Hermitage Note: Booking Passage On The Way Of The Cross

Sunday, preliminary to the entrance antiphon for Mass, I read the entry for the day in the Little Black Book for Lent that I had picked up from the back table in the church. The thought being expressed in the reading is that our logo is the Cross.

“Our logo is the cross, not the crown. At baptism, the Church didn’t crown me. It drowned me. At confirmation, the Church didn’t put a royal sword in my hand. It put holy oil on my head. At the Eucharist, I don’t stand back and adore an enthroned king. I travel the way he got there, which is what I do from the preparation of the gifts to the great Amen. I put myself on the altar and book passage with the Lord on the way of the cross. I climb aboard a moving train on a track that runs to glory through dying.”[1]

The single greatest issue hamstringing Christendom in these modern times, at least in my opinion, is the reality that, for the most part, we have been groomed, Catholic and Protestant alike, to be selfishly self-centered. The world has us doped with its poisons. Also, as one who was once one among them for a short while, it is easy for me to see how so much of modern Christianity has been tainted by the foul fruit of the modern so-called prosperity gospel that bloomed in the modern-day independent charismatic movement of the past century.

To hear the promulgators of this doctrine tell it, God wants us all to be materially wealthy in the goods of this world. To hear them tell it, Jesus became poor and endured the passion and torture of the Cross in order that we might become physically rich and enjoy life without any kind of lack or suffering. To hear them tell it, being poor is a sign of lack of faith. To hear them tell it, being sick is a sign of lack of faith. By faith, according to the promulgators of this doctrine, all we have to do is “name it and claim it”. But, to make certain that your faith is alive and well, the best way to acknowledge this is to exercise our faith by “sowing a significant financial seed” into the ministry of the promulgator.

The human self, with all its foibles and inordinate passions, has been elevated to such a place of prominence that any theme or recommendation of dying to self is seen as outdated and obsolete. We are, after all, living in modern times. We do, after all, have all the advances needed for psychologically and socially understanding humanity. We have, after all, modern theologians who have debunked those restrictive beliefs of the past that the Church, out of ignorance, always historically and with great esteem held to be true as part of the Deposit of Faith.

In a world where gratifying the flesh and all its fleshly desires is commonplace, appeals to live lives characterized by scriptural standards of holiness are rejected. With the help of psychologists, university and seminary professors, and social workers, we are able to rationalize and justify practically every pattern of human behavior and accept them as socially acceptable. Patterns of human behavior that have been historically defined as immoral and sinful have, in these modern times, been sanitized of their sinful immorality.

While paganism and secularism are flourishing, should we reasonably hope that the world is going to change and become hospitable toward the biblical faith and morals that God expects of us? No. I dare say no. And forget forcibly changing the world. The age of the Crusades is far behind us.

We should, in fact, only expect the wickedness and evil in the world to increase. Concerning these times where we find ourselves, Jesus, in talking with his disciples about the sign of his Second Coming and the Consummation of the World tells us, “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.” [Matthew 24:12]

The moral bent of this country has changed considerably in the generation that I have lived. All of it cannot be blamed on my generation. The changes that I have seen are largely the result of seeds that were sown by the generation that came before me. In consideration of the abounding iniquity that seeks to overwhelm us, I cannot help but to think about the words of Isaiah the prophet who said, “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits.” [Isaiah 5:20-21]

Something said by another prophet come to mind. Jeremiah, another of the Old Testament prophets, still stands in our midst ringing a bell that should be heard as a clarion call to every one of us who have been confirmed as members of the Catholic Church. Jeremiah tells us, “Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see and ask for the old paths which is the good way, and walk ye in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls. And they said: we will not walk.” [Jeremiah 6:16]

Booking passage on the way of the Cross?

It has never truly been an easy passage. It has always involved a price to be paid. It has always taken effort on the part of individuals.

It seems, however, that it is growing increasingly more difficult for people to live sacramentally and devotionally in the world. The world, devoted to the worship of self, does not operate on sacramental time. The world is, in fact, diabolically opposed to our living an intimately sacramental and devotional life. It has become pretty much a heroic effort to sustain a personal daily life-routine that includes time devoted specifically to nourishing ourselves spiritually.

Many things cut in on us in the busyness of life in these modern times. It is essential that modern-day followers of Christ proverbially plant some hedges and construct some walls to keep the world out. The monks and religious sisters living inside monastic enclosures show, by their very lives, that the world has to be held at bay in order to devote focused attention and reverence toward the Holy Trinity.

When we look at all that is happening in the world around us, when we take time to discern what is really happening in the scene being played out in the world just beyond our natural vision, we discover a world that, unbeknown to itself, is presenting us with a great opportunity to pattern our lives more fully after the examples of those early ones who lived their Christian faith in an atmosphere of harsh persecution.

[1] The Little Black Book, Six-minute meditations on the Sunday Gospels of Lent (Cycle B)