Sharing in the Exaltation of the Cross
- CARYLL HOUSELANDER
A man who claims to be self-sufficient and not to need any other man's help in hardship and suffering has no part in Christ.
We are here to help one another. We are here to help Christ in one another.
We are here to help Christ blindly. We must know him by faith, not by vision. We must help him not only in those who seem to be Christlike, but more in those in whom Christ is hidden: in the most unlikely people, in those whom the world condemns. It is in them that Christ, indwelling man, suffers most; it is in them that he cannot carry his cross today without the help of others.
Simon of Cyrene saw only three criminals (of whom Christ was one) on the way to die. He could not know, until he had taken up that stranger's cross, that in it was the secret of his own salvation....
We must be ready to carry the burden of anyone whom we meet on our way and who clearly needs help, not only those who "deserve: or seem to "deserve," help. Everyone is our "business," and Christ in everyone, potentially or actually, has a first claim on us, a claim that comes before all else.
We are here on earth to help to carry the cross of Christ, the Christ hidden in other human beings, and to help in whatever way we can. We may, like Simon, have literally a strong arm to give, we may help to do hard work; we may have material goods to give; we may have time, which we desperately want for ourselves but which we must sacrifice for Christ. We may have only suffering. Suffering is the most precious coin of all. Suffering of body, suffering of mind, paid down willingly for Christ in man, enables him to carry his redeeming cross through the world to the end of time.
Suffering contains in itself all that Simon gave: our mind and body, frustration, and identification with someone else. That last is the germ of our own salvation, the way to transform the self-pity that is the danger in all suffering into the love of other people which reaches out a hand to Christ, and saves us.
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Acknowledgement
Caryll Houselander. "Sharing in the Exaltation of the Cross." excerpt from The Cross of Christ (Liguori, Min: Liguori Publications, 2002).
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Liguori Publications. This excerpt appeared in Magnificat.
The Author
Caryll Houselander (1901-1954) was a British Roman Catholic laywoman; a mystic, writer, artist, visionary and healer. Her first book, This War is the Passion, written during World War II, launched her prolific writing career. She is best known for: A Rocking Horse Catholic, The Reed of God, The Way of the Cross, This War is the Passion, The Risen Christ, The Letters Of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy, and Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross: The Little Way of the Infant Jesus.
