We have reached the mid-point of the Great Fast. This week the Church calls us to venerate and reflect on the Cross of Christ. She directs us to place the Cross, decorated with flowers, in the very center of our worship space so that it will be foremost in our attention. We venerate the Cross and proclaim: We bow to Your Cross, O Master, and we praise Your third-day resurrection. This prayer is accompanied with prostrations wherein we bend our wills (backs) and minds (we touch our heads to the floor) declaring by our actions our willingness to freely embrace the plan that God, expressed through life, has for us. This is precisely what Jesus did when He embraced the Cross. He freely accepted the challenges that life delivered to Him so that what He taught about the meaning and purpose of life might be seen as true. He truly lived what he preached. He unconditionally loved and forgave His enemies. He demonstrated that if a person freely embraces the challenges life gives, then one gains the fullness of life, resulting in a deeper union with God – one truly becomes God’s child.
The Church accompanies these liturgical actions with a call to listen to a passage taken from Mark’s Gospel. It conveys an important message that Jesus gave to His followers and now gives to us: If a person wishes to come after me, he must deny his very self, take up his cross, and follow in my steps. His message directly tells us how to live this life. He says: What profit does a man show who gains the whole world and destroys himself in the process. Belief in the meaning and purpose of this earthly existence is critical.
The meaning of what the Church calls us to do, I believe, is quite clear. It is a clear reminder that if we desire the fullness of life we must, just like Jesus, freely embrace the challenges given to us by life. This is the only way that we can grow in the likeness of God as revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ. Life’s challenges are uniquely designed to provide us with the needed opportunities to learn how to unconditionally love and forgive others.
The Great Fast is our meant to be our self-crucifixion, our experience, limited as it is, of Christ’s revelation. But we cannot take up our cross – freely embrace the challenges of our lives – unless we voluntarily commit ourselves to try to live like Jesus. He revealed to us, by His Cross, the true meaning and purpose of life and how it should be lived to become God’s child.