Spouse
When Simone of Cyrene was able to focus on the cross of someone greater than his, then he was able to extraordinary things – perhaps the greatest of which was that he could say, I carried the Cross of the Son of Man.
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American Saint canonised in 2012. After surviving smallpox and being left with disfiguring scars on her face and losing her entire family to the disease, Saint Kateri spent time with the Jesuit Missionaries and converted to Catholicism at the age of nineteen.
She took a vow of perpetual virginity and moved to the Jesuit mission in Montreal. She was known for her good works and piety, and she died five years after taking her vow.
Saint Kateri said, “I can have no other spouse, but Jesus Christ. I have considered myself content to live in poverty and misery for His love.”
As a woman whose vocation is to marriage, I have been reflecting on what it is to be the spouse of Christ. As the spouse of my husband, I am responsible for certain things. I am also responsible for the children in our home. Most importantly, I am responsible for being his help-mate on our journey to eternity. Really what this means is that I am being asked – by God through my vocation – is to be a good Christian and to practice good Christian charity with my husband and in my home.
When a religious says that they are the spouse of Christ, what they mean is that they are choosing to ask Him to be their help-mate to eternity as my husband is asking me for that and I am asking him… And how do we get to eternal life? We certainly do not get there by floating on a cloud. It is not that easy to just hold my breath and hope for the best. Instead, I am being asked to surrender my will constantly and consistently so that I can place the Holy Will of God above my own weak will.
And this is significant. You see, it is not an easy path to Calvary. Every person on the journey is carrying a cross that is almost too heavy to be borne. I am carrying one also – and so are you. And yet, Christ is not content to ask us to carry our own cross and follow Him. He wants us to love our neighbour as ourselves. And what does that really mean? Well, I think it means that He wants us to help others along the way. We need to see the soul struggling to lift their own cross and sit with them for a while and help them to lift the cross.
Simon of Cyrene carried the cross of Christ to help Him. He would not have wanted to do it. He would have been busy. He would have been pulled away from other things that were important to him and that he thought he should be spending time on. He would have been annoyed to have to go out of his way that day. It was far along the way out of his way. It was a three hour walk along the road to Calvay and Simon of Cyrene walked that distance there and then needed to walk the distance back – after the death of Christ!
And I imagine how many times God asks me to focus on the Cross of someone else instead of my own. For I am sure that on that day, when Simon of Cyrene carried the cross of Christ, he certainly felt that his own cross was a little lighter. When he was able to focus on the cross of someone greater than his, then he was able to extraordinary things – perhaps the greatest of which was that he could say, I carried the Cross of the Son of Man.
I wonder if I could ever say something like that? I wonder?
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
Comments