Luke 9
Have you ever questioned what use, what benefits, if any, your bearing the cross would have? Does my sacrifice have any effect? Will anybody know about it? It seems that I am the only one who suffers for this cross, but that nobody changes and nothing happens. Why does Jesus ask us to suffer, too? Isn’t it enough for the Son of God to suffer for all of us so that he may open the door to salvation? Why can we, his followers, not simply enter through the door by professing his Name? Does he get anything from our suffering? Does his suffering lack of merit?
Nevertheless, Jesus still speaks to us, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
Today we are commemorating Canada’s secondary patron saints – Jean de Brebeuf, Issac Jogues, and their companions. They are the first martyrs of North America. The martyrdom of these Jesuit priests is well-known for its horrific ways of execution. Iroquois executioners ate the heart of Jean de Brebeuf and drank his blood. Other martyrs also had to suffer horrible tortures. Why was it necessary for them to be martyred? If the Catholic Church had waited a couple of hundred years for modern North America, they wouldn’t have had to suffer.
This is the mystery of the cross. When those Jesuit missionaries shed their blood in North America, the Church saw that God blessed the new continent with their blood. The martyrs are evidence that the Church is still alive. The martyrs are the evidence that the Church is truly the Mystical Body of Christ, because her head, Christ is still suffering for humanity. The Passion of Christ is a historical event as well as the mystical present. With the blood of the martyrs, North America finally joined the mystical present of the mystery of the Passion.
This is why we carry our cross. Our daily cross makes us a genuine part of the Body of Christ, who is still suffering. By our daily cross, we participate in these dynamics of the mystery. Have Jesus taught any other way? I pray that I may take up my cross today so that I may walk together with Jesus toward the life he promises.
