“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Galatians 6:14
Nothing else matters; salvation is only achieved through Jesus Christ and the Cross. Our participation changes everything for us; it opens new pathways compelling us to see the world in all its display – glorious and fallen – in a very different way. Seen through the eyes of the Cross, the ways of man – even at times the laws of man – may be meaningless, and so, the Cross dissolves all meaning when we see the world, first and foremost, through the eyes of divinity.
Saint Benedict, who the Church remembers on Friday, gives us a good example of turning to the Cross, in all its glory, to understand how divinity surpasses the complexities of the world. As it did with Saint Benedict, the vision of the Cross challenges us to simplicity. Along with obedience, simplicity was central to the Rule of St. Benedict, a rule that not only governed monastic communities but became in part a guide for the laity. It is said that his rule was most likely influenced by his early life as the son of a noble who witnessed the misuse of free-will by his peers. They had everything — education, wealth, youth — and they spent all of it in the pursuit of pleasure, rather than the truth; they were wrapped up by the complexities of the world, unable to see how simplicity was the path to truth. Benedict watched in horror as vice unraveled the lives and ethics of his companions – fearing then for his souls and the souls of others. Benedict soon realized that the “strongest and truest foundation” is in the power of the Word of God himself. It’s to say, live a life of simplicity and remain obedient to God’s Word, those things that allow us to love him, to think like him, and to be one with him.
In Christ
Fr Robert