The world is divided into friends and enemies of the Cross of Christ. Is this the reason for the chaos in the world?
Newsroom (31/03/2022 9:47 AM, Gaudium Press): Lent is the period that prepares our souls for the great event that anticipates the Easter feasts of the Resurrection: Our Lord’s agony in the Garden, the scourging, the crowning with thorns and, finally, his death on the Cross, the cause of our salvation. Christ, who could have redeemed humanity by a simple act of his own consent, wanted by a gesture of infinite love to suffer the most atrocious and repulsive suffering there could be: the mockery of crucifixion.
Enemies of the Cross of Christ
In the liturgy of Second Sunday of Lent, the reading from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians highlights the Apostle’s discontent with this community of Christians who behave like enemies of the Cross:
“I have told you many times and now I repeat it, weeping: there are many out there who behave like enemies of the Cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18).
From the moment Christ embraced his Cross, it is impossible to dissociate him from it. We could then affirm that the Cross and Christ are one. Now, the Christian, another Christ through Holy Baptism, is called to follow in the footsteps of his Lord by carrying his Cross. Therefore, St Paul laments those who do not live “according to the cross of Christ”. What does this mean? The Apostle continues:
“Their end is perdition, their God is their stomach, their glory is in what is shameful and they think only of earthly things” (Phil 3:19).
It would seem that the Apostle to the Gentiles did not address this letter to the Christians of Philippi, but to the people of the 21st century. Yes, we are living in times of terrible calamities: sin, chaos and wars; but humanity does not want to open its eyes to the panorama that is appearing on the horizon. It seems to want to sink ever deeper into the little life of every day, sipping the last drops of the dirty and bitter pleasure of an agonizing world.
In other words: “We, however, are citizens of heaven. From there we await our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:20).
The covenant that God makes with man requires of him the acceptance of the Cross through a life of integrity and uprightness, by means of which the authenticity of his love is proved, which “must be exercised day by day in the fight against the evil one; [and which] demands of the disciple prayer and continual sobriety.”[1]
Such demands, however, must be accompanied by a raising of the sights to the supernatural, as Our Lord wished to demonstrate on Mount Tabor – described in today’s Gospel (Lk 9:28-36) – by transfiguring himself before certain apostles to reveal his glory, giving them the strength to endure the coming sacrifice of Calvary.
At present, the world seems to have rejected the Cross of Christ, since the world has longed for a peace without the Cross and without Christ; and it has had war without Christ and without the peace of the Cross. It is up to us, then, to ask ourselves: am I Our Lord’s friend or his enemy?
By Guilherme Motta
