they believe. But when trials
afflict them they fly into a panic, abandon patience
and prayer, and attempt to get satisfaction and
revenge with their own hands—all because they
have not set the roots of faith deep into their heart and will. |
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Some persons
accept the Word in faith but then allow the attractions of the
world to overgrow their lives and choke out the
fruits of faith. |
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Christ also spoke about the
Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat (Matthew 13:24-30), in which
He described how evildoers and those who cause others to sin will co-exist
with the faithful until the final judgment.
So in today’s world—filled
as it is with anti-Christian lore and soaked in
impiety and heresy—you need to apply yourself
to some serious study and
prayer in order to disentangle the truth from all
the lies that have been sown over centuries of
disobedient self-indulgence—lest you
end up in the fire with all the
weeds.
Therefore, anyone who claims
that being a Christian in today’s world is “easy” has sadly
failed to understand a basic point about Christianity: the world hates true
Christianity because Christ places restrictions on the world’s
narcissistic self-enjoyment.
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 The preacher of God’s
truth has told us that all who want to live righteously in Christ will suffer
persecution. If he spoke the truth and did not lie, the only exception to
this general statement is, I think, the person who either neglects, or does
not know how, to live temperately, justly and righteously in this
world.
May you never be numbered among those whose house is peaceful, quiet and
free from care; those on whom the Lord’s chastisement does not descend;
those who live out their days in prosperity, and in the twinkling of an eye
will go down to hell. |
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—From a letter by Saint Raymond,
priest
(Office of Readings, January 7:
Raymond of Penyafort, Priest) |
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And, I will add, there are many
bishops and priests in the world today who, in the twinkling of an eye, will
go down to hell simply because they have neglected
Christ’s command to “feed My sheep” and have instead been
feeding His sheep to the wolves.
But do you really need a psychologist
to teach you how to live a Christian spiritual life? The truth is, you
don’t.
 Both
Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila had uncanny psychological
insight into the workings of the mind and heart,
 and
yet neither had any formal training in psychology, because psychology
didn’t even exist as a science in their time.
This just goes to show that genuine
mystic spirituality ultimately leads to accurate psychological insight. And
it also shows that those who write or preach about
spirituality while misunderstanding psychology—as
in advocating a sentimental desire for happiness
and self-fulfillment—don’t really
understand mysticism.
Anyone who prays
humbly and sincerely and in good
faith will be given what is needed. Although a good
Catholic psychologist can help you see your blind spots and can help you
interpret your
dreams, there is still much you can do
on your own.
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But if any of
you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly,
and he will be given it. But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the
one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about
by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything
from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his
ways. |
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—James 1:5–8 |
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But what, in modern language,
does it mean to ask while doubting?
Well, imagine that once you choose
to live a devout spiritual life you step onto a path that leads out of the
city and right to your own crucifixion. You have to walk out knowing you
will never come back. If you turn back, there
is nothing but hell. And if you begin to doubt
and hesitate and look to the world to entertain
you along the way, rest assured that the cross won’t come to get
you—but the devil himself will soon show up, wearing a nice tuxedo,
holding the door to his limousine, just for you.
Sacrifice, Obedience,
and Prayer
Many persons come to a psychologist
complaining of the pain they suffer at the hands of another. My friends
neglect me. Lovers abuse me. My husband is unfaithful. My wife is critical.
My children are disobedient. And most of them balk when they hear that
the only way they can find genuine healing is to
accept responsibility for their part in all the
suffering around them.
 Except for very young
children abused by their parents (or other adults), no one is innocent
psychologically. We all share responsibility for everything
that happens around us. A wife may not have caused her husband to have an
affair, but perhaps she dreaded the warning signs along the way and shrank
back from doing anything about them. The teenage boy may not have caused
his abusive father to beat him, but perhaps, in his anger over his mother’s
divorce, he provoked his father with
disobedience.
And so, whether through timidity
or through provocation, we contribute to the suffering around us. And we
don’t like it when someone shows us that fact.
But Christ showed it to us
anyway.
He showed it in His Body and
Blood; the Apostles proclaimed it; the mystics through the ages have confirmed
it: If we want peace in our hearts, we cannot escape our responsibility to
others around us. Remember My Passion, and if you do not believe My words,
at least believe My wounds.
Christ Himself took full
responsibility for the world’s suffering by taking it all on Himself.
And He called us to do the same. And we crucified Him for it.
Thus, for those who repent the
fact that during His bitter Passion we all tore at His Body and
Heart, only one trinitarian action can lead
to genuine healing and peace: sacrifice, obedience, and
prayer.
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Sacrifice
can also be referred to as suffering, or fasting.
Fasting, in its literal sense, means to
do without our accustomed food so that in feeling physical hunger we might
recognize a spiritual hunger for holiness; suffering, in its literal sense,
means to endure pain that we have done nothing to deserve. But the broad
sense of sacrifice means that we must give up what we don’t really
need, so as to give to others what they do need. In other words, we must
give up the psychological defenses that protect
us from feeling unloved by the social world so that we can give
true love to others. And so we must feel the pain
of all the sins of the world, we must
bear that pain patiently, and we must offer our
suffering as our own daily “fasting” for
the sake of all those souls who might turn back to God because of our constant
sacrifices for them.
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You shall accept
all sufferings with love. Do not be afflicted if
your heart often experiences repugnance and dislike for sacrifice. All its
power rests in the will, and so these contrary feelings, far from lowering
the value of sacrifice in My eyes, will enhance it.
—as told to Saint Faustina,
Diary, 1767 |
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Obedience
can also be thought of as our call to charity and mercy, for
Christ Himself, who in His love for us obediently
died on a cross for our redemption, commanded
us to love others as He has loved us. |
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Prayer
refers to our unceasing communion with divine will. Because our lives belong
to God, not to ourselves, we must dwell in God’s presence in every moment
of our lives. We must pray constantly for God’s
mercy, for nothing else in life has any
enduring meaning. And we must pray for the
repentance and conversion of anyone who
injures or insults us, lest our lives remain stuck in bitterness and
vengeance.
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What You Can
Do
I’ve seen it over and over
again, in church and in my office: people are all smiles and devotional behavior
on the surface, but once they are pushed the slightest bit against their
own will they become very hostile, very quickly. For most people, love
is just an intellectual concept—a surface scratch. So understand
that love doesn’t get real until, as an expression of sacrifice,
obedience, and prayer, it rips right into your
heart.
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Many persons
shopping for a spiritual life will inquire of the Catholic Church, “This
wisdom and peace you offer—how much does it cost?”
The reply is simple and straightforward:
“Everything you have—all your heart, and all your soul, and all
your mind, and all your strength.”
They shake their heads. “No, that’s too
expensive. We want something the ordinary person can afford.”
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Here’s what you can do,
then, to discover real love:
Deny
yourself. Do what Christ told us all
to do. Stop seeking your own pleasure and your own imaginary
identity; instead, follow the
spiritual counsels so that you will be in a proper
state of mind and heart to perceive—and receive—the graces that
God sends you. In this way you will be able to recognize and repent your
own sins while assisting others to recognize and repent their
sins.
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When Christ and
the Apostles found themselves with only a few loaves of bread and one fish,
in the midst of thousands of hungry people, Christ could have said to the
Apostles, “Just enjoy what you have; the others can fend for
themselves.” But no. Instead, He proceeded to give away what He had
and, in the process, multiplied it. In a similar way, when you make sacrifices,
you don’t deprive yourself of anything; instead, you multiply
love. |
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Learn
to pray. As you pare away worldly
distractions, turn to prayer for true sustenance.
But understand that unless you learn to surrender
yourself totally, renounce your own desires,
and follow the discipline of both vocal and mental prayer, the answers to
your prayers will most likely be your own wish-fulfillment fantasies,
not God’s will. Prayer is not something to be taken casually, or your
own
unconscious psychology will lead you
astray.
 Read.
Read and study
as if your life depended on it, because it does. You need to study the truth
so as to protect yourself from getting infected by the
indifference, ingratitude, and contempt of
the corrupt world around you. As you are learning
to pray, begin reading the Imitation of Christ. Read it straight through
once, quickly, but thereafter open it at random and read bits of it in depth,
as a sort of daily guidance, while reading the other books, including the
Bible.
Confess
your sins. Be careful, though,
not to look just at the surface of things. For example, if you have troubling
sexual temptations, you might confess merely that
you have troubling sexual temptations. But if you study this website
and realize that troubling sexual temptations are
an
unconscious, psychological way to comfort yourself
when you feel weak or helpless or abandoned, then you can confess the
real problem: that you are prone to “take matters into your own
hands” when you feel weak or helpless or abandoned and that you avoid
bringing your fears directly to
God.
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“I’m
not a psychologist,” a priest will say. And well said; it’s a fact.
And it’s also a sad excuse to hide the mistakes priests make in preaching
and in directing the confessional process. The truth is, if more priests
would deny themselves and live ascetic lives then perhaps they might receive
the mystic gift of cardiognosis—the ability to “read”
hearts—which can compensate for a lack of formal psychological
training. |
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Understand
humility. Understand love. Understand
that mystic Christianity is not a matter of knowledge for its own sake. It
is not a matter of intellectual prowess or of philosophy. It is not a matter
of arguing with others. It is not a matter of displaying your holiness for
others to see and admire. It is not a matter of visions and ecstasies. It
is simply a matter of emptiness of self and pure
love. Holiness is measured not with
“spiritual” feelings but with
obedience.
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To be taken with
love for a soul, God does not look on its greatness, but on the greatness
of its humility. |
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—St. John of the Cross
The Sayings of Light and Love, no. 103. |
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You can see visions, hear locutions,
and pray in tongues, but what good are these
things if they do not lead you into ever deeper
humility and ever greater acts of suffering and
self-sacrifice for the sake of mercy to others?
See yourself, then, as a nobody.
Put yourself at the service of all. Give all you have and be a living example
of that divine grace and glory you most ardently desire. Feel the pain and
the sadness of all the sin in the world around you,
but do not pay attention to what others
do—focus instead on your own yearning for chaste and humble purity
of heart. For just as sin is the punishment of sin, love is the reward of
love.
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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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Just realize, though, that none
of this comes easily. If you pray, “Lord, increase my faith,”
don’t expect God to magically anoint you
with a large dose of faith. Instead, you will have
affliction after affliction heaped upon your head, and as you graciously
cope with it all through loving perseverance,
you will emerge from the struggle to find that your
faith has, indeed, increased.
It’s that simple—and
that demanding. Which is why you will see so many “Christians”
happily waving to you from their limos as they ride by.
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Read
an excerpt from a writing about the martyrdom of love
