San José, USA, September 1, 2018.
“This doctrine of the Cross must be what we preach”
Directory of Spirituality, 140
Dear Fathers, Brothers, Seminarians, and Novices,
“The crucified Son of God is the historic event upon which every attempt of the mind to construct an adequate explanation of the meaning of existence upon merely human argumentation comes to grief. The true key-point, which challenges every philosophy, is Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross. […] Reason cannot eliminate the mystery of love which the Cross represents […] The wisdom of the Cross, therefore, breaks free of all cultural limitations which seek to contain it and insists upon an openness to the universality of the truth which it bears.”
I wished to begin this circular letter with the words from the great Encyclical of Saint John Paul the Great, Fides et Ratio, whose 20th anniversary we celebrate on the 14th of this month, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. For, these words clearly place us face to face, in one way or another, with that which is the distinctive characteristic and the essential content of our preaching: the Crucified Son of God, the wisdom of the Cross; for, we are members of this, our, Institute of the Incarnate Word, which has been entrusted with “preaching the Word of God sharper than any two-edged sword, in all its forms.”
Within the present culture, which is imbued with secularism, greed and hedonism, and which so insistently attempts to distance man from the Cross, we, today, can also cry out to God as St. Louis de Montfort did, saying: “Your divine commandments are broken, your Gospel is thrown aside, torrents of iniquity flood the whole earth carrying away even your servants! The whole land is desolate!” Together with him, we can ask the Incarnate Word to make of us “men who…lay low all your enemies, with the Cross for their staff,” men who are always “available for every opportunity which arises to proclaim the Gospel,” who “go everywhere with… the holy Gospel in our mouth and the holy Rosary in our hand, to bark like dogs, to burn like embers and to illuminate the darkness of the world like suns.” All of which makes more manifest the inevitable call for us to be formed within the school of the Cross, the Cross which the Incarnate Word himself loved from his tender youth, and to whom he was espoused, embracing it and dying upon it on Calvary.
1. Love of the Cross
Our proper law invites us to fervently carry the grace of Redemption to all of reality: to man, the whole man, and all men, to marriages and family, to culture, to political, economic, and social life, to the international life of all peoples with a particular reference to the topic of peace, that is, to all the greatest contemporary problems; in order do so, we must first “nail in our hearts the One who was nailed to the cross for us.”
If the cross is inevitable for every Christian, how much more is this true for us who have been called to “share more fully in Christ’s emptying of Himself” and to explicitly “conform ourselves to Christ Crucified!” But, even more so, the cross becomes our way of life and the royal road upon which we want to walk as we carry out our apostolate: “in humble service and generous surrender and free gift of ourselves through a love which reaches to the end.”
And this to such an extent that the most Holy Humanity of our Crucified Lord becomes the image which our proper law longs to see reflected in our Institute, and for which reason it states: “our small Religious Family must never be closed off, but rather must be open like the arms of Christ on the Cross that were ‘dislocated’ for love’s sake.”
Therefore, for us “our Lord’s Paschal mystery is an inexhaustible source of spirituality. His Passion, Death, descent into hell and Resurrection must always illuminate our lives. We must be experts in the wisdom of the cross, in the love of the cross, and in the joy of the cross.” For, to the extent that we enter more fully into the crucified and crucifying love of our Lord, we will transmit more clearly the mystery of God, “fully revealing the beauty and power of God’s love.”
For this reason, our proper law is so insistent regarding this essential aspect. We have read it many times, we have meditated on it, and even preached about it to others, but it is always worth recalling so as to better assimilate it: “Let the Cross be for you, as it was for Christ, proof of the greatest love.” And in another passage from our proper law we are invited to “love the living cross of toils, humiliations, insults, tortures, pains, persecutions, misunderstandings, annoyances, disgraces, scorn, shame, slanders, death… and be able to say with Saint Paul: I die every day”
The reason for this is that “if we are religious, it is so that we might imitate the Incarnate Word” who “saved the world through the folly of the Cross, wiser than human wisdom…stronger than human strength.” Let us understand this clearly: our way must be that of living the “the folly of the Cross, the foolishness of God, which consists of living more and above. This folly begins when there is no longer counting, calculating, weighing, or measuring. The folly of the Cross consists of living the Beatitudes. It is to bless those who curse us, to repay no one evil for evil.” This must be deeply ingrained in our minds and in our hearts so that the mystery of the cross is a habitual point of reference and norm of life. Because “‘everything is in the Passion. There one learns the knowledge of the saints.’ Because, love that is not borne from the cross of Christ is weak.”
Yes, we should be convinced that the cross is love transformed into a sword which cuts, separates, wounds, and disturbs false peace. Only by embracing it will we not be fooled by any worldly wisdom, nor become enamored by the empty and vain chatter of men who do not love the cross, some of whom are even in positions of authority. Only by embracing the cross will we be able to truly be salt of the earth, and light of the world, while on the contrary, we will end up being tasteless salt, light under a bushel basket.
Pope Benedict XV wrote: “For it is not by pouring forth a copious stream of words, not by using subtle arguments, not by delivering violent harangues, that the salvation of souls is effected. The preacher who is content with those means is nothing but sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. What gives a man’s words life and vigor and makes them promote wonderfully the salvation of souls is Divine grace.” And this grace of God—as John Paul the Great said-is obtained through prayer and with a life in conformity with its supreme directives.
This is nothing other than living according to the holy folly of the beatitudes; which is precisely what we ask for each year when we meditate during the Spiritual Exercises on the three kinds of humility: “to be accounted as worthless and a fool for Christ, rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent in this world. So Christ was treated before me.” It means making the effort to be totally ‘soaked in’ the wisdom-folly of the Cross, and to be faithful to it until the end. It is that folly which is capable of “saying after having worked all day for the sake of the Gospel: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do; it is the folly of knowing that To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away; it is the foolishness of living entirely dependent on Divine Providence: Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic; that of seeking the last place: But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first; of being the servant of all: whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant ; that of humbling oneself: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted; it is the folly of forgiveness: Forgive them, they know not what they do.” This is what is particularly our own: this is our priestly and religious vocation. And this should be the message that we preach, considering it to be a great gift from heaven if, because of it, we receive more crosses, for our proper law itself assures us that if this happens to us, it is a “sign that we are doing well.”
We should be convinced that we are sent out amidst the darkness, to the emptiness, the chaos of this world, to announce the Word and to give witness to Him. Therefore, given the current context “marked both by widespread relativism and the temptation of a facile pragmatism,” we should not be surprised that the message of the Word of God made flesh, nailed to the cross, continues to be, today, foolishness to those who are perishing. The great preacher of the cross, Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort already said this: “Do not then be surprised at the bogus peace which fashionable preachers enjoy nor at the extraordinary persecutions and calumnies directed against the preachers who have received the gift of proclaiming God’s eternal word…”
This means that each of us is called to live the mystery of the cross, which makes us grow mature in our faith and which gives us an ever more profound knowledge of the gospel message, helping us to judge the circumstances of life from this perspective. In such a way that our ministry does not become reduced to a mere service for human solidarity, but that on our part there might always be the transmission of the newness of life which Christ brought us, which he gained for us, precisely, upon the Cross (strictly speaking, in the whole of the Paschal Mystery).
Therefore, the words which Saint Louis Marie wrote to the Association of the Friends of the Cross are also fitting for us: “Do not deceive yourselves!…If you are guided by the same spirit, if you live with the same life as Jesus, your thorn-crowned Head, you must expect only thorns, lashes and nails; that is, nothing but the cross; for the disciple must be treated like the master and the members like the Head.” This, although it can be applied to all Christians, must be rightfully expected to happen to those who have the most honorable task of continuing “the redemptive work of Christ” through preaching.
It is often said that we live in an age of transformation, in which the ways of thinking of life and of society have profoundly changed and continue to change. The collection of new ideologies, with different interpretations of the meaning of life and the subsequent ethic pluralism, is like a whirlwind which looms over consciences seeking to change them. In this particular moment and to the cultures immersed in these current circumstances, we are called to proclaim the power of the cross. This power is such that it does not need wisdom of human eloquence nor empty, seductive philosophy, and even less illusory ideologies. What it demands, rather, is that each of us let ourselves be transformed by Christ. For, only if one’s heart is transformed, can one accomplish the great task of helping others so that the Spirit might guide them to all truth, which is the goal and the very essence of the Christian mission.
In this same sense, Blessed Paul VI exhorted us to conquer souls, yes, “through toil and suffering, through a life lived according to the Gospel, through abnegation and the cross, through the spirit of the beatitudes. But above all, through a total interior renewal which the Gospel calls metanoia; a radical conversion, a profound change of mind and heart.” And, St. John Paul II said: “This is why mission without contemplation of the Crucified One is condemned to frustration, as the founders very opportunely realized. This is also the reason why they (n.b. the Holy Father is addressing a particular religious institute) insisted especially on the commitment to adoration of the Eucharistic mystery, since it is in the Sacrament of the Altar that the Church contemplates uniquely the mystery of Calvary, from whose sacrifice flows all the grace of evangelization.”
And in another moment, the Great Pope said: “the new evangelization needs witnesses.” For, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”
With this said, I would like to insist, yet again, that “It is not possible to bear witness to Christ without reflecting his image, which is made alive in us by grace and the power of the Spirit.” The image of Christ, as you all well know, carries the marks of the passion. Attacks and calumnies form part of the lot reserved for the disciples of Christ. The Lord does not deceive us, He himself told us this: No slave is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Therefore, if we are faithful to “the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God,” of course we will encounter opposition, attacks and even certain malicious hindrance. But, the sweet promise of Christ should also encourage and comfort us: Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Thus, we should always, and with great determination, persevere in our efforts of evangelization, comforted by the serenity which comes from a clear conscience; being “prepared to make this profession of faith even in the midst of persecutions, which will never be lacking to the Church, in following the way of the cross.”
2. This doctrine must be what we preach: the folly of Christ Crucified
Our Directory of Evangelization of Culture defines evangelization as “a rich, complex, and dynamic reality, and ‘For the Church, evangelizing means bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity.’”
Now, “the very term ‘Good News’ indicates the fundamental character of the message of Christ. God desires to respond to man’s deep-rooted longing for good and for happiness. One can say that the Gospel, which is this divine response, possesses an ‘optimistic’ character. Nevertheless, it is not a merely temporal optimism, a superficial eudemonism; it is not a proclamation of ‘heaven on earth.’ The ‘Good News’ of Christ presents to the one who hears it essential demands of a moral nature; it indicates the need for renunciations and sacrifices; it is related, ultimately, to the redeeming mystery of the cross. In fact, at the heart of the ‘Good News’ we find the program of the Beatitudes, which details in the most comprehensive way the type of happiness which Christ has come to announce and reveal to humanity, while still on this earthly pilgrimage towards its definitive and eternal destiny.”
In other words, it is not about “an immanent salvation, meeting material or even spiritual needs, restricted to the framework of temporal existence and completely identified with temporal desires, hopes, affairs and struggles, but a salvation which exceeds all these limits in order to reach fulfillment in a communion with the one and only divine Absolute: a transcendent and eschatological salvation, which indeed has its beginning in this life but which is fulfilled in eternity.”
Thus did the hundreds of thousands of missionaries understand it who at the dawn of evangelization, upon arriving at the untouched mission lands, planted the cross as a summary of the entire program which they came to offer. We must always do the same, called as we have been to preach the doctrine of the cross in its entirety and with all of the moral demands that derive from it.
Conscious, therefore, that “many men live as enemies of the cross of Christ because they reject, reduce, diminish, and avoid the cross, or they do not preach the entire message” we should place the emphasis on presenting the mystery and the message of the cross without fear or cutting back, with all naturality, as something familiar that is lived and embraced, because, ultimately, it is a grace which God grants. Knowing how to transmit it joyfully—not as sad or discouraged, impatient, or anxious evangelizers—but rather, presenting it as an easy yoke and a light burden which is carried with joy because it is carried out of love. Even more so, with the certainty that it is Jesus Christ, nailed to the cross, who draws souls to Himself, as he said: And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.
All of you know that it is precisely the preaching of the cross which has been and continues to be a source of vocations for our Institute, in which, the religious vocation itself is conceived and presented as being crucified with Christ and where the cross becomes an integral element of our very charism. For, do our Constitutions not say: “all its members should work in supreme docility to the Holy Spirit and according to the example of the Virgin Mary, so that Jesus Christ will be the Lord of all that is truly human, even in the most difficult situations and under the most adverse conditions”?
“Let us not forget that nothing can substitute the proclamation of Jesus Christ and the personal encounter of souls with his mystery, and therefore, an authentic evangelization cannot exist if it does not propose the entire truth about Jesus Christ, about the Church, and about man. Simply, because there is no authentic salvation nor freedom without the logic of the Gospel, proclaimed and lived in its integrity. For this reason, Jesus affirms: If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
In summary, in addition to the witness of life, an explicit proclamation of Jesus Christ is also necessary. Blessed Anthony Chevrier said: “Catechizing men is the greatest mission of today’s priests.” For “This proclamation – kerygma, preaching or catechesis – occupies such an important place in evangelization that it has often become synonymous with it.”
Therefore, without fear and without letting ourselves be paralyzed by those reasonings which, as Blessed Chevrier said, “kill the Gospel,” we should explicitly announce the message of Christ with all faithfulness, simplicity, authority, and firmness. The Spiritual Father of our Religious Family said: “The world needs to know, by our example, the absoluteness of the Gospel, without ignoring the complex conditions of evangelization, nor of pedagogy; show forth Jesus Christ!” We can recognize the value, for us as well, of the advice that Blessed Chevrier gave to his own members: “May the mysteries of our Lord become so familiar that you can speak of them as if they were your own, just as people are wont to do regarding their state and their affairs.” It is the same thing that our Constitutions invite us to do when they ask us to acquire that holy “familiarity with the Word made flesh.”
For, as Saint Louis Marie says: “It is the easiest thing in the world to be a fashionable preacher. It is a difficult but sublime thing to be able to preach with the inspiration of an apostle, to speak like the wise man, ex sententia. ‘The majority have only the tongue, mouth and wisdom of men. That is why, even though these preachers quote Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, so few people are enlightened or moved and converted by their words…’”
We are sent out to importune and contradict the world with the doctrine of the Cross, so that through our proclamation men might deeply adhere to the program of life that He proposes. There are many people who “speak brilliantly of the benefits that the Christian religion has brought to humanity, but silence the obligations that it imposes; they announce the charity of our Savior Jesus Christ, but do not say a word about justice. The fruit that this sort of preaching produces is meaningless, for, after having heard it, even any profane man comes to convince himself, that, without any need for changing his life, he is a good Christian as long as he says: I believe in Jesus Christ.”
This should not happen in our case. Rather, our proper law, following the great mission preacher, Saint Alphonsus Maria Liguori, instructs us in the choice of preaching material by saying:
– “we must take care to choose material which helps, in a particular way, to move to a hatred for sin and towards a love of God; and, consequently, we must frequently speak of the last things, death, judgment, hell, heaven, and eternity;”
– “…of the love that Jesus Christ has for us, the love that we should profess for him, and the trust that we must always have in his mercy when we want to correct our ways.” “Similarly […] of the trust that we should have in the intercession of the Mother of God.”
– “…of the means of persevering in the grace of God, such as fleeing from dangerous occasions, bad friendships, the frequent reception of the sacraments…”
– “…of bad confessions made when one remains silent about his sins due to shame.”
– “In addition, the consideration of the lives of the saints—with their battles and heroisms—has, in all times, brought forth great fruits in the souls of Christians. Today, as well, threatened by erroneous behavior and doctrine, the faithful have a special need for the example of these lives heroically given to the love of God, and for God, to other men […] All of this is useful for evangelization, as well as for promoting within the faithful a sense of solidarity with all men, for love of God, leading to a spirit of service, and the generous self-giving towards others,” etc.
One more important point: “given the conditions of the dominating culture, marked by immanentism and atheism, it will always be fruitful to point out, in one way or another according to the type of listeners, the constitutive attributes of a true notion of God: supreme being, one and superior, spiritual, transcendent, and free.”
In any case, the materials selected for Preaching should lead, either directly or indirectly, the listeners to be able to increasingly know and love the adorable person of Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, as you have already realized throughout your pastoral experiences, this proclamation is only one aspect, and, in fact, it serves for nothing if men do not adhere to it. “For this very reason, authentic evangelization should lead to and culminate in the worthy reception of the sacraments, for, it is by means of the sacrament that the grace of the Holy Spirit is ordinarily transmitted.” Thus does the Magisterium of the Church teach us: “Yet, one can never sufficiently stress the fact that evangelization does not consist only of the preaching and teaching of a doctrine. For evangelization must touch life: the natural life to which it gives a new meaning, thanks to the evangelical perspectives that it reveals; and the supernatural life, which is not the negation but the purification and elevation of the natural life. This supernatural life finds its living expression in the seven sacraments and in the admirable radiation of grace and holiness which they possess.”
What has been said until now marks the great need for a personal preparation—certainly spiritual and moral—but also a philosophical, theological, biblical, etc. training of those who are in preparation for or are already carrying out the great task of shepherding souls. “In today’s modern world, so open to knowledge, one cannot permit superficial analysis, imprudent simplifications, approximative answers. It is necessary that one have a profound vision of the different problems in the light of the Eternal Truth, who is Christ.” And to do so, there is nothing better that the Cross, which is “the supreme Pulpit of the truth of God and of man.”
* * * * *
Dear all, it is as true today as it has always been that “man cannot grasp how death could be the source of life and love; yet to reveal the mystery of his saving plan God has chosen precisely that which reason considers ‘foolishness’ and a ‘scandal’.” And as Saint John Chrysostom said: “that which the world flees from, our Lord presents to us as something desirable.”
It is also true that, at times, the task of announcing the Gospel to all nations can seem almost disproportionate in comparison with the human means which are available within the Church, and even more so within our Institute. Nevertheless, God willing, may this text be as a stimulus for us, so that, with an ever-greater ardor, we might dedicate ourselves vigorously and surrender to the sublime mission of “proclaiming the Kingdom and establishing the Church in the midst of the world.”
Therefore, let us make our own the petition made by Saint Louis Marie, praying with him to the Incarnate Word that He make of us “from all these ugly crows, a flight of pure doves and royal eagles; from all these buzzing hornets, a swarm of honey-bees; from all these slow-moving tortoises, a herd of nimble deer; from all these timid hares, a pride of bold lions.[…] With the cross as our standard, let us form a strongly disciplined army drawn up in lines of battle. Let us make a concerted attack on the enemies of God,” who are none other than the enemies of the cross.
Knowing beforehand that –as Blessed Paolo Manna warned– “everyone who dedicates himself to the salvation of souls should await suffering; with greater reason, missionaries, who have no other end other than that of giving new sons to God and to the Church from non-Christian lands. And children are never born without pain. It is dying on the cross, that Jesus has generated us unto eternal life. It was at the foot of the Cross that Mary came to be our Mother. In the supernatural order, pain, and often death, are the cause of fruitfulness. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit. One must suffer to save. The young aspirants and missionaries who do not understand this doctrine should stay at home, because one does not become a savior of souls in any other way.”
May the Queen of this Institute, the great evangelizer of cultures, who remained firm at the foot of the cross, obtain for us the grace to follow as “strangers in a foreign land, pressing forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, announcing the cross and death of the Lord until He comes.” Because, I insist, our way is and always will be to never closed off, but rather open like the arms of Christ on the Cross that were ‘dislocated’ for love’s sake.
In Christ, the Incarnate Word, and his Most Holy Mother,
Fr. Gustavo Nieto, IVE
General Superior
