Only he who “lives by Christ” can fully bear his cross

Our nature, to be sure, struggles against the cross: we seek to flee from it. Sometimes we achieve this purpose to a degree by keying down our life to a lower standard, and appeasing our desire for happiness with more trivial goods.

If, on the one hand, this success in eschewing the cross can never be but a partial and largely an illusory one, on the other hand it again requires a great deal to experience one’s cross to the full. He alone who “lives by Christ” is able to bear the whole weight of a heavy cross—to endure it integrally; to realize all the suffering it implies. He alone, above all, is able so to cling to it as to make the cross, as it were, carry him. He alone is able to carry it in full inward peace and unity: without recalcitrance or despair, without even the bitterness of emphatic resignation.

For to him, and him only, it means the gift of a participation in carrying the holy Cross of Our Lord. He endures crucifixion with Christ. He hails the cross as a possibility of expiation for his own and also for others’ sins, a means of the purification he is allowed to undergo by God’s mercy. To die to himself in order to be reborn in Christ is what he desires. He knows that all death is painful—that without the cross and suffering he cannot die to himself. For the Lord has said: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).

Properly bearing our cross unites us with Christ

Such a true Christian may not, as did certain saints, seek for suffering. This requires a special vocation. The cross that God sends him, however, he must in love be ready to welcome: O Crux, ave spes unica. He may pray that he be spared the cross, saying with Jesus, “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me” (Matt. 26:39), but not without adding as Jesus did, in a spirit of ultimate acquiescence in the will of God: “Nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt.”

For it is out of love that God sends our cross to us; and it is destined to prepare the way for a deeper love for God. So long as God does not take the cross from us, we must feel it as a participation in the Cross of Christ, as a costly treasure, as a divine gift of mysterious fruitfulness. In bearing our cross, we are placed in contact with Christ suffering out of charity. We should bring ourselves to recognize in our cross the countenance of the suffering Savior; to experience the nearness to Christ implied in its acceptance. Blessed are all those who bear a cross, for they shall be comforted: as St. Paul says, “As you are partakers of the sufferings [of Christ], so shall you be also of the consolation” (2 Cor. 1:7).