Mother Rebecca Stramoski
March 22, 2015
Jn 12:20-33
We spoke last week of the attraction of the cross. Today this message is repeated: Jesus lifted
up will draw all people to Himself. This
repetition is not surprising since last week we were talking about the cross as
the center-piece of our lives where all paradoxes, graces, and salvation flow. So we remain again at the foot of the cross
looking with love at Jesus who is looking lovingly at us. Love always attracts and the cross of Christ
is the greatest love. But there is a
catch to this seemingly simple attractive force of love. We love, but unfortunately, we love many things. Yes, we do
love the cross but we also love our comfort and our will and our possessions
and our time…and the list goes on! Our
arms are not big enough to embrace all the things we love!
I read a book during retreat that used the image of a
magnet and its attractive force. If you
put a nail close to a magnet, the nail sticks.
Put another nail by the nail on the magnet and it sticks too. We can repeat this on and on until we have a
trail of nails piled high. Things begin
to get heavy and messy as the strings of love pile on and on.
This is a reason we want to return daily to the cross…to
make Christ crucified the center of our passion and the only desire of our
heart. When the soul is filled with
Christ it has no more longings. So here
comes another image. A horseshoe magnet
can rapidly pick up pieces of iron.
However if you put a piece of iron right across the two ends of the
magnet, it will cease to attract anything else.
The magnetic circuit is completed, and the magnet rests perfectly quiet,
refusing to go beyond its own circle of pure content…and content. When my soul is filled with Jesus, He
completes the circuit of my soul’s passions and longings. He is my salvation and all my desire – I have
no need to pick up other things. Haven’t
we all experienced this? Hasn’t your
soul come to a complete rest when it has been absorbed by Christ? When He has drawn you to Himself, have you
not entered into rest? Just as Jesus
said, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest” (Mat11:28). This peace is another fruit of the attractive
force of the crucified Christ.
Lent is a time of recommitment…a time for us to examine
our lives and set things in proper order with God – with our sole passion being
for Christ. Jesus says in our gospel
today “that to serve me is to follow me”, but adds “where I am”. Jesus says follow me “where I am”- not
where I think I should be or where I want to be, but simply, where He
is. Without that completed circuit, so
to speak, this one phrase can cause us many troubles. Purity of heart allows us to see Jesus where
He is. Or like those Greeks in today’s
gospel, with our whole being (heart,
mind, and soul) we beg “Sir, we would like to see Jesus”.
So let us look at where Jesus went in His earthly
travels. We heard at the beginning of
our Lenten season that Jesus was led into the desert. So we should not be surprised when we find
ourselves in desert places. This is where
we must all eventually travel. The
desert is not a comfortable place to be.
It is the place of the heart which we must enter - where things are
stripped down to essential truths so that our love, desires, and thoughts may become
single focused and pure. It is a
difficult road that leads us to the truth of who we are, but it also leads us
to the truth of who God is, which brings us to peacefully rest in His
heart…where that magnetic circle is complete.
It is where “the grain of wheat dies” in order “to produce much fruit”;
where “we lose our life” so as “to preserve it for eternal life”
But what led Jesus into the desert? Certainly it was not the flesh because the
flesh does not seek out the uncomfortable and barren spots. Rather we are told that it was the Spirit that led him into the
desert. For only the Spirit can give us
the courage to enter our consciences honestly and recommit our lives and purify our hearts.
Jesus was led to another
place as well…the cross. With this in
mind, can we hear the words of Jesus again:
“to serve me is to follow me where I am”. In other words, to serve God am I willing to
follow him all the way to the cross? Can
I truly say with St Paul, “I want to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified”.
When I was new in the life I was speaking to someone in
community about my struggling with something.
(To be honest I can’t remember what it was but at the time I thought it
was huge!! You know how that
goes!!) I told her I had been taking it
to the cross of Jesus every day and yet it was still with me!!! She responded that I don’t go to the cross
and throw my troubles up to Jesus hanging there…I need to mount the cross with Jesus. I was shocked, or more accurately, “awoken”
by that statement! Later, what came to
mind was St Paul’s words “I have been crucified with Christ and the life I live
is not my own but Christ living within me.”
Subconsciously I was thinking that if I took my sufferings to Christ He
would take them away, but I realized this was a cross I was to bear for Him and
with Him. It was God’s choice on whether
it was more beneficial for me to carry the cross or not and God’s discretion on
when this suffering would turn into
new life. It was like I was expecting
Jesus to be where I was and how I thought it should be, and not following where
Jesus actually was and where Jesus wanted me.
It is easy to slip into this way of praying if we are not careful.
So yes, Lent is a time to enter our hearts honestly and
to look at our commitments and promises.
Sometimes we prefer distractions or even to entertain the temptations in
the desert. But distractions bring a
lack of peace and a multiplication of loves like the nails piling high on the
magnet. So whether we are being led to
the desert or to the cross, let us stay focused on Christ…let His love attract
us to Himself. This is the only way we
can “look forward to holy Easter with that joy and spiritual longing” that St
Benedict prescribed during Lent.
So let us embrace the cross with joy, peace, and trust,
and let its love attract us, knowing that Christ did all of this…for us!
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