The cross as the summit of our life

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WE have this happy assurance from our Christian faith—”God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3,16) We should just know what this divine assurance implies.

Yes, we are assured of eternal life with God if we follow Christ who clearly told us that if we want to be with him, we should deny ourselves and carry the cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) In short, the cross should be the summit of our life, just as the cross was the culmination of Christ’s mission of the redemption of mankind.

Not only that, we have to understand that we should have the cross not only at the end of our life, but rather in our daily life. It should be the summit of all our earthly activities. That would assure us that we would be with Christ and would be working also for the salvation of mankind, ours and that of everybody else.

We need to process this truth of our faith about the cross so we can live it truly. It should not just be a desire or an intention. More than that, the cross, in whatever form it comes, should cause joy in us rather than just a distorted face of pain.

We, therefore, have to learn to lose any fear of the cross. That instinct of ours to be afraid and to flee from the cross has to be reversed, and made into an instinct of love for the cross.

This may take time and effort, this may require a lot of thinking and discipline, this may involve some drastic and even painful adjustments in our understanding of things, but it is all worthwhile to do so.

When we lose the fear of the cross and develop the love for it instead, we would have the proper light to guide us in our life here on earth. Not only that, we can have the invincible peace and joy that is proper to us as persons and as children of God.

Thus, it is important that we have a proper understanding about the phenomenon of evil and suffering in this world. And that proper understanding comes from our Christian faith.

In the Catechism, we are told that God permits evil to happen because he respects the freedom of men and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it. (cfr. CCC 311) The Catechism further tells us regarding this point that:

“In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: ‘It was not you,’ said Joseph to his brothers, ‘who sent me here, but God…You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.’

“From the greatest moral evil ever committed—the rejection and murder of God’s only Son, caused by the sins of all men—God, by his grace that ‘abounded all the more,’ brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption…” (CCC 312)

Again, it’s good to be theological in our understanding of the cross because the mere human attitude toward the cross can never fathom the crucial and indispensable significance the cross of Christ possesses.

Christ’s cross, which Christ himself told us to carry (cfr. Mt 16,24), converts that tree of death that led to the downfall of our pristine humanity in Adam and Eve into a tree of eternal life that brings us back again to God, our Father and Creator.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com