‘The Wisdom of the Desert’ by James O. Hannay; 1904 ~ Chapter II - On Being Crucified with Christ; part I; pages 27-28; Point VII from Chapter I
Chapter I, Point VII“How a man cannot possess the heavenly treasure and at the same time cling to the pleasures of earth.
The abbot Arsenius was once asked by the abbot Mark why he fled from the society of men. He replied, "God knows it is not that I hate men. I love them well. But I cannot dwell both with God and with men. There are multitudes of heavenly beings and many virtues, but all their wills are one, and they come of one will. Among men it is otherwise. Their wills are many, and they pull us different ways. I am in this strait. I cannot leave God, for that is how I think of it, to dwell with men."
Chapter II - On Being Crucified with Christ
If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross, and follow Me. —St. Matt., xvi 24.
He who enters upon the way of life in fear bears the cross patiently. He who advances in hope bears the cross readily. He who is perfected in charity embraces the cross ardently. —St. Bernard, Sermon I. on St. Andrew's Day.
I have received the cross. I have received it from Thy hand. I will bear it, and bear it even unto death, as Thou hast laid it upon me. —The Imitation of Christ, iii. 36.
The agony of Christ will last till the end of the world; we must not slumber during this agony. —Pascal.
ALL vision of Jesus includes some vision of His cross. It is not possible to think of Him without in the end arriving at a contemplation of his cross. The soul which loves to dwell upon the tender figure of the Good Shepherd will not be able to escape from the stern truth—"He giveth His life for the sheep."
He who meditates faithfully upon the nativity will find that the shadow of the cross falls even over Bethlehem. In its effort to appreciate the King in His beauty, the mind is thrust back from the contemplation of "Him that liveth" to the recollection of the other word—"And was dead." The general consciousness of Christian people, of all ages and all races, has steadily recognised that the one thing needful is to know Christ crucified.
It is possible to think of the cross of Christ simply as the symbol of the great suffering borne for us. There is an endless depth of meaning in such an apprehension of the cross. The man, whose mind is so enlarged that he can contemplate the mystery of the life given that he might live, is penetrating into the divine love. He may go from what is bright into regions of yet intenser brightness, until he stops blinded by his nearness to the very God Himself. It is possible also that at some point of its meditation the soul may catch the infection of the love of God, and come to burn with a reciprocal love for Him who so loved men. Then the vision of the cross and suffering of Christ begets a sympathetic desire to suffer with Him. This desire in itself is so natural that we may regard it as one of the instincts of our nature. It comes within the experience of every one who has ever felt a great love for parent, brother, wife, child, or friend. When the object of our love suffers, we desire and even try to suffer too. We feel ourselves outraged at the thought of claiming a passing pleasure while one who is very dear to us lies in intense bodily pain. It is not that we expect our refusal of enjoyment to in any way assuage his sufferings. It is simply that we cannot pursue our own pleasures at such a time.
Now the sufferings of Christ had become very vivid and real to the minds of the hermits. Just as we instinctively shrink from laughter when one who is very dear to us lies dying, so they, because they loved Him greatly, desired to deny themselves pleasure and even to accept the burden of pain. This is the meaning of the aged Palaemon's refusal to eat food dressed with the unaccustomed luxury of oil. This seems also to be the meaning of the repeated use the hermits made of the word "crucifixion." Their fastings and vigils, their endurance of heat and toil, were spoken of as "crucifixions," because they conceived that in these sufferings, voluntarily borne, they were taking their part in the sufferings of Christ upon the cross. They even spoke of the diseases and physical evils which came upon them, independently of their own wills, as "crucifixions," for they knew that pain which is unavoidable may be so borne as to render it in reality a taking up of the cross.
Of course, there was always present to their minds the commoner thought that self-crucifixion was of benefit to the soul. They felt, as we are hidden to feel, that "our way to eternal joy is to suffer here with Christ. They analysed the good that comes of suffering and deliberately courted it as a means of drawing near to God. Yet always at the back of such reasonings there lay the feeling that suffering was borne with Christ, as well as for the sake of attaining His eternal joy. This idea of sympathetic fellowship in suffering is what gives its peculiar beauty to the hermits' interpretation of the words, "If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me." It is this thought which, while it adds a pathos to the stories of their lives, certainly helped them in winning that grace of perseverance which would not be satisfied until it reached "the goal of being crucified with Christ."
Image: Leon Wyczółkowski - Christ on the Cross
Music: Te Deum, H. 146: X. ‘In te Domine speravi’ · Véronique Gens · Les Arts Florissants
‘In te Domine speravi’ = ‘In you, Lord, I have hoped’
>>> youtube.com/watch?v=9rDqBxDMnDM