When life’s all so very comfortable, it’s easy to believe God will uphold and vindicate us, just as the Psalmist did. But, when the haughty rise up against us and the ruthless seek to destroy us, it’s much more difficult to believe God will deliver us from our trials and tribulations, isn’t it?
Then too, as it increasingly appears God is letting the haughty and ruthless have their way with us, many of us waver and falter and some others of us give up entirely...which is nothing new. Just consider St. Peter who denied having any association with and even knowing Jesus, not once but three times.
One thing’s for sure, however.
It’s easy to know “Who’s Who” when it comes to living the faith we profess we profess so glibly with our lips—“talking the talk”—when the going gets rough. Those of us who strive to live an abiding faith set God before our eyes, trust that God will uphold and sustain us, and when tested in the crucible, wonder—just as Jesus did from the Cross—why God has forsaken us. Yet, because we strive to “walk the talk,” we continue to offer sacrifice and praise to God for His goodness, as the Psalmist reminded us.
It’s this witness—wondering when tested and abandoned, yes, but always striving to remain steadfast—which is the heart of a “crucifix faith.” It consists not of pious words or sophisticated theological definitions found in catechisms but in continuously offering sacrifice and praise to God for His goodness...especially when all seems lost.
That witness is how those of us who strive to live a “crucifix faith” evangelize others when they’re wavering or may have already given up. Continuously offering sacrifice and praise to God for His goodness when we’re tested and abandoned causes them to observe, “Don’t you see? The facts are the facts!” But they then ask, “How can you possibly continue to believe God will deliver you?”
Of course, the answer is “Everything I have in life is due to God. Without God, I have nothing.” The life we live each day is God’s gift. Everything else is “gravy” and sometimes what my brother called “rat poison,” namely, “liver and onions.” As Job expressed this idea when he was beset with having lost everything in his life that mattered, “If we receive good from God, should we not accept evil?” (2:10).
Those who strive to live a “crucifix faith” really mean it when they will continue to trust that God will deliver them from their trials and tribulations.
Yet this is just a beginning because that question—“How can you possibly continue to believe God will deliver you?”—portends what will be a dark future consisting of accusations of all sorts of other malicious and evil things, as the Book of Wisdom reminded us. Say anything about what others do that’s objectively and morally wrong—those violations of the God’s revealed truth as taught authentically by the Catholic Church—and those words are sure to end with the person uttering them being reviled and what today is called “canceled”...undeserving of any respect.
In the crucible, kindness, gentleness, and patience will be tested to determine the extent to which a person who seeks to live a “crucifix faith” is willing to go in persisting in one’s belief that God will deliver them from the crucible. And, when God doesn’t, public shaming will be the first death they will endure because, this person actually does believe “God will deliver me from the hands of my foes.”
Recall what St. James taught are the origins of all this contempt: Jealousy and selfish ambition which renders people inconsistent and insincere and wanting anyone who reminds them of their sin “canceled,” just as everyone surrounding Jesus canceled him. This inconsistency and insincerity breeds envy and in-fighting which, in turn, leads to conflict that, ultimately ends in “disorder,” St. James calls it, which is nothing other than the primeval chaos into which God injected order at the Creation.
Catholics who live a “Christmas crib faith” will “talk the talk” when the haughty rise up against them and the ruthless seek to destroy them. But, when the time comes to “walk the talk,” these Catholics wrap themselves up in the mantle of swaddling blankets trying to have it both ways. They claim to trust in God but seek to negotiate their way out of having to suffer by actually trusting in God.
How does God deliver those who strive to live a “crucifix faith”? It’s through the witness of those who actually “walk the talk” by continuing to trust God will deliver them from the crucible of their trials and tribulations. No one of us desires to bear the cross that Jesus bore, but when people do, they witness the way, the truth, and the life of a “crucifix faith.”
It’s called “heroic witness to the faith” and it’s the antidote Jesus offered to all this evil resulting from inconsistency and insincerity which breeds envy and in-fighting and leads to conflict that, ultimately ends in “disorder”. That antidote:
If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.
In plain English: If you really, really trust in God, then don’t give up when tested in the crucible but continue being the servant of all those who are seeking to cancel you.
Easier said than done, isn’t it?
This doesn’t mean being a doormat. No, what Jesus taught is to remain in the truth of our faith by providing those foes what they need not what they want—an authentic witness to the way, the truth, and the life. Remain steadfast in this, the Truth of Christ taught from the Crucifix, never giving up in being this “servant of all.”
It’s this witness—yes, wondering but not giving up when tested—which is the heart of evangelization. It’s evidenced when, in the midst of our trials and tribulations that are part and parcel of a “crucifix faith,” we remain, as St. James wrote, “peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits.” That good fruit is sown, he observed, in peace among those who cultivate the fruit of passion that ends in chaos.
That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: To learn to trust more in God so we will develop the “fruit of righteousness.”
How might each of us develop some of that “fruit of righteousness”?
- The first step is to identify and enter into a trial or tribulation life has thrown your way. As my friends in the military always say, “You gotta know who your enemy is.”
- The second step is to envision what being peaceable, gentle, and compliant would actually look like. This is to rehearse what righteousness requires which lowers the temperature of your emotions that normally cultivate the fruit of passion that ends in chaos.
- The third step is to commit yourself to trust God that no matter what evil may come your way. The requires steeling steel yourself not to react out of a sense of self-preservation when this trial arises this week but to respond to it full of mercy and compassion...understanding, as Jesus did from the Cross, “Father, forgiven them, for they know not what they do.”
This spiritual exercise doesn’t guarantee the chaos will dissipate any day this week or for that matter any time soon. But it does guarantee that over time your witness will become more steadfastly that of an authentic “crucifix faith”—being that “servant of all” about whom Jesus talked in today’s gospel and embodied on Good Friday upon the Crucifix.
That’s what it means to strive to live a “crucifix faith.” The goal is to boast in the Crucifix and, thus, to glorify God by fulfilling the distinct purpose for which God created each of us. This is also how, like God’s only begotten Son, you and I can witness this week to our abiding trust in God as we pray each day along with the Psalmist:
Freely will I offer you sacrifice;I will praise your name, O LORD, for its goodness.
Comments
Post a Comment