Parable and Conscience Meditation April 6

Glorious Cross  April 6

I bore you up with manna in the desert, but you struck me down and scourged me.  My people, what have I done to you?  How have I offended you?  Answer me! (Reproaches, Good Friday).

I answer you.

To live a day without eating leaves a person weak;

    to live several days like that poses a risk to life.

You know that very well as our Companion on the way.

You are the one who cultivates the land to make it produce.

And even if the there is no harvest, you assure us food,

    as you once did in the desert.

The manna was sweet to the taste,

    but a vanishing substance

    that, in the end, did not satisfy.

You spoke of another Bread, identified as yourself,

    that gives life beyond life.

When people do not eat their full elsewhere,

    they look to this good wheat,

    and prepare bread by thrashing and sifting.

You complain of being struck and scourged.  

But you submit even to the ravages of harvest

    because you know that I hunger for you!

The tree does not withdraw its shade, even from the lumberjack who fells it.  (African proverb)

Parable and Conscience Meditation April 5

Glorious Cross  April 5

I opened the sea before you, but you opened my side with a spear.  My people, what have I done to you?  How have I offended you?  Answer me! (Reproaches, Good Friday).

I answer you.

It was certainly spectacular, the passage through the Red Sea,

    the opening to freedom.

And also the crossing of the Jordan,

   the gate to the Promised Land.

What pain for you, then,

    who find yourself facing this other passage

    through the terrifying waters of death.

You see how I abuse the freedom and the promises

    of these liberations of the past and how I brush them aside.

Yes, you complain!

But I know for certain that these passages of old

    do not lead to the final destination.

The only freeing passage is that which passes through your heart

    and through the blood and water that flow from it.

You have told me clearly, “I am the Way.”

That is the motivation for piercing you through.

Can you withstand, out of love for me,

    such a crucial and life-giving penetration?   

A closed door doesn’t show the road.  (Mali)

Parable and Conscience Meditation April 4

Glorious Cross  April 4

On the scapular, at breast level, a cross made of cloth should be sewn, of which the horizontal part should be white, and the vertical part red (Const. GS19.2).

The practice of wearing an image of the Cross can seem ridiculous.  At the time of Christ, the cross was an instrument of capital punishment.  The crucified were considered the dregs of society and their deaths a purge of social evil.  What a reverse of logic to permit the veneration of such a symbol and use it as an instrument of blessing!  With it, an infant is marked at baptism, sick people are anointed, the Eucharistic Assembly is dismissed and people sign themselves on rising in the morning and going to bed at night.  A charm around the neck, a decoration on the wall, the lead in all processions—what is the sense to all of it?  In our tradition as Crosiers, the Maltese cross is worn as a silent sermon to confreres and Christians.  When confreres in habit meet one another face-to-face, the first message, to one another, appearing in red and white, is that of the Paschal Mystery.  When confreres in habit meet Christians, the first pastoral exchange, made with the flash of festive colors, is that of the Glorious Cross.  To wear the image of the Cross is to engage in evangelization.

The guinea fowl looks at the neck of its precursor.  (Mali)

Parable and Conscience Meditation April 3

Glorious Cross  April 3

I planted you as my fairest vine . . . you pierced your Savior with a lance (Reproaches, Good Friday).

I answer you.

You love the Garden and you have replanted it often.

But we are the ones who are infertile:

    we, Adam and Even, Israel and I.

We have sold rotten fruit in the marketplace of the world,

    whose juice is bitter, whose pulp is even poisoned.

Why do you complain when we offer them to you also?

It is not precisely

    to make our life fertile and sweet

    that you mounted the cross?

You are the Field of Life.

Can you not excuse us

    if, in the despair of our aridity,

    we use the violence of the spear as a hoe?

We want to make flow from you the sap of our life.

We adore you, you who made yourself vulnerable for us

    with the bittersweet price of the cross.

The forest does not become luxurious until it has water.  (Mali)

Parable and Conscience Meditation April 2

Glorious Cross  April 2

I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, but you led your Savior to the Cross.  My people, what have I done to you?  How have I offended you?  Answer me! (Reproaches, Good Friday).

I answer you.

You remember sadly the wonders you did

    to redeem your people from slavery.

You remember painfully the promises

    of liberation and return made good to your exiled people.

Why do I remember so little about that?

Your disappointment is very understandable

    as your life is consumed on the cross,

    apparently in vain in my regard.

 Rightly you are identified as the Suffering Servant

    whose work seems empty and for nothing.

What a disappointment I am to you, hanging on the cross!

But if you come down, yes, if you come down,

    it is I who will return to slavery and exile,

    it is I who will live in emptiness and nothingness.

Have pity on me; stay on the cross!

After having offered a goat for the sacrifice, you should not, at the moment of the sacrifice, hold it back with a cord to stop it from going to its destiny.  (Madagascar

Parable and Conscience Meditation April 1

Glorious Cross  April 1

The life of Christ, from his first announcement of the Kingdom of Heaven to his final offering of himself in death, is the first source of our apostolic inspiration for our apostolic activity (Const. 20.1).

As ambassadors of Christ, we present ourselves in the world as the delegates of his interests.  He has manifested them in his prophetic words and signs, the most prominent of which are his death and resurrection.  The words of Christ are occupied with the Kingdom of God, to which conversion is the port of entry.  His parables in particular clarify the meaning of the Kingdom:  hidden as leaven, having the value of a pearl of great price, open to the whole world.  But it is the language of his death and resurrection that proclaim it most definitively.  Besides his words, the works of Christ and, again, particularly the work of his death and resurrection, which was accomplished to touch people of faith in their sufferings.  Jesus’ death and resurrection invite others to accept the saving presence of the Kingdom.  As ambassadors of Christ, whatever our works and deeds, we wish to reveal the same.  Indeed, the lifting up the Glorious Cross, as for Jesus, gives the most clear meaning to what we say and do in his name.

Two breasts nurse a baby to give it the strength to play.  (Beti)