Abbot Clement
=s Talk on Tuesday, 3 September 2002Sunday
=s gospel was the occasion for reflecting on the mystery of the cross. I don=t like to miss an opportunity to speak about that mystery in our community. So it=s not to give you the whole sermon I gave on Sunday, I want to focus on what applies to this issue.Weather we like it or not the cross is in our life. Because of interpersonal relationships there
=s always a certain problem of misunderstanding, sometimes rejection, certainly times of being ignored and maybe worse. So there is no person that doesn=t experience the cross in their life. But our faith tells us that Jesus is in it. That Jesus is working in that precisely to transform us. So already you don=t have to kind of look for occasions they are there. But we have another reason why the cross is in our life. Life makes demands on us. You certainly are a different person because of the demands made on you when you were in grade school, and high school and your work and so on. So each period of your life you encounter life=s situations that make demands on you. And in that process you have to embrace the cross. But again, Jesus is in that. But then all the spiritual writers tell us that that=s not enough.There
=s another reason why we need the cross. We need the cross because we have no way of purifying ourselves from our pride, from our rebelliousness, from our lack of loving the way that Jesus calls us to love, and areas in our life where we=re not responding to the opportunities that God=s working on us to fulfill the divine image that he created us with. It=s in us. And so we need the cross. And, of course, the problem is how much do you exercise your faith in order to go with the work of Jesus in your life? So I want you to ponder two things that are rather easy to understand and I think easy to apply. In the life of Sister Josepha Menedez, she was kind of happy suffering for Jesus one time and she expressed that to Jesus and Jesus said to her, Awhen you are boyed up in serving me, then know that I am sustaining you and you are resting in me. And when things get difficult and so on, remember I am resting in you.@ So the first truth of that statement is Baptism. We are always with Jesus, we=re in Jesus. And so the good days, the supportive days, the days in which it=s easy to serve the Lord, it=s the Lord who is allowing us to rest in him. And on the days that are not so nice, a little bumpy, or worse, then you have to remember that the Lord is resting in you. He=s there, He=s supporting you but He=s resting in you. In this way then your whole life is going to be a plucking advantage of things that St. John of the Cross says, Ato pluck advantage of these things.@ And of course, then the second one is rather easy to understand, is that when we come around the liturgy we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. To proclaim the death of the Lord is to proclaim the tremendous blessings that are poured out upon us by the cross, the death and resurrection of Jesus. And so in this we receive the power and the transforming work of God that allows us to become ever more the disciples of Jesus who can carry the cross with a joyful heart.