Christ wants More:Ignatian Principles and Ideals on Prayer and Action
Fr. Frank Holland, S.J.
Published in 1962
pp. 88-91
Christ's Way
Enthusiasm...that's the secret of working for Christ. We've got to have it or we just won’t last. Not the frothy kind of enthusiasm that lives on the surface but the kind that’s deep, solid, mature, often quiet, but real dynamite when the time comes for action. Enthusiasm that will lead us to fight constantly against the effects of original sin which have so weakened our natures.
The Crusaders had it. Even the children were heard throughout Europe, "God wills it. God wills it." And St. Francis of Assisi also had it. What kept him smiling as the doctors burned his eyeballs when treating his eyes? No one acts like that in a time of crisis unless he first thinks that way and loves that way.
We have been baptized and confirmed. All the power we need is there in potential. When are the effects going to show themselves? What has to happen to us to make us realize that we' re born for tremendous things, that working and living for Christ is the answer to our deepest dreams, that the only worthwhile things we do in this life are those that have their effects in the supernatural order? When will the grace of our Baptism and Confirmation be allowed to show itself?
Christ has called us. "Come follow Me." How many years have we put off answering that call? No guided missile was ever better directed than that plea. But we can't hear anything unless we want to. And the hard things of life are just the things we don't want to hear most of the time.
Sometimes we're held back because a decision for Christ seems ridiculous according to the standards of the world. Sometimes it demands heroism to the point of folly. One has to be willing to go the whole way. Living for Christ means total giving according to His example.
Others have followed Him and we can learn from them. Many years ago it was Cardinal Pacelli, later Pius XII, who as Papal Nuncio to Germany stood up to the muzzle of a Communist gun and told the intruders to "get out" of the House of God. Fear played no part in his thinking.
A wealthy young couple who chose to adopt a child that no one else would take from an orphanage were choosing according to Christ's standards. So was the woman who adopted the crippled, deformed child. The child was anything but inviting... except to one who had Christ's way of thinking, and this is the only way.
Our task is hard because the world of today will have nothing to do with Christ even though it belongs to Him as much as when He made it. It is singing the same song it sang two thousand years ago, "Crucify Him." But it has different words. It doesn't rant against Him; it just ignores Him. Abandonment is a crucifixion, too.
Perhaps we get along with that world too well. Maybe we've compromised with it by following its dictates instead of Christ's. We can't be on Christ's side unless we are willing to go the whole way in the manner of St. Peter. St. Peter was on his way OUT of Rome when he met Christ carrying His Cross on His way into Rome.
When Peter asked Christ where He was going, Christ replied: "Back to Rome to be crucified again... in your place." Peter needed no more. He was crucified right there in the Eternal City just like his Master... only upside down.
Today Christ speaks to us as He did to Peter. He calls us to crucifixion... to the crucifixion of choosing HIM, His way of thinking, of speaking, of acting... on the dance floor, at school, at work, at home. And this in spite of "what everyone else does." We need have no trouble knowing what He asks. His Church tells us.
But are we willing to choose as St. Peter chose? Are we willing to go the whole way to the cross? Do we choose Him no matter what the consequences may be? This is a choice which allows no compromising, no half-way measures, no long relaxations. It means being on the side of the saints, the HEROES of every age.
We must be convinced that total surrender in the manner of the saints is POSSIBLE for us. The cost will be great as it was for them and must not be underestimated. The Way of the Cross was different for each of God’s saints. It is different for each of us. We must discover what it is Christ asks of us.
A certain Jesuit once begged God to be forgotten, and he was…all along the line. When the time came for vows, to go out teaching, to be ordained...he was the last to be remembered. This might be asking too much for most of us, but the spirit of Christ was certainly there. Benedict Joseph Labre had his own way of following the Master as he played the role of a "tramp" for so many years... without home, without bath, without friends. Nobody understood... but Christ did. And that did matter.
To many, the Little Flower, St. Therese, was a young, pious, over-emotional French girl who took "the easy way" to Christ. A second glance at some of the things she did for the One she loved might be a bit more convincing. Only a will of iron could have done the tremendous little things she did for Christ. The big things most of us could do; the little ones aren't usually applauded.
Damien didn't have to go to Molokai. He wanted to. And that meant that he was willing to take on leprosy eventually. And that meant he invited pain... and death... and the cross. And why? What explains a man such as Damien? Where does he get the wherewithal to live that way, die that way, suffer that way? Is there something that he has that we haven't? Or is there Someone who inspires Him whom we don't have for a good friend? What's the secret?
Similar is the case of Peter Claver who lived with the Negro slaves at Cartagena for forty years. Just breathing the same air with the slaves in the "ship's hole" after they landed was enough to put most people out of the running. He fed them; he doctored them; he loved them; he often took their lashings for them. Why? Why? Why? The only reply we can find is that he literally saw Jesus Christ in them. He went beyond flesh and bone, looks and character, color and smell. He went right to the Heart of Christ.
Christ's way was never the easy way. Calvary can answer that. There is no room in Christ's army for the mediocre, for those who can't take it. Total giving of self is demanded. The Cross is IT, and we have to quit looking around for something else, something nicer, something more comfortable, something more human. God has set the pace. The question is-do we want to follow or not?
If we do, then we must dare to be different-in the way we think, in what we love, in whom we follow, in the way we live; and yet, we must not be repelling... or strange... or queer... or hard to take... or stuffy... or small... but just different in the sense that Christ was different because He lived this life in terms of the next life.
To act in today's world as Christ would act, we must be convinced to the hilt that He is right, that He is God! And that demands thinking, being alone with God, loving the right things, being tremendously sincere with God, with self, with others. And we must be convinced not merely that this is the only life, but that this life is meant for us and that we are called and are meant to live it.
We are called to live Christ's life NOW, in the circumstances of THIS CENTURY and this country in which He has placed us. But we are called to be saints no less heroic than those of any other age. Each one must discover what Christ is asking of him. The tasks differ. The standard is still the cross. The pledge of victory is the Resurrection. The leader is Christ.
It's a very wonderful thing to be sure we can't lose if only we persevere in it. And the secret of not giving up is to keep our eyes on Christ, not on ourselves. Anyone could get discouraged looking at self. No one who keeps his vision fixed on Christ will ever stop fighting for Him. It worked for Peter and thousands of others. You try it!
