Over the last few days I have met so many people who are so stressed and angry and even feeling hatred, because of the terrible events of the last few days. Almost everyone who came to confession expressed this.
We should be outraged at the assassination of Charlie Kirk and all these horrific school shootings and we should always work for justice whatever way we can and try to end all the gun violence. But then there comes a point where we need to decide where we will go next. If we immerse ourselves in all the social media and all the opinions, many of which are so toxic and so hateful, then we will become full of anger and hatred ourselves, which is exactly what the devil wants. He wants to get everyone to hate everyone else, to turn all of us against each other.
We can also turn to Jesus and the things of God and then we will become filled with light and we will be light in the darkness which is all around us. Our country and world doesn't need more people filled with hatred. It needs people filled with hope and who bring the light of Christ everywhere. Our faith gives us that hope and we need to bring that into our world. Turning to Jesus is not being naive about what is going on. I read and watch everything, but there comes a point where I need to turn away from the hatred that follows. Our country doesn't need more hate-filled people. It needs hope and faith-filled people.
One of the summer jobs I had as a student was working in a car factory in Germany. There were a lot of Irish students working there. One of the other guys there—knowing that I was into my faith—said to me once, ‘That whole idea of being lost and saved is a load of rubbish,’ or words to that effect. I understood what he meant, but at the same time I believed that he was mistaken. ‘It’s probably a phrase that you associate with some of the charismatic tv evangelists who often talking about being saved. A lot of the problem comes down to language. Much of the language we use with regards to our faith sounds out of date, and as a result it is easy to think that faith is just something from an age gone by.
So if there is such a thing as being ‘lost’ or ‘saved’, what does this mean? What are we saved from, if we are saved? All through his teachings, Jesus, the Son of God, frequently mentions the need to choose for God. There is a choice to be made and that choice must be made by each person individually. No one can make that choice for anyone else, even if we want to. We are told that if we choose for God we are ‘saved,’ but what does this mean? It means we are saved from losing God forever. We are choosing the only thing that makes sense of what our life is about; that is, God. We are created by God and for God, created to be with God and that is the only place we will find happiness. If we choose God, we are saved from losing that possibility of the happiness we long for.
To be lost means to lose all that God offers us and consequently to lose what God wants to give us: happiness, fulfilment and being with our loved ones again. It is not just a religious notion; it is real and Jesus tells us again in this Gospel passage, that the whole purpose of his life, death and resurrection, was to save us, to save us from being separated from God forever. So the idea of being lost or saved is very real and it is a choice that we must make.
The title of this feast that we celebrate—the Triumph of the Cross—is a contradiction in itself. To be crucified in ancient times, was the ultimate mark of failure. They understood that anyone who died this way, was cursed by God. That was one of the reasons why they wanted Jesus killed by crucifixion specifically, since this would ‘prove’ that he was not God. It says in Deuteronomy (21:22) ‘Cursed be the man who hangs on a tree.’ And even when you look at the symbol of any cross, what could be more of a failure than this: total public humiliation, total helplessness, and death. Yet the bizarre thing is that through this event, through this terrible suffering and miscarriage of justice, everything changed. Through what seemed the ultimate act of human failure God brought about the greatest act of mercy for his people. The crucifixion is the bridge between God and humanity, lost through Original Sin, but now restored again through Jesus. That is why the cross is such an important symbol for us. That is also why the demons hate the symbol of the crucifix. It is also why we should have blessed crucifixes in our homes and wear them if possible.
Probably the greatest problem that any of us face is the problem of suffering: sickness and the death of people we love; injustice carried out against the innocent. We rebel against this, we get angry and we cry out to God, ‘How can you allow this to happen?’ Often during times of the greatest distress, God seems to stay infuriatingly silent. We want an answer to help us make sense of what is happening, but there does not seem to be any answer. And yet there is an answer that God gives us, though perhaps it is not the answer that we want to hear. God points us to the cross and reminds us that He allowed Jesus—the completely innocent one—to suffer the most horrific and shameful death. It reminds us that even though we do not understand suffering, that it does have a purpose and that God will make sense of it for us in the end and even more importantly that God can bring the greatest good out of situations of suffering. That is why when we are suffering we come and pray before the cross. We unite our suffering to his suffering. He understands our suffering because He has also experienced it. We ask God to help us not to despair, but to trust that everything will make sense in the end.
When we encounter the death of loved ones, especially in a way that is not natural, through violence, or when a person is young, we ask, ‘Where is God now? How could God allow this to happen?’ Yet, if you look at the crucifixion, I’m sure many people there said the same thing. ‘Where is God now? How could God allow such a man to be crucified?’ And yet God was there in the heart of it. It was that act of suffering that reopened the possibility of eternal life for us. To accept that is to be saved. To reject that is to be lost. That’s why it is so important that we pray for people who have lost their way in the world, turned their back on God by the way they are living.
The mercy of God is infinite and something we can’t grasp. The saint and mystic known as Padre Pio (1887-1968), said that if God’s mercy was only what we think it is, then we would all end up in hell. In other words, we have such a small and limited idea of that mercy. Jesus went to the ends of the earth, to make it possible to get to heaven when we die. If that is true, then what is there to be afraid of, so long as we make an effort to repent of our sinfulness. Getting to heaven does not depend on us becoming holy enough, rather on us abandoning ourselves to God’s mercy. What matters is that we try to live as God asks us to. Effort is what matters.
So often people come to me, afraid that God will not forgive them because of things they have done. Yet, the whole purpose of the sacrifice of Christ was to forgive those very things that we are ashamed of and which cause us to be afraid of losing heaven, being lost. It also implies that we are thinking we must merit heaven, in some way; be good enough for heaven.
‘It is owing to his favor that salvation is yours through faith. This is not your own doing, it is God’s gift. Neither is it a reward for anything you have accomplished, so let no one pride himself on it. (Eph 2:8-9)
This is a reminder again that it doesn’t depend on us being good enough, since we can’t be, but accepting this gift that God offers us, the gift of eternal life. That is what God gave us in the first place and still wants for us.
Imagine that you went to great lengths to get an incredible gift for someone you love. You want them to receive that gift. You want them to realize what an incredible gift it is, so that it will bring them all the more happiness. You would hate for them not to receive it, since you went to such lengths to get it for them. That is what God’s giving us eternal life is about. God wants us to have this gift and it is a gift. God offers us that gift of eternal life with him. We just have to accept it and we accept it by the choices we make throughout our life.
Imagine if eternal life was not real? How would we face the death of our loved ones. But this gift is what gives us such great hope. We can be with our loved ones again if we choose for God.
Jesus also said there is one sin which is unforgivable. ‘Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.’ (Matt 12:21). What does that mean? The Holy Spirit is the love between God the Father and the Son. To blaspheme against the love of God is to reject it, which is to reject God. If we curse God and reject God, we have lost God, because God will never force us to love him. That doesn’t come down to one time saying something that is blasphemous. It is a continual state of mind that rejects, or curses God.
Christianity is probably the only religion that does not try to escape, or avoid suffering. God tells us that through suffering we are transformed. It is part of our journey to heaven, even though none of us want it. It is part of what forms us as human beings. You have probably encountered people who have suffered a lot, they are often the most compassionate.
No one wants to have to face the cross, but it also has its place. It is part of our path to heaven.
‘It is owing to his favor that salvation is yours through faith. This is not your own doing, it is God’s gift. Neither is it a reward for anything you have accomplished, so let no one pride himself on it. (Eph 2:8-9)
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