Theology of Suffering According to 2 Women Saints' Mystical Visions of the Cross (Homily #90)

(photo from Homiletic & Pastoral Review)

Audio Recording [#90a]

Sat., July 1, 5pm Mass

[#90b - Sun., July 2, 8am]

[#90c  - Sun., July 2, 5pm]

Theology of Suffering According to 2 Women Saints’ Mystical Visions of the Cross

(Homily #90)

St. Catherine’s Catholic Church, Vallejo, CA, USA

July 1-2, 2017

To explain 2 main points from today’s Gospel on the Cross, I’m going to take 2 women mystic-saints.  These 2 female mystics are St. Faustina and Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich.  Both women had visions of the Cross that we can read about and apply today.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us: Whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

I

So let’s go to that first point—St. Faustina, the Apostle of Divine Mercy to whom Jesus appeared in 1929.  In the Diary St. Faustina, St. Faustina wrote that she once had a vision of Jesus showing her 3 types of Christians carrying their Crosses in the world.  She wrote:

QUOTE “I saw a multitude of souls crucified like Him. Then I saw a second multitude of souls, and a third. The second multitude were not nailed to [their] crosses, but were holding them firmly in their hands. The third were neither nailed to [their] crosses nor holding them firmly in their hands, but were dragging [their] crosses behind them and were discontent. Jesus then said to me,

Do you see these souls? Those who are like Me in the pain and contempt they suffer will be like Me also in glory. And those who resemble Me less in pain and contempt will also bear less resemblance to Me in glory (446).

Among the crucified souls, the most numerous were those of the clergy. … Then Jesus said, “In your meditation…, you shall think about what you have seen today.”  END QUOTE

This is very applicable to today’s Gospel on carrying our Cross.  Which of the 3 are we in our lives?

The first group were like Jesus Christ Crucified the most.  We may not be literally nailed to a wooden Cross, or physically killed like many Catholics are being literally nailed or tied to a Cross to die in the Middle East, but the trials of life or people that we love can spiritually crucify us on a Cross.  Are we on our Cross now? 

Let Christ Crucified give you strength!  In the Second Reading, St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  St. Paul also wrote that if we have died with Christ, we shall live with him.  We see that with the Cross comes the Resurrection!

In St. Faustina’s vision of the 2^nd group, she saw Christians who were not yet crucified, but they were holding “firmly” their Crosses in their hands.  They are the ones who are willing to take up their Cross but are not yet crucified.

But here’s what’s interesting of the 3 groups: In the 3^rd group, there were Christians neither crucified not holding their Cross, but there were dragging their Crosses behind them and were discontent.  They did not accept the Cross that God had given them.  This is a clear reference to “Whoever does not take up his Cross and follow me” cannot be Jesus’s disciple because we will resemble Jesus less by not accepting our Cross and drag them. 

All of us who were baptized cannot escape the Cross.  We will fall into one of these 3 groups.  The irony is that whoever loses his life by embracing the Cross will find life. 

II

For the second main point, we can briefly look to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich’s visions of the Suffering and Passion of Jesus.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, which is also the 1^st Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary, Bl. Anne Catherine saw in a vision that Jesus was shown all the sins of the world from the time of Adam to the end of the world.  And yet Jesus still took these sins upon himself, even as the devil was tempting Jesus not to die for sinners.  Jesus was strengthened when he saw his followers turning to him for strength.

In the Scourging at the Pillar, the 2^nd Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary, where Jesus was tied and whipped, his beatings were continual without relief.  Jesus’ silent groans were prayer for those that scourged his flesh with the sins against purity.  At one point, Jesus wiped blood from his eyes to look at his Mother.  In the Crowning of Thorns, the 3^rd Sorrowful Mystery, Jesus did not just experience physical pain but insult to his injuries.  If Jesus suffered these, so too will we. 

In the Carrying of the Cross, the 4^th Sorrowful Mystery, Bl. Anne Catherine saw that when Jesus was given His cross, he knelt down by the Cross, embraced it with his arms, kissed His Cross 3 times, and said a prayer of thanksgiving to His Father for the work of redemption that he had begun.  He gave us a model of how to love our Cross, so that we do not drag it.  Finally, in the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus, the 5^th Sorrowful Mystery, Jesus’ Mother was present cooperating in the work of the Redeemer where a sword pieces her Immaculate and sinless Heart.

All virtue of the saints, our merits, our strength flows from Jesus’s passion, death and resurrection.  Humanly speaking, we naturally repelled at the thought of suffering on the Cross of life and dying on a Cross.  But divinely speaking, we can turn our Crosses into victory—a greater good emerges from the evil!  Let us unite our sufferings to the Passion of Christ.  Let us bring our sufferings and labors to every Mass which is the celebration of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection.  Suffering is not useless.  This is the Christian meaning of human suffering.

Let these two women mystic saints, St. Faustina and Bl. Anne Catherine, help us carry our Cross.  May the feminine genius of these 2 women mystic-saints and their private revelation help us pierce our hardened hearts to turn to Christ Crucified as our model. 

Jesus said: Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life (by taking up the Cross) for my sake will find it.