The Christian Life Is a Life of the Cross

“If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19).

    A Christian will be persecuted. We have to be prepared for this and not be surprised when it happens. Christ prepared us for this. Our faith in him makes us different from the world if we do his will and live for him with all our heart, as he wishes. The world lives for itself and its pleasures. A Christian mortifies and sacrifices himself for the love of Christ so that all his love goes directly to him. He detaches himself for the sake of Christ to love him with all his heart. Therefore he renounces the pleasures of this world and lives a mortified, ascetical life, a life of sacrifice and love of God. He renounces the world and its delights, delicacies, and pleasures in every aspect of his life, from his diet and way of dressing to how he spends his free time. He renounces the diversions and entertainments of this world in order to love God with all his heart, not with a heart divided and dissipated by the pleasures of the world. Thus he lives only for God, only for Christ, and his life is very different from the life of the world, from a worldly life.
         Therefore the world does not love him. It neither understands nor accepts him. The world rejects and persecutes him. But he continues living this way, only for God with all his heart, with a radically undivided heart, and he continues preaching the gospel.
            As Christ was rejected and persecuted by the world, in the same way the Christian will also be rejected and persecuted by the world. But he knows this. It does not surprise him. It is what he expects, for Christ prepared him for this. He told us, “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next” (Matt. 10:22-23). So we continue with our way of life and our ministry in another place, as did St. Paul, who was imprisoned, stoned, beaten, and driven out of one city after another. Again and again he departed from where they persecuted him and went to another town and preached Christ there. We should do the same, not daunted by past rejections and persecution.
           “Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13). “Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matt. 10:25). “The world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:20).
           This will be our life if we want to be Christians. It is a life of the cross. As they persecuted Jesus, so will they persecute us if we follow him with all our heart, renouncing the way of living of the world in its worldliness in order to live for Christ with all our heart.

The Silent, Contemplative Work of St. Joseph

“And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Gen. 1:28).
     
        Today we commemorate St. Joseph the Worker, the foster father of Jesus Christ. It is a day on which we reflect on the importance of human work—all types of work, intellectual as well as manual. We were created to work, to “have dominion over the fish of the sea … and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). For this we were created, and therefore we are happy when we work.
           Being a contemplative does not mean that we stop working and only sit praying. No one can be happy living like that, for it is contrary to God’s plan for us. Monks who leave the world to live a contemplative life in the silence of the desert, far from the noise, distractions, and entertainments of the world, work. The Desert Fathers in Egypt made baskets, mats, and ropes; or copied manuscripts; or wrote books, as did Evagrius Ponticus. They worked according to their ability, personal inclination, and interest, using the gifts and talents God gave them. Thus each individual contributed to the well-being of the rest, making his own contribution to the community and to the world.
          God did not put us here in this world only to entertain ourselves, but rather to help others. We should not only receive but also to give to others. We receive the services of other people, while at the same time we serve them with our talents. Living in this way a person will be happy, for he is living in accordance with God’s will.
         Our work can change as we grow older or develop some physical disability. We can give up a type of work that requires much physical activity, distraction, and travel for a more contemplative type of work. A professor, for example, may stop teaching and instead occupy himself in writing books, in this way making the wisdom of his many years available to a much wider audience and in a more durable form, while at the same time living a quieter and more contemplative life. Thus he simplifies his life and greatly reduces the distractions he once had as an active professor.
          A monk works in silence, far from the world, so as not to be distracted. He does not travel. He always stays in the same place, within an enclosure (cloister), far from worldly entertainments, temptations, and distractions in order to live a life recollected in God, happily occupied in manual or intellectual work, which he does for the benefit of the community and the world. He lives in silence and prayer, even when working. But he also spends much time sitting in silent contemplation without words or ideas, united to God.
          St. Joseph is for us an example of silent, contemplative work.

Custody of the Heart

“You offspring of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty has deceived you and lust has perverted your heart” (Dan. 13:56).

      In the account of Susanna, the beautiful woman for whom the two elders, who had been appointed as judges, were overwhelmed with passion, we see clearly illustrated the danger of division of heart. Even two elders that were respected by the people and placed in positions of authority and trust fell into a disastrous situation because they did not sufficiently guard their hearts. They fell in love with the beauty of Susanna, and their infatuation cost them their lives.
         “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Knowing this, we have to take precautions to guard our whole way of life so that our heart does not divide. If we fall in love with forbidden beauty or with worldly pleasures, we are divided in our love of God and can no longer love him with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength, as we should (Mark 12:30). Part of our heart will be reserved for forbidden beauty or worldly pleasures, and our heart will be divided. But God wants all of our heart. He wants a heart that is undivided in our love for him. He does not want to have to compete with the delights of this world or with human beauty for our attention. He wants all of our attention, all of our interest, and all of our love, without any division. This is the life of perfection. Marriage is necessary and blessed; but apart from that, we should love God with an undivided heart; and celibacy, for this reason, is superior to marriage, for it enables us to love God with a more undivided heart (2 Cor. 7:32-34, 38).
           Therefore we are to serve only one master (Matt. 6:24), have only one treasure (Matt. 6:19-21), and renounce all to gain all, as did the man that discovered the buried treasure and sold all that he had to obtain it (Matt. 13:44-46). Thus we hate our life in this world to guard it for eternal life (John 12:25). But those who love their life, falling in love with forbidden beauty or with worldly pleasures, lose their life. Those who save their lives in this way lose them; while those who lose their lives for Christ save them (Mark 8:35). Therefore we are to be crucified to the world (Gal. 6:14). In dying to the world, we live for God.
Custody of the heart and of the senses is the job of a lifetime, as we see in case of these two elders who fell in old age.

The Call to Perfection

“The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:29-30).

     Here Jesus quotes the great Jewish prayer, the Shema (Deut. 6:4), as his first and most important commandment. We are to love God with all our resources. This is the first commandment. It is also the call to perfection. Jesus called the rich young man to a life of perfection, saying, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matt. 19:21). For Jesus, the life of perfection is to love him with all that we have, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. If the rich young man had left everything for Jesus’s sake, he would be on the way of perfection. Therefore Jesus says, “Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). A true disciple lives completely and uniquely for Jesus Christ, and renounces everything else. He hates his life in this world (John 12:25). He loses his life for the sake of Christ, and therefore he saves it (Mark 8:35). He seeks the things that are above, where Christ is, rather than the pleasures and riches of this world, for he has risen with Christ and now lives a new and risen life with him (Col. 3:1-2).
         The true disciple, who has chosen the way of perfection, is crucified to the world, as St. Paul was (Gal. 6:14). He is dead to the world and its pleasures in order to have a completely undivided heart in his love for the Lord. He leaves family, houses, lands, and can even renounce marriage to dedicate himself completely and uniquely to Jesus Christ with all the love of his heart, without dividing it even with a Christian spouse (Luke 18:29; 1 Cor. 7:32-34). He chooses the narrow way of life, which is the way of the renunciation of the world and its pleasures rather than the wide and comfortable way of the world (Matt. 7:13-14).
          The true disciple has found the pearl of great price and the buried treasure, and he sacrifices everything else to obtain them (Matt. 13:44-46). He regards as loss all that was once his gain, and he does this to gain Christ (Phil. 3:7-8). Having sacrificed everything, he now lives for one master only, no longer for two (Matt. 6:24), and he has now but one treasure, not many (Matt. 6:19-21), because he wants his heart to be where his treasure is (Matt. 6:21). He does not want to divide his heart among the loves, pleasure, and riches of the world but rather reserve it only for the Lord. Nor does he want the thorns of the riches and pleasures of the world to choke him (Luke 8:14). He leaves everything else, because he does not want to be like a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle, since he knows that such is a rich man, surrounded by his pleasures, trying to get into the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24).
           If we live in this new way, we have chosen the way of perfection (Matt. 19:21), and God will in turn be to us like the dew, and we will blossom like the lily (Hos. 14:5).