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January 2000/2
THE ANGELS AND THE CROSS
I. THE CROSS DEFINED
On Saturday, October 24, 1998 before a group of American bishops from New England, Pope John Paul II stated that "Humanity now stands at a cross roads." For there are signs indicating "a new spiritual crisis," he warned, " whose dangers are apparent not only at the personal level but also regarding civilization itself." And if this crisis is not addressed soon, if it is not squarely faced, then," he said, "a new era of barbarism rather than a new springtime of hope, may well follow this century of tears."
It is clear, then, from the Pope's statement that the human race is now standing at a critical juncture in its history: maybe the most critical in all of history. For it is standing at a crossroads, and the direction it takes in the next few years may well determine the course of civilization for centuries. This fact is becoming increasingly obvious to many people. But what is not so obvious, however, is the fact that at the center of these crossroads stand: an angel and the cross. To understand why this is so -- to understand more about this mysterious reality -- a reality which most people are only dimly aware of, we need to learn more about the nature of the cross.
What do we mean, then, when we say the word "cross"? First of all we mean the physical sign of two lines or beams set across each other at 90 degree angles. Next, we mean the symbol of something or someone being subjected to some form of opposition or contradiction or contrary tension. In a word, the cross can be defined, as the pain or the tension we feel -- whether spiritual, mental, or physical -- and the sufferings we sometimes experience, when our will, that is our wants and desires -- which is represented by the horizontal beam of the cross -- intersects with God's will -- which is represented by the vertical beam. This is how Bishop Sheen explains it.
"As we cross God's will by sin, He crosses our will by love to make us perfect." "Sometimes he sends mental crosses like worries, fears or anxieties to make us feel his absence," and sometimes "He sends physical crosses like sufferings to make us feel his presence. For sickness and physical pain," Bishop sheen stresses, "forcibly draws us away from the world and its pleasures and makes us realize that the scarred hands of Christ cannot touch us without leaving wounds."
In other words, we can say that the cross is the symbol of God's will intersecting our will. For it represents, in effect, the unification of two opposites: the human and the divine and the heavenly and the earthly. Now we can go even further than this and say that the cross is the symbol of self-denial. For Christ himself tells us in the gospel that if we want to follow him, then we must deny ourselves and take up our cross every day. (Cf. Lk 9:23)
"Far from being a dead symbol," then, "the cross poses live issues, and it goes on asking live questions that demand an answer." For this reason, we need to ask ourselves whenever we see a cross: "what has this to do with me? How am I conforming to it? Do I know what it is all about? Have I ever related it to life? To my life?" Now the importance, of asking ourselves these questions, especially in these pleasure loving anti-Christian times of ours, simply cannot be overestimated. For there is an ever-present danger and temptation to relegate the cross to a place on the wall and then simply forget about it.
And so we can never study the book of the cross too long or too deeply. For it is one of the greatest mysteries of our faith and there will always be something more that can be learned about it.
Now many of the saints have written very insightfully and specifically about the mystery of the Cross of Christ. And so if we study their writings closely, we can learn much that will help us to understand the true meaning and nature of the cross itself, and the role that it plays in our own life. St. John Chrysostom, for example, calls the Cross of Christ not only the "joy of the spirit, the pride of the angels, the guarantee of the Church, the bulwark of the saints," but also "the light of the entire world." For the cross, he says, was used by Christ like a sword to kill the devil.
St. Theodore the Studite also writes very beautifully about Christ's cross. Interestingly, he compares the tree of the cross to the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden and says, "in the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, like there was in the tree of Paradise. For the fruit of the tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. Since the cross does not cast us out of Paradise, but opens the way for our return."
Similarly, St Andrew of Crete calls the cross "Christ's trophy." Because it was by the cross, he says, that "the devil was wounded, death defeated, and the barred gates of hell smashed."
But in recent years, however, it has been Pope John Paul who has taken the lead and spoken most eloquently about the nature and meaning of the cross. For example, he describes the cross, using beautiful imagery, as: "the sign of our salvation, the banner of our final victory," the "torch which keeps alive the expectation of the new day of the resurrection," and also as "the living book in which we learn definitively who we are and how we ought to behave."
Besides this the Pope stresses that the cross "is not a sign of death but of life -- not of frustration but of hope -- not of defeat but of victory" and that "the mystery of life would be a meaningless riddle without it." For the cross, he explains, "teaches us to love everyone and to cooperate with Christ's redemptive work."
In short, says the Pope, "all the teachings contained in the Gospel are summarized in the crucifix." And so because of this the cross can "speak to us with an unequaled eloquence," since when all is said and done, the cross speaks to us, stresses the Holy Father, with "the eloquence of blood."
For all these reasons, then, Pope John Paul encourages us to see "the cross not only 'as the measure of God's love' but also as the means by which we 'can win the victory over sin, over Satan, and over death."
To sum up, everything that has been said so far, then, we can say that the cross is both the symbol of self-denial and the symbol of God's will. Unfortunately, however, today many people go about in a way that shows that they are enemies of the Cross of Christ. St. Paul accused the Philippians of acting this way 2,000 years ago, and what he said then is even more true now than ever. For many, if not most people today, have their sights fixed on the pleasures of this world and the works of the flesh. In other words, their "god is their belly and their glory is their shame," (Phil. 3:19) as St. Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians. And this has happened because they believe that happiness is found by doing their own will and not the will of God.
THE ANGELS, THE CROSS AND THE STIGMATISTS
The angels, however, the angels above all, since they continually behold the face of the Father in Heaven, see the folly -- the complete absurdity -- of this philosophy of life, if you could call it that. And so they do everything in their power to lead people back to the cross by encouraging them to lead lives of prayer, self-denial, and sacrifice.
Now this close relationship between the angel and the cross can be seen, in a particularly striking way in the lives of three special saints who received the stigmata.
First of all it can be seen in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. For he received the stigmata, the brand marks of Christ, not only on September 14th, which is the feast-day of the Holy Cross but also while he was in the middle of making a 40 day fast in honor of St. Michael the Archangel. Besides this it is significant that the stigmata were imprinted on St. Francis by Christ himself, who had taken on the appearance of a six-winged seraphim nailed to a cross.
Now the fact that Christ did this should not surprise us, because, as the Catechism points out, "Christ is the center of the angelic world … The angels belong to him because they were created through him and for him … and because he has made them messengers of his saving plan. (CCC 331, emphasis added.)
The life of St. Gemma Galgani also shows us how the angels encourage us to love the cross. Specifically, her Guardian Angel, whom she was privileged to see on a regular basis, would help her to meditate on the Passion of Christ. "Look," he would sometimes say to her, "at what Jesus suffered for men, and consider one by one his wounds." And then he would stress to her "the evil of sin, … since to expiate it, so much pain and so much love has been necessary."
And so because of these encouraging words, St. Gemma wished to have her Guardian Angel close by her side in all of her sufferings. Specifically, her spiritual director tells us that after "she had been cruelly beaten by the devil during evening prayer, and being unable to move, her angel lifted her into bed and there stood watching by her pillow."
Padre Pio, probably the most well known of modern stigmatists, was also strengthened and consoled by his Guardian Angel after he, too, was attacked by the devil. In his own words he tells us what happened one night in his room at the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo. "After I scolded the devils and treated them as they deserved and when they saw that all their efforts were going up in smoke, they hurled themselves on me, threw me to the ground and proceeded to beat me severely. And they threw pillows, books and chairs around the room with desperate shrieks and the most obscene language."
Now after this attack Padre Pio complained to his Guardian Angel and was told by him: "Thank Jesus who is treating you as one chosen to follow him up the steep slope of Calvary. For Jesus permits these assaults," stressed the angel, "because his compassion makes you dear to him, and he wants you to resemble him in the torments he endured in the desert, in the Garden, and on the cross."
We could not have clearer evidence than these words, then, to show us just how much the angels want us to become like Jesus Christ crucified.
FATIMA: THE ANGELS AND THE CROSS
Now besides the lives of these three famous stigmatists, we can also find evidence of a close connection between the angel and the cross in the lives of the three Fatima children. For an angel appeared to them three times in the year 1916 and gave them detailed instructions about how to suffer, make sacrifices and carry the cross.
In the first apparition, which occurred in the spring of 1916, an angel took the form of a young man. And he was, in the words of Sr. Lucy, "transparent and much brighter than crystal pierced by the rays of the sun." Now each word of what we could call the opening statement of the angel is highly significant and full of meaning.
First off, he said: "Be not afraid," just like the Archangel Gabriel said when he appeared to Zechariah in the Temple at Jerusalem and to Mary in her house at Nazareth. It is as if the angel is saying, "Be not afraid to do God's will. Be not afraid to suffer."
Next the angel identified himself as "the Angel of Peace." Again this is a very significant revelation. For peace of soul can be achieved only if we are willing to carry our cross and strive to do God's will.
Finally, the angel said, "Pray with me." And then he not only taught the children how to pray, but what to pray. For immediately after saying these words, he knelt down, bowed his head to the ground, and made the children repeat three times the prayer: "My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. And I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love you."
The words and actions of the angel in the first apparition show us, then, that we need both prayer and angelic encouragement in order to do God's will and carry our cross.
Now in the second apparition, which occurred in midsummer of 1916, the angel again suddenly appeared and said: "Pray! Pray a great deal. And offer up prayers and sacrifices to the Most High." And then when Sr. Lucy asked, "how are we to make sacrifices?" The angel said: "Make everything you do a sacrifice as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended and for the conversion of sinners." And then he added: "Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings which the Lord will send you"
Two things stand out in this apparition. First off, what strikes us immediately is the fact that the very first words of the angel are: "Pray! Pray a great deal." And this is especially noteworthy because we know that we need to pray -- and to pray a great deal -- in order to receive the graces we need to do God's will and to carry our cross with joy.
The second thing that stands out is the fact that the angel talks about -- not one -- but two kinds of sacrifices: those which we choose and those which God chooses for us. Now by doing this, the angel teaches us an important lesson in cross carrying. For we can learn here, if we study his words carefully, that before we can carry our cross with joy, we must first consciously accept the sufferings that God sends us, and then bear them with patience.
Practically speaking, then, what the angel is trying to teach us here is that our patience will be in proportion to our knowledge of -- and our acceptance of the fact -- that God sends us suffering because he loves us. For this reason, the moment the devil manages to trick us into believing that our sufferings are the fault of someone else, our loving patience will immediately evaporate.
Now this short but profound lesson from the angel on the book of the cross made a deep impression on the children. For Sr. Lucy tells us that the angel's words made her and the others understand "the value of sacrifice, how pleasing it is to God, and how on account of it, he grants the grace of conversion to sinners." And so from that moment on she tells us "we began to offer up all that mortified us and would remain for hours, with our foreheads touching the ground, repeating the prayer the angel had taught us."
The lessons learned, then, in the second apparition were practically priceless. But they were surpassed, however, when the angel appeared again for the third and final time. For this apparition which occurred in the fall of 1916, began with the angel "holding a chalice in his left hand. And suspended over it was a host from which drops of blood were dripping into the chalice." Then, after the children positioned themselves and were kneeling, the angel left "the chalice and host suspended in the air, prostrated himself on the ground, and repeated three times the prayer:
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly. I offer you the most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which he is offended. And through the infinite merits of his Most Sacred Heart, and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.
And after saying this prayer, the angel gave the host to Sr. Lucy and the chalice to Jacinta and Francisco, while saying: "Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God."
Now if we study this final apparition of the angel closely we can learn two invaluable lessons. First we can learn how the angels console Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and how much they want us to do the same. Next, we can learn from the prayer, "Most Holy Trinity," that our reparation should be united to the perfect reparation which Jesus offered on the cross and which he now ceaselessly offers -- on our behalf -- as our great High Priest at the right hand of the Father (Cf. Heb 7:25).
It makes perfect sense, of course, that it would be an angel who would instruct the children on the fine points of prayer and reparation. For the Bible tells us specifically that it was an angel who consoled and strengthened Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, so that he could make an act of perfect reparation to the Father for the sins of mankind. And it also tells us specifically that it is the angels who carry our prayers to God. We can read, for example, in the Book of Tobit (Tob 12:12) about how the Archangel Raphael presented the prayers of Tobias to the Lord, and we can read in the Book of Revelation about how "the smoke of incense, which came from the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hands." (Rev 8:4).
It is clear, then, from the events at Fatima how much the angels want us to pray and make sacrifices. In the case of Sr. Lucy, Jacinta, and Francisco the Angel of Peace was able to communicate a special grace that gave them an almost inexhaustible zeal for prayer and self-denial. And we know this for a fact because later on, after the apparitions ended, the children were inspired to make heroic sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. For example, they would regularly give away their lunch to poor children in the neighborhood. And often, even in the heat of the summer, they would go throughout the day without taking a drink of water. Further, they would wear a rough rope underneath their clothing in order to cause themselves pain and discomfort, so that they might have something extra to offer up to God and the Blessed Mother for the conversion of sinners.
IV. THE ANGELS AND THE CROSS AND THE FATE OF THE MODERN WESTERN WORLD
From all of this, then, we can see how much the Angels do to help us carry our cross and love suffering. In a way, their whole approach to us can be summed up in the first words that the Angel of Peace spoke in Fatima: "Be not afraid".
"Be not afraid," the angels are constantly telling us. And these are the very same words, it must be stressed again, that the Archangel Gabriel spoke to Zechariah in the temple at Jerusalem (Lk 1:13), and to Mary at her house in Nazareth (Lk 1:30). And these are the very same words that an angel spoke to Joseph in a dream in order to encourage him to take Mary as his wife (Mt 1:20). And these are the very same words that an angel spoke to the shepherds in the field when he announced to them the birth of Christ (Lk 2:10).
"Be not afraid," then, are the words used by the angels when they want to encourage us to do God's will and to help us to carry our cross. In other words, we can say that "be not afraid of the cross" is the most basic and the most important message that the angels want to relay to us.
"Be not afraid of the cross" the angels are constantly telling us. But today nobody seems to be listening. Nobody seems to want to hear what the angels have to say. For the world as a whole seems to be in a collective flight from the cross. It sees pain as the ultimate evil and any kind of suffering as a disgrace.
In short, as Pope John Paul II stated four years ago, "the world today has rejected the cross which is totally foreign to its way of thinking." And so because of this our society has, especially in the Western World, become weak and cowardly. In fact, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn remarked at his famous 1978 commencement address at Harvard University, "a decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today." For not only do the leaders of the West, he noted, "exhibit depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and statements," but also -- and even more ominously -- they seem to base their official policies and decisions on "weakness and cowardice."
Further, among the people themselves there is little evidence of the fighting spirit necessary for self-defense and practically no signs of a readiness for spiritual combat. And the reason this can be said, as Solzhenitsyn points out, is because "to defend oneself, one must be ready to die." And we might add, be willing to make sacrifices and practice self-denial. But there seems to be little inclination to do this today, Solzhenitsyn stresses, "in a society that is raised in the cult of material well-being."
For all these reasons, then, Solzhenitsyn concludes that "nothing is left" now for the West except "concessions, attempts to gain time, and betrayal. Since from ancient times a decline in courage has been the first symptom of the end."
Pope John Paul, however, is well aware of the dangers Solzhenitsyn speaks about. In fact, he has been for some time. And so we can assume it was no accident that the very first words that he spoke when he assumed the papacy -- just four months after Solzhenitsyn's speech -- were "be not afraid". And he has been continually repeating these words ever since his first day in office. Most recently and most significantly he said: "Be not afraid to welcome the cross of Christ into your life! For it gives full value and meaning to life's joys and sorrows, helping every person to make his own life a gift of love for God and neighbor."
Now to sum up everything and to return to where we began: We are standing at a crossroads. Before us waits an angel with our cross. He is calling out to us -- just like he did to the Fatima children: "Be not afraid." "Be not afraid to embrace the cross. Be not afraid to pray. Be not afraid to suffer. Be not afraid to do God's will." The way in which we respond to the angel's plea will help to determine the future of humanity in the Third Millennium. And so today let us ask the Blessed Mother, Mary, Queen of the Angels, for the graces we need to accept and love our cross, so that we can help to bring about a new springtime of hope for the Church.
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© 2008 Order of the Holy Cross