Heart on the Cross!

September 14, 2009: The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

"...who, though [Christ Jesus] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Philippians 2:4-11 (RSV)

Jesus had a right to demand obedience, worship, love. But when He condescended to become human, vulnerable to "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", He chose to accept these arrows, to be humbled, to renounce His rights, to suffer whatever outrage might be permitted by the hand of His heavenly Father.

It was through His Holy Cross that He was humbled, and through the Cross that we are exalted. But only through the Cross.

At times the Cross appears without our looking for it: it is Christ who is seeking us out. And if by chance, before this unexpected Cross which, perhaps, is therefore more difficult to understand, your heart were to show repugnance... don't give it consolations. And, filled with a noble compassion, when it asks for them, say to it slowly, as one speaking in confidence: 'Heart: heart on the Cross! Heart on the Cross! '

The Way of the Cross, St. Josemaría Escrivá