On a recent outreach trip, I stopped at an old California Mission to attend Mass. I sat down just anywhere. After Mass, I knelt for a while and prayed. Then, I looked up and saw a remarkable painting of Christ Carrying His Cross; one of The Stations of the Cross. I was mesmerized: His face was so calm and serene; and, He was actually hugging the Cross; everything and everyone around Him was twisting and heaving, while, Christ, at the center of it all, remained still and at peace - even though He is truly in the midst of great suffering and physical torment. This got me thinking: should we not all embrace our Cross – no matter what it is made of? Some of us have crosses nailed with the desperation of homosexuality; others the desire for pornography and masturbation; others for illicit sex. In my own life, I spent many years trying to run away from those things, denying my feelings; running away from my thoughts. Should I have embraced them? Like the Cross.
On the same trip, a few days later, I came across a stunning painting of St. Francis; again, embracing the Cross. This gave me a great desire to pull the Cross close into my chest: a cross made of all the pain and suffering I experienced; the abuses in childhood – the porn; the same sex attraction; the death and destruction I felt as an adult. Yet, pushing that pain against my body was not accepting it, or making it all okay, but joining that pain with the eternal agony of Christ, and, henceforth, experiencing Him nearer to me. It gives it all a purpose; and the countless tears shed; and the many friends I had to see die – there deaths are no longer in vain – if we are all joined to Christ. There, we must remain – always on the Cross. Without the Cross, there is no eternal life. The biographer of St. Francis wrote: “For he [St. Francis] was ever on the Cross, shrinking from no toil and pain if only he might accomplish the Lord's will in himself and concerning himself.”
Now, I no longer run away from the Cross; I embrace it. The torments and unwanted desires are my means to salvation: if I go with them, and surrender to them – they will truly take me to hell; if I take them on, and nail it all to the Cross of Christ – He will overcome everything. Then, I will be Saved. “…ever on the Cross.”