The Courage of the Cross

OUR BELONGING TO THE CHURCH acquires its basic stability in the very place where the Church is born: on the cross. That is where the definitive "Yes" of obedience was pronounced, overcoming the primordial disobedience. That is where the "ancient serpent," instigator of rebellion and sin, was cast into the abyss once and for all. That is where our belonging becomes filial because we are made sons and daughters in the Son. And there at the foot of the cross, participating in Jesus' total dereliction, is the Mother who brings us forth as God's sons and daughters. This is what we experience when we seek to ground our hearts by renewing our sense of belonging to the Church. Because the Church comes to birth and has its foundation in the cross, every other foundation will also share in the cross. In every ecclesial foundation there is a cross, for the very hour of the Church's birth coincides with the hour of Lord's death.

THE CROSS IS the "final battle" of Jesus: in the cross is to be found the definitive victory. Considering this war of God that takes place on the cross, we need to speak now of the militant sense our lives take on if we commit them to the Lord. It is impossible to conceive the "essence" of our service to Jesus Christ without this dimension. In our pastoral work, we will always be tempted to avoid the struggle or to hedge our bets; or else we will confuse the whys and wherefores of the struggle, the "how" and the "when. " How many men and women have become entangled in their pastoral action because they did not know how to struggle "divinely"? How many have confused the battle with the bustle? And how many, in the midst of the daily dust-ups, have failed to recognize who the enemy really was and have ended up wounding one another? Still others, fearful of any struggle and seeking a counterfeit peace, have consumed their lives in a quietude that is as unfruitful as it is ineffective.