May 3, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will consider to-morrow: 1st, that the true cross of Christ is found everywhere; 2d, we shall see how we ought to carry it. We will then make the resolution: 1st, not to look at the trials of life in the same manner as do philosophers and pagans, as though they were purely natural events, but to see in them the hand of God, who ordains them and who permits them from motives of love towards us; 2d, to bless God for the evils we suffer, as well as for the good He sends us, often repeating the words of the holy man Job: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job i. 21).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Jesus Christ ascending Calvary, laden with His cross, and inviting us to take up ours courageously also, and to bear it whilst following Him (Matt. xvi. 24). Let us thank Him for the example He gives us and the invitation He addresses to us.
FIRST POINT
The True Cross of Christ is to be Found Everywhere
We attach great value to relics of the holy cross, which was found buried in the ground on Calvary by the Empress St. Helena, and we look upon it as a happiness to possess one. But there is a cross which is better than these particles, most venerable though they are by their having been stained with the blood of a God: it is everything we meet with in this life which annoys us and is opposed to us. The pagan or the philosopher sees in these things only effects springing from natural causes; but the Christian, who is enlightened by faith, sees in them the hand of God, who disposes, ordains, or permits everything for our greater good, to render us like to His Divine Son, whose whole life was nothing but a cross and a martyrdom; to form us to the solid virtues of patience, of resignation, and of humility; lastly, to make us acquire more honor and glory in eternity. Now all trials, looked at in this light, are the true crosses which Jesus Christ recommends to us, holy crosses, precious crosses which are found everywhere. Sometimes we find them in our bodies: they are sufferings and infirmities, sicknesses, cold, heat, the mortification of our comforts, of our tastes, of our sensualities, the uneasy or restrained use of our limbs or our senses; sometimes we find them in our hearts: they are the death of some one who is near and dear to us, a reverse of fortune which obliges us to descend from the rank we occupy; they are the association with difficult and disagreeable characters; they are the thousand desires we cannot satisfy, the thousand unpleasant circumstances we meet with. Here we find them outside ourselves: they are a humiliation which is inflicted on us, a want of consideration, the preference of another to ourselves, a calumny or a raillery of which we are the object; they are persecutions coming to us from persons who do not bear good will towards us, who do not understand us, who hate us and seek to do us evil. There again we find them within us: they are temptations against purity, against hope, against even God Himself, aridities, darknesses, distractions, and dislikes in regard to our practices of piety; scruples and doubts which fatigue us, sometimes even pure imagination; we fancy things which do not exist in reality and we turn them into cruel trials. “In a word,” says the author of the Imitation, “the cross is everywhere, you cannot escape from it; above you and below you, outside you and inside you, you will everywhere find the cross” (II. Imit. xii. 4). Happy he who receives it and bears it as he ought, “looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before Him endured the cross” (Heb. xii. 2), contempt, ignominy. Do not let us complain, do not let us be discouraged, having set before us Him who suffered so great contradiction from sinners. Have we as yet resisted unto blood, fighting against sin? Is it thus that we regard all the trials of life? Do we receive them with submission and love, as coming from the hands of God?
SECOND POINT
How we must bear the Cross
We must bear it with respect, love, and joy. 1st. With respect. Nothing is more venerable than the cross. St. Paul placed his glory in it (Gal. vi. 14). St. John of the cross saw in it his Paradise upon earth. “What do you desire to have,” Jesus Christ once asked him, “as a reward for all your great labors?” “Lord Jesus,” he answered, “to suffer and be despised for Thy sake.” And in point of fact, a soul which is crucified and weighed down under suffering is the image of Jesus Christ, the object of the complaisance of the heavenly Father, it is beautiful in the eyes of God and of His angels, worthy of the respect of heaven and of earth. It bears the seal of Paradise, the seal of the elect, and this is why, in the eyes of the saints, a good cross is worth more than all riches, a good affront worth more than all honors. 2d. We must bear the cross lovingly. It is the consequence of what we have been meditating upon. Love follows upon esteem; we love things in proportion to the respect in which we hold them. Therefore we see that Jesus Christ passionately loved the cross; He was born upon it; He lived upon it; He died upon it, therefore the cross is most lovable; for, whatever men may say, the judgment of God is worth more than that of the world. Look again at St. Andrew, that illustrious lover of the cross; as soon as he saw it in the distance he cried out with transport: “O good cross, cross which I have so much loved, so much desired, sought after so greatly, I salute thee!” 3d. We must bear the cross joyfully. To suffer patiently and without murmuring is the act of beginners; but in proportion as we study the cross we find in it our joy and our delight, we bless God for it, and we render to Him a thousand thanksgivings. We go farther still; we esteem ourselves to be unworthy of so great an honor, and we are plunged into profound astonishment that Heaven should have considered us to be worthy of so great glory. “The apostles went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus,” it is written in the book of the Acts (v. 41). Oh, how far are we from possessing the great sentiments of the saints: the respect, the love, the joy with which they welcomed the cross!
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.