4.4 Commitment
STAGE 4: Towards the Likeness of Jesus Christ
JESUS AND THE CROSS
THE CAPTIVATING POWER
COMMITMENT
Aim: Committing ourselves to proclaim Christ crucified, the power and the wisdom of God.
Reading
Consider your own call (1 Cor 1:18-31): The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart”. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord”.
Comment
Therefore, how are we to relate with the cross? How are those people, who consecrate themselves to Incarnate Wisdom, called to witness the glorious cross?
In LEW 173, Montfort comments: “Eternal Wisdom has decreed the Cross to be the sign, the emblem and the weapon of his faithful people. He welcomes no child that does not bear its sign. He recognises no disciple who is ashamed to display it, or who has not the courage to accept it, or who either drags it reluctantly or rejects it outright. He proclaims, ‘Those who wish to come after me, let them renounce themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ (Mt 16:24; Lk 9:23). […] And he exclaims, ‘In this sign you will conquer. Have confidence, my disciple, I am your leader; I have conquered the world by the cross (Jn 16:33), and by it you also will be victorious’”.
And LEW 174 goes: “Eternal Wisdom has enclosed in the cross such an abundance of grace, life and happiness that only those who enjoy his special favour know about them. He often reveals to his friends his other secrets, as he did to his Apostles, ‘All things I have made known to you’ (Jn 15:15), but he reveals the secrets of the Cross only to those who make themselves worthy by their great fidelity and great labours. One must be humble, little, self-disciplined, spiritual and despised by the world to learn the mystery of the Cross […]. ‘Father’, said this incarnate Wisdom, when beholding in joyful rapture the beauty of the Cross, ‘I thank you for having hidden these things – the treasures and graces of my cross – from the wise and prudent of this world and revealed them to the little ones’ (Lk 10:21)”.
And in LEW 175, we read: “If the knowledge of the mystery of the Cross is such a special grace, how great must be the enjoyment, when one actually possesses it! This is a favour Eternal Wisdom bestows only on his best friends, and only after they have prayed for it, longed for it, pleaded for it. However excellent is the gift of faith, by which we please God, draw near to him and overcome our difficulties, and without which we would be lost, the Cross is an even greater gift”.
Personal Reflection and Sharing
“Never the cross without Jesus, or Jesus without the cross!” “Wisdom is the Cross and the Cross is Wisdom”. What commitments are these statements inspiring me to make today?
How is the presence of Mary in my life helping me to look at the cross with her eyes and the eyes of Jesus?
[4-4] CALL RESPONSE COMMITMENT PRAYER