Ave Crux Spes Nostra

I think that sometimes it seems as if the world is conspiring against us and absolutely nothing goes right for us… or at least things don’t go the way we’d like. Every single one of our efforts fails or goes unnoticed, things get more complicated, and things get darker and darker. When you think things can’t get any worse, they do they worse.

I encountered a man not long ago struggling to keep the faith – a good man who wanted to do things right, he wanted to remain blameless before God. Even though he saw people around him making money in dishonorable and questionable ways, he desired to stay on the right path. Despite his efforts, his good intentions and good will, no doors seemed to open. No work, no money, no possibilities.

Why does this happen? Why do evildoers flourish while the righteous perish? This is a well-known dilemma summed up in the question: why do bad things happen to good people?

The Book of Job in the Old Testament gives us a concrete and ancient example of this struggle. But today Saint Paul gives us an insight to perhaps make some sense of this difficult question:

As father disciplines a child, we must see our suffering and toil as a preparation, a training for the future. It is in the darkness and suffering that God teaches us how to trust him more and lets us experience how miserable evil truly is. Remaining strong through the darkness helps us to grow. It helps us mature and become stronger. A child is disciplined so he can learn and benefit in the future… it is the same with us.

The way into heaven is indeed a narrow gate as Jesus tells us – and unfortunately many give up during difficult and trying times when God seems to be distant. The gate to God is narrow because it’s difficult.

The belief that if we give it all to Christ, all our problems will go away is not always true. Jesus doesn’t make problems go away, but rather helps us endure our trails and sufferings. He helps us put them into perspective, to process them and to find hope.

We cannot be greater than our master and our master died nailed to a cross.

The narrow path to God is the carrying of the cross – carrying our own personal cross. You may ask, Father, what is my personal cross, what do you mean? Our corss is very concrete, not just a far away concept.

What is that difficulty you face daily? Is it an addiction? A family problem? An illness? A strained relationship? Living with the consequences of a past mistake?

Our crosses are those thorns of our lives that constantly prick our side. We are called to patiently and willingly carry the cross while keeping our faith in Christ: He helps us through it, he helps us carry it.

We must be strong to enter through the narrow gate – Christian discipleship is not about warm and fuzzies. Christian discipleship is about the sacrificial giving our ourselves to God and others and finding the strength to carry the cross.

There, and only there, at the cross, do we find our hope. An early Christian hymn reminds us of this truth with its line which can be seen to this day in many crosses: Ave Crux Spes Unica: Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope.

It is there, at the cross, that our lives make sense and where we find lasting fulfillment and joy. It’s the great paradox of our faith – a great mystery, that at the cross we find our salvation, that in suffering we find joy and that in giving of ourselves we receive lasting peace and fulfillment. The cross turns upside down the wisdom of the world.

So following Saint Paul’s words, “strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.”

When we feel that the world is conspiring against us and absolutely nothing goes right for us, we need to strengthen our hands and weak knees, hold firm to our faith and know that it will pass, and that our experience of the darkness will only make the light of Jesus Christ brighter in our lives.