The Cross Reveals the Divine Solicitude

by Fr. Martin Mary Fonte, FI

One woman came to me from a parish in the East Coast of the United States who related with sadness the lack of priests in several parishes in her diocese. Instead, they only have communion services every Sunday run by lay people or nuns. She has an impression that in ten years time there will be no vocations to the priesthood anymore.

The Council of Trent defined that the Catholic Church is a divine institution by Christ himself. This means that it is Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, who will sustain her until the end of time. This forms the ground for the assurance of the Church’s preservation and stability with all its ministers until the end of time. Christ will not let His own Church to fail. History verifies the emergence and fall of powerful empires and institutions: The Roman Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte and his empire, Communism in Russia, Hitler's Nazi regime-- all these are now mere facts of history though they were once powerful institutions. The Church still remains standing and vibrant in spite the fact that she has to go through difficulties and even totalitarian regimes in the past. Whatever is of God persists.

The prophet Isaiah in the first reading today gives an assurance that God will never abandon His people in exile. Exile is a consequence of infidelity of the people of God from their covenant. And yet in spite of this, God never abandoned them. Through Isaiah, God assured them of their deliverance. He even compared God’s solicitude to His people to a mother who will comfort her children: “Like a son comforted by his mother, will I comfort you...At her breast will her nurslings be carried and fondled in her lap.”

The divine solicitude for His people is even more revealed in the Gospel today. Jesus, in the act of sending the seventy-two disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God by healing the sick, comforting the dying, raising the death to life, revealed his divine concern. God is never indifferent to human sufferings. He who knew suffering by experiencing them through His passion, will certainly have more reasons to relieve those who suffer. But such an act of solicitude is a prophetic announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand. Suffering and trials are never part of God’s original plan in the beginning. But they were consequences of the choice of our first parents to disobey God. Hence, there is a religious dimension in suffering from the beginning. This means that a complete understanding of the cross would be inadequate if one does not take into account the breach caused by man’s choice to his relationship with God. He decreed that this breach can only be undone through suffering and yet borne out of love. This is at the heart of the mystery of redemptive suffering. The disciples were asked by the Lord to assume voluntary poverty and great zeal for souls to show that sufferings, far from being signs of oppression, if willingly embraced and chosen, become tangible revelation of God’s goodness.

This is what St. Paul related to the Christians in Galatia: “The only thing I boast about is the cross of Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” St. Paul never boast of his learning. He never boast of his achievement as an apostle; he never boast of his successes in establishing churches. He only boasted on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s statement changes the picture of the true meaning of glory. Its paradox can only be understood in the light of one who died on the cross. St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan doctor of the Church, explained with spiritual insight the meaning of the vision of St. Francis at the moment he received the sacred stigmata in Mt. La Verna. He saw the suffering Crucified Jesus in the appearance of the glorious six-winged Seraphim. He said, that Francis’ vision is a vision of the glory of the cross.

There are many times in our lives when we are confronted with the experience of sufferings in the world; of some evil scandals in the Church; some misguided hearts that caused us sufferings. We ask ourselves often as to where is God in all of these. We doubted whether God still cares for his Church. The answer to all these is found in God’s continuous solicitude in the divine Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Sacrifice of the Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary in our time. Can anyone still question God’s solicitude if He did not spare His own Son and is continually being memorialized in the Mass? St. Paul is right when he says that the only boast we can ever claim is the cross of our Lord. For in that cross, the face of divine Love is revealed.

+ May the Lord give you His peace.

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