Jesus, the Christ, was crucified one day in Jerusalem long ago, then rose from the dead three days later. But that was not the end of it. Jesus, the Christ, continues to live and give the power of the cross today—every day—at every mass. He becomes present to us—and to the world—through this now unbloody self-sacrifice of God.
I had known from formation when I became Catholic that Jesus was physically present in the forms of bread and wine at every mass, but it was only when I had a class at St. Meinrad on the Eucharist that I came to also understand THE PRESENCE OF GOD AT EVERY MASS COMES FROM THE RE-ENACTMENT OF HIS CRUCIFIXION. The True Presence comes from the True Sacrifice. It isn’t that God just wants to be with us. God continues to save the world by giving of Himself to the world through us. He comes, that we might have his life in us—then, that we might give ourselves up in OUR lives, as He gives himself up to us.
Wow!
Why do we have a focus on the cross now, in September? Part of it comes from where the Gospels go after the Transfiguration: they go to the cross, because Jesus starts talking about it. We see it today. There is also a historical reason: The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross comes on September 14th. That liturgical celebration, this week on a Thursday, commemorates when St. Helen, mother of the Emperor Constantine, traveled to Jerusalem and found “the true cross.” This feast also became a way to celebrate the end of the persecutions of Christians in the early centuries. AND it was the dividing line between the summer schedules of monks, when they did more physical work and ate more food, and their winter schedules, when they prayed and studied more and ate less food. Remembering the cross helped them think of why they were now called to different sacrifices.
Today, as fall and winter come in the Northern Hemisphere, it is good for us to consider: why the cross? Our readings today have much to tell us.
Jeremiah 20:7-9
Jeremiah is perhaps the major prophet of the fall of Jerusalem. He predicted it beforehand, endured the sieges before the fall, was there when the city was destroyed, and was exiled with its people. His book of Lamentations has served for centuries as a text for crying out to God in extreme distress.
Today, in the book of Jeremiah, he mourns what God asks him to do. “The word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day.” It did. At first no one believed him. Then, when God told him to encourage the king and people to peacefully surrender, he was accused of being a traitor.
Yet, as he says so eloquently in today’s reading, he was called to sacrifice himself:
I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
Matthew 16:21-27
Now Peter, lauded just last week in our liturgies, just a few verses before in Matthew 16, gets himself in trouble. His trouble today is the same trouble that Jeremiah had: having a hard time believing God was in charge and knew what he was doing when he asked for sacrifice. It is the same trouble that caused Peter to deny Christ on Holy Thursday night: he could not comprehend the cross. How could the Christ, the Savior, triumph by seeming defeat? How could suffering be the way God would save?
It made no sense to him when Jesus first said it. It made no sense during the Passion. Just like it continues to befuddle us. Oh, yes, we see the value of the cross FOR JESUS through the eyes of history. We know he rose from the dead. We know he opened up Eternal Life for us. We know he triumphed. But….
IF (hopefully WHEN) we believe in the True Presence of God at every mass, we appreciate Jesus’ sacrifice 2000 years ago—and maybe we even appreciate Jesus’ sacrifice today. We are thankful because Jesus comes. Jesus, who is God, comes to us. He is here. Our God is here. But…
Romans 12:1-2
But how I resist what St. Paul says today!
I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.
Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.
I suspect monks (and nuns) through the centuries grimaced as they gave up an extra meal, ate their one meal later in the day, and traded time working in the sunshine of the fields for reading by candlelight in the night.
The tendency in the past was for monks to interpret “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice” to mean to do penances—deny themselves food and rest. In those centuries, most often, us ordinary faithful had life pretty hard all the time, though we would have been encouraged to extra physical sacrifice, too.
Is that what we are called to do? Maybe. Physical penances of denying food or rest or other pleasures are good for developing control over our innate selfishness. They are good for exercising our will.
But the catechism calls us to more:
1109 The epiclesis (when the priest calls down the Holy Spirit to make Jesus and his sacrifice real and present in the mass) is also a prayer for the full effect of the assembly’s communion with the mystery of Christ. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” have to remain with us always and bear fruit beyond the Eucharistic celebration. The Church therefore asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit to make the lives of the faithful a living sacrifice to God by their spiritual transformation into the image of Christ by concern for the Church’s unity, and by taking part in her mission through the witness and service of charity.
How?
There are all the little sacrifices that we can “offer up.” Many people can offer up real, serious physical, relationship, or spiritual suffering. We question when we suffer: Why, God? St. Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical on the sanctity of all human life, “More than anything else, it is the problem of suffering which challenges faith and puts it to the test.” (Evangelium Vitae, 31)
When we question our own or others’ long, tedious, riveting suffering, we are with Peter. We pray, “Forbid it, Lord!” To our human minds, it makes no sense. God could have saved the world any way he chose…yet he chose suffering: first for himself, but, then, also for his followers. “Forbid it, Lord!” “No!” “Why?”
Fr. Mike Schmitz has a good youtube presentation of a longer, deeper answer to that that I can give:
https://www.bing.com/search?FORM=SLBRDF&PC=SL10&q=Youtube+Fr+Mike+Schmitze+on+suffering
The little part that I can understand Paul says in II Corinthians, “when I am weak, I am strong.” (II Corinthians 12:10) When Christ was crucified, evil assaulted him with all its power. He did not fight back using the strategies of earthly power. He remained God, remained true to his nature of love, endured the evil, and overcame it. Because Jesus did that, we can, too, whether it is the evil of sickness, relationship, hardship, or oppression. When we do, we do what St. Paul and the catechism say. We make ourselves living sacrifices.
Today, or some time this week, spend some time praying before a Crucifix. What is Jesus saying to you?
Prayer:
Lord, like Peter, my logical human mind cannot understand the value of suffering to bring about good. Like Peter, I do not want to do it. Like Peter, I do not want to see others suffer—including You, Lord. Yet you do. Perhaps you do not suffer in the re-enactment memorial that happens at each mass, but how could you not suffer at our lack of understanding of your great, saving, perpetual gift? At the times we go through the motions at mass, but, truly, only our bodies are present. Our minds and spirits are elsewhere. Or…..our sins, my sins, of lack of appreciation are too many.
Help me to thank You, Lord, for Your patient sacrifice. Help me to be more willing to join you today than I was yesterday, more willing next week than last. Help Me live in the shadow of the cross.
