The Fruit of the Carrying of the Cross: Patience
Some of the words of Jesus are easier for us to hear than others. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” is soothing balm for the troubled heart (Matt 11:28). The next verse, however, points to one of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The yoke Jesus speaks of is the Cross, which would seem to keep us labouring and heavy laden. How do we make sense of this paradox?
We live in a culture of instant gratification. Quick dopamine hits from social media. Fast food available on every city street, or if I want something a little more wholesome, fresh groceries delivered right to my front door. Real-time access to information via my smartphone. Free two-day shipping with Amazon Prime. The car of my dreams – don’t pay now, pay later, with low-interest financing.
The Kingdom of God works in a very different way. It takes root gradually in our hearts, through a patient process of daily conversion… and we have to wait – for the next world – to enjoy its ecstatic fulfillment. Therefore, the “rest” Jesus promises us isn’t freedom from earthly suffering. It’s something far deeper and more precious: peace.
Peace is the fruit of a rightly ordered heart – a heart that revolves around God, for Whom we were made and Who alone can satisfy our deepest longings. At their creation, Adam and Eve were perfectly at peace because God was their center… but this all changed when freely chose a new center. Having been deceived by the Father of Lies, our first parents chose the instant gratification of the forbidden fruit over God – a choice that yielded death instead of the beatific happiness God was preparing for them. When they removed God from the center, their inner integrity was shattered. They experienced concupiscence, the disordering of their desires – a kind of spiritual chaos within them. Displacing God from His rightful place yields disorder and disturbance at the deepest level of our being. It yields spiritual disease – dis-ease – the opposite of the peace our souls long for.
God is our Father, and because He loves His children passionately, He took upon Himself the debt of our sins and paid it in full with His Precious Blood. In His wisdom, however, He didn’t take suffering out of the human equation. Like any good parent, God loves His children enough to discipline them and provide them with the opportunities they need to grow. The Genesis curses are remedial – a carrying of the cross for the sake of conversion. Hard work, labour pains, and the manifold challenges of daily life offer us the chance to reorder our hearts out of the disorder of our fallen nature. In other words, carrying the cross is spiritual rehab for the dis-ease of concupisence. Our will is like a muscle that has been profoundly weakened by original sin. Putting God in the center – especially when it hurts – strengthens the will in the exercise of well-ordered love. It rebuilds our spiritual integrity, the fruit of which is peace.
Anyone who has experienced a serious illness or injury understands that rehabilitation takes time. Muscles don’t go from weak to strong overnight. Neither do we pass in a moment from vice to virtue. Carrying the cross is a difficult and demanding process, and this why the fruit of the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery is patience. At the same time, we don’t have to be afraid of its weight. Jesus says, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. The yoke of the Cross is easy because we are bound to Jesus. He carries it with us; He carried it first. Carrying the cross yields the greatest treasure imaginable: union with God.
So how do we respond to the traffic delay on the highway? To the thoughtlessness of a spouse? To finding the item we drove across town to buy out of stock? To the irritating habits of a coworker? To the monotony of an assembly-line job, or the never-ending stack of dishes in the kitchen sink? These ‘slivers’ of the cross are the stuff of our sanctification! Every time we deny ourselves and accept life’s crosses in a spirit of loving obedience, our will is strengthened in rightly-ordered love. Having a heart in right relationship with God is the cure for our spiritual dis-ease. As the crosses we bear strengthen this relationship, the inner chaos of our disordered desires gives way to a supernatural peace.
Perhaps God has sent us a cross that is more severe: a life-changing injury, a terminal illness, or the devastating loss of a loved one. These crosses invite a special solidarity and intimacy with Jesus and Mary. When we contemplate Jesus on the agonizing road to Calvary – already beaten and scourged beyond recognition – surrounded by the shouts and insults of a hostile crowd – tortured by a crown of thorns digging into His Sacred Head – barely able to walk, yet pressed on beneath a crushing weight – the meaning and proportion of our own crosses begins to come into view. Likewise, when we contemplate the Sorrowful Mother: Who can comprehend her anguish at seeing her innocent Son so brutally abused? Humanly speaking, their sufferings were intolerable; yet the divine love burning within the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts impelled them to carry on in obedience to the Father’s Will, to obtain our salvation. When we feel like our crosses are too heavy and are tempted to lose patience, we must ask Jesus and Mary to share with us their spirit of loving sacrifice, that we too may participate in the world’s redemption.
This Holy Week, may we ask for the grace to bear our crosses with a new patience, so we can enjoy the blessed peace of divine intimacy in this life and the enthralling bliss of the life to come.
The real tragedy in life isn’t suffering. The real tragedy is wasted suffering.
