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| Franciscan Sisters TOR of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother, main chapel. I took this picture at a late night All Souls mass last year. See the sorrowful mother in awe at the foot of Her son. |
"Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn." -1 Samuel 2:5
The Lord has such fullness of life in store for you.
The Lord is not content to see you coasting through life on autopilot, finding your incentive to live in fleeting pleasure and useless entertainment. He loves you where you are right now, but He loves you so dang much that He can't bear to leave you where you are. After all, we live in a world of death, a world governed by death and defined by death. Everything we do as human beings is tainted by death, in remembrance of death, in escape of death, in preparation for death. And yet, strangely, we find ourselves living life to the minimum, being content to grasp at the useless frivolities of life just to keep the thought of death far from our minds.
Does this sound morbid? It is. But remember that God "can't bear to leave you where you are" because He is a good father-- why would he want you to do nothing and be lukewarm as you try to be ignorant of death by living a distracting life? He did not make us for this world of death, and He wants to do everything possible to call us home-- even to the point of sending His own son to our position.
When Jesus was incarnate on the Earth, born of Mary into a cold December night, He knew death. Death surrounded Him at every step of the way as He met soul after soul who was content with living with no purpose. The people of God were waiting for a messiah, one who would free them from death, though when He appeared, they had grown so used to a meaningless existence that they killed Him, trying once more to be ignorant of death, and so avoidant of true life.
Yet His death became our life.
This is where it all gets confusing, and yet so simple. For, in showing us how to live, Jesus gave us an impossible standard to reach. Yet, in showing us how to die, He gave us the key to salvation. Death is inevitable-- after our sin of rejecting God in the garden, we could no longer enter the garden again in this life, for death had become the barrier. Death was the only option left. However, by the death of Christ, this barrier became our sure path. Our foregone memory of the garden was healed...
"Instead of Eve there was Mary; instead of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the wood of the cross; instead of Adam's death (our death), the death of Christ." -St. John Chrysostom
Our life was one of death, but now our death leads to life. We must stretch out our arms in conformity with Christ, dying to this world yet living with God.
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." -Galatians 2:20
If you feel as though sin is killing you, that day after day your life of sin is one of living as though you are a zombie, then you are still enslaved by death. But there is hope! Our Father has sent His son onto the cross for you, and Jesus is stretching out His hand from the cross that you might die with Him and so rise with Him! Grasp His hand that he might lead you, and do not let go.
"Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" -Galatians 4: 8-9This victory of Christ's death so that we need not vainly attempt to die of our own power to enter into life is a complete and utter gift of God. He desires us to join our hearts to His on the cross, every day, every moment, because He has already been our ransom for the justice that sin requires.
"Learn now how this victory was achieved without any labor or effort of our own. We bloodied no weapons, nor saw any fighting, and yet we won the victory. It was the Lord's combat, but ours was the crown." -St. John ChrysostomThis does not mean the road to life ahead of you is easy. It is not. To receive the death of Christ in our own lives will often lead us to receive some drops of suffering as they fall from the wounds of Christ. Yet this too is our gift, for if we did not know but a taste of the blood of Christ, we would be ignorant of His salvation, and would continue to wander away from the cross, only to trip and fall into the deepest pits of Hell while on Earth and then in eternity.
"And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed." -Luke 2:35Read the second half of this verse again. The transpiercing of Jesus' and Our Lady's heart is so that the thoughts of many hearts be revealed. These are the innermost thoughts and desires of the hearts of Her many children. Indeed, the virgin, She who was barren, has borne seven- the perfect, symbolic, complete number seven- children. And in the transpiercing of the Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Heart, and our own hearts, this holy shish-kebab of hearts, united in the passion and death of Christ, will bear the fullness of life in resurrection, and we will hunger for true life no more, for we will have fullness of life.
"The first death condemned those who were born afterward, but the second death raised up even those who were born before. Who will speak of the powers of the Lord? Though dead we became immortal. Such is the great achievement of the cross. Do you now understand the victory and the way it was won?... Praising the Lord let us say: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" -St. John Chrysostom
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