The Fruit of the Crucifixion: Final Perseverance
We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. Because, by Your holy Cross, You have redeemed the world.
“Carrying the cross” and “being crucified with Jesus” are two overlapping metaphors that apply to the whole of the Christian life. Still, in terms of the intensity of suffering, one could make a distinction between carrying the cross with Jesus and being on the cross with Him. The suffering of our Saviour reaches its climax when He is cruelly nailed to the tree of the Cross and raised up in the sight of a scornful multitude. Jesus spends His final hours agonizing on this pulpit of pain, where He preaches not with the eloquence of His heavenly words, but with the force of His burning love expressed in excruciating suffering. Among the many sermons He gives by His death, one is a call to final perseverance.
“… when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). The Blood of Jesus has infinite value; a single drop would suffice to redeem the world… but Love had a greater plan: a plenteous redemption (cf. Ps 130:7). As our Saviour hung in torment, some onlookers derided Him, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt 27:40). Jesus could have come down from the Cross in an instant. Instead, He accepted His death and stayed on the Cross to the end, when, having fulfilled the Will of the Father in its entirety, He said, ““It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (Jn 19:30).
Our Saviour’s suffering on the Cross was His greatest work, the crowning act of His life. On Calvary, Jesus defeated death by death and extended to the whole human race the hope of the Resurrection. By saving us through suffering, Christ has redeemed our suffering. God has metamorphosized the evil of suffering into a vehicle of salvation. For the Catholic Christian, every suffering united to the Cross of Jesus is redemptive: a means of reparation for sin, saving souls with Jesus, and purifying our hearts so we are ready to behold God face-to-face in the glory of the life to come.
Sadly, the world sees suffering as something to be avoided at all costs – as worse than death itself. Blind to the redemptive meaning of human suffering, people today do not want to remain on their crosses until the end. They want to come down from the cross. In Canada, medical assistance in dying (MAID) is a case in point. Since its legalization in 2016, each year, the number of people who are choosing MAID has increased by thousands. As Catholics, we must not rebel against the wisdom of God’s plan and take life and death into our own hands. Like Jesus, we are called to abandon ourselves into the Hands of God in the midst of suffering, especially in our final moments.
Death is a critical moment: Our eternal salvation depends upon the state of our soul at the moment we breathe our last. This is why we pray for final perseverance – the grace to persevere in loving God to the end. Think of the thousands of Hail Marys you have prayed in your lifetime. Every time we recite this prayer, we are asking Our Heavenly Mother to intercede for us in that final passage: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
No one is in a better position to help us faithfully complete our earthly pilgrimage than Mary! Heartbroken as she was, Mary didn’t try to stop Jesus from suffering. Rather, she encouraged Jesus to persevere in the work of our redemption, and she will do the same for us in our own ‘Passion’. Mary consoled His Sacred Heart with the beauty of her perfect love, staying with Jesus to the bitter end, allowing herself to be spiritually crucified with Him. In our own experience of suffering, she is ready to help us persevere to the end and console the Heart of her Son.
Our heavenly Mother also models for us how to accompany our loved ones as they undergo their ‘Passion’. Watching a loved one suffer and die can be more painful than suffering and dying ourselves – Mary would have gladly died in place of Jesus! Still, she accepted the Will of the Father and the role she was assigned in the Redemption. Just as Mary stood faithfully at the foot of the Cross, we are called to be present at the bedsides of our dying loved ones, offering them our love, our care, and our willingness to share spiritually in the depths of their suffering.
At Calvary, Mary’s “yes” to God, spoken at the Annunciation, reaches its full maturity (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 103). So it is with us. Whenever we approach the mystery of death – in our own lives or the lives of those we love – may we draw near to the Sorrowful Mother, and find in her the strength to say to the Father, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
