The post I did yesterday reminds me of one of the meditations on my annual retreat this year. During one of his homilies, Father noted that on the day Jesus died there were three different reactions to the cross:

1. The bad thief who rebelled against it
2. The good thief who was merely resigned to it and
3. Christ who loved and embraced it

And so the question we must ask ourselves, he told us, is how do we respond to the crosses, big and small, in our lives? Well, how should we respond? St. Peter gives us a clue:

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. (1 Peter 2:21)

While our human nature rebels against it, to truly follow Christ we must ask God for the grace to learn to love the cross. To embrace and kiss it as our Savior did – it is, after all, the symbol of our salvation. How often do we desperately pray that God will deliver us or a loved one from suffering without also praising Him for the gift of being able to share in the Cross and asking for the strength to persevere in the midst of affliction? We must have faith in the “fiery furnace” even if He does not immediately (or ever in this life) take away our pain:

If our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, O king, may he save us! But even if he will not, know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue which you set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18)

Good Friday comes before Easter Sunday. Just as Christ was “made perfect” and “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8-9), so too are we tested and purified by our own sufferings (see 1 Peter 1:6-9). Perseverance through suffering prepares us for the joy of eternal life. But this is the greatest and most beautiful part: we are not alone in our suffering! Fr. Jaques Phillipe says it well:

The most decisive motive to aid us in peacefully confronting the drama of suffering is this: we must take very seriously the mystery of the Incarnation and that of the Cross. Jesus took on our flesh, He really took upon Himself our sufferings. And in all people who suffer there is Jesus who suffers…In all suffering there is a germ of life and of the resurrection, because Jesus is there in person.

In all people who suffer there is Jesus – on the Cross and Risen from the dead. Christ did not come to eliminate human suffering, but to redeem our suffering by the shedding of his own blood and unite himself to us, so that we don’t have to suffer alone.

Brothers and sisters:
Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God,
let us hold fast to our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has similarly been tested in every way,
yet without sin.
So let us confidently approach the throne of grace
to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help. (Heb. 4:14-16)

Prayer: You have given the sick and the suffering a share in your cross, give them patience and strength. Have mercy on your people, Lord.

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing 3 of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)