OUR LADY OF FATIMA  CATHOLIC CHURCH

The prophesy of Isaiah (53:12) has been fulfilled: cum sceleratis reputatus est, He was counted among the wicked: for two others, who were robbers, were led with Him to be put to death (Luke 23:32).

If anyone would follow me... Little friend: we are sad, living the Passion of Our Lord Jesus. See how lovingly He embraces the Cross. Learn from Him. Jesus carries the Cross for you: you... carry it for Jesus.

But don't drag the Cross... Carry it squarely on your shoulder, because your Cross, if you carry it so, will not be just any Cross: it will be... the Holy Cross. Don't bear your Cross with resignation: resignation is not a generous word. Love the Cross. When you really love it, your Cross will be... a Cross, without a Cross.

And surely you, like Him, will find Mary on the way.

You have heard me read this extract several times from the pulpit in recent months but it may still not yet seem familiar to you.

Our Lord's motive in carrying the Cross in the first place is out of love for us. His surrender to the Father's will is total and unconditional. His example is left to us as a model that we should first study, imitate and follow in his steps.

If anyone would come after me, deny self, take up cross, follow ! I suppose the first stumbling-block, self denial, is the greatest obstacle to perfection in this modern world. The media is awash with products, vacation packages, better beauty, health, wealth (you know the kind of thing !) We have gotten used to indulging ourselves and that is why, whenever the call is made to sacrifice our will, we prefer isolation, to follow the vagaries of our every whim, protesting that we need to read the "signs of the times" when everyone else around us has seen the "signs" for years ! This is the ivory-tower approach... splendid isolation but the still voice of God calls us anon.

That magnificent poet Francis Thompson began his days as a seminarian only to drop out and sink into a world of alcohol and drug abuse (opium being the substance of the day). The words that flowed so stirringly from his pen in the poem The Hound of Heaven are words borne out by a life of deep sadness because of a Divine Will so long outrun. These are words that were lived and are all the more striking when we know what was the life of the man who wrote them

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat - and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet -
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

We put our trust, our hopes in things that ultimately betray and fail us and yet, we always knew these things even while we tried to drown our emptiness in the shallow promises of this life.

In wandering through the memories of his life of failure, Thompson hears the recurrent echo of the beats of the paws of this Divine Hound that is not willing to let its quarry escape. Finally, as the enormity of his failings weighs him down, he realizes that it is in surrendering to God's Will that true happiness is to be found. The Hound speaks:

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

The pursuit of perfection (our true happiness) begins by the surrendering of self, by the belief that our life's goal is to be found in the perfect fulfillment of the Will of Him who made me. Convinced of this, the next step is not so difficult: taking up our cross. St. Josemaria again"

See how lovingly He embraces the Cross. Learn from Him. Jesus carries the Cross for you: you... carry it for Jesus.

The love with which Our Divine Lord carried the instrument of our Redemption should move us, compel us to want to follow Him.

Sometimes, in the labors of life's journey, we feel weighed down, the cross is too heavy, the carrying too hard; our cross begins to drag:

But don't drag the Cross... Carry it squarely on your shoulder, because your Cross, if you carry it so, will not be just any Cross: it will be... the Holy Cross. Don't bear your Cross with resignation: resignation is not a generous word. Love the Cross. When you really love it, your Cross will be... a Cross, without a Cross.

Many spiritual authors use just the terminology that St. Josemaria abhors: "resignation" in the bearing of our Cross. In fact, I am just now reminded of an event in my life: I was being interviewed for entry into the seminary by the district religious superior in my day back in 1989. Somehow we managed to begin talking about the Cross and what Our Lords sentiments might have been. When I suggested that Our Lord would have experienced "joy" in the carrying of the Cross, the priest sneered "joy?" I responded: "Obviously pain, agony and sorrow for the weight of sin He had to bear, but joy because of the many who would now be afforded salvation by his action." The subject changed abruptly. Yes "joy" and if He could experience this joy through pain, then we too, my dear friends, should generously carry our cross and then the carrying does indeed become "a Cross, without a Cross" as St. Josemaria writes. The secret to all of this is how well do we love Him ? That is determined by how much we will in turn sacrifice.

We are not alone in our struggles. Like Our Lord, Mary is with us:

And surely you, like Him, will find Mary on the way.

In a few short weeks we hope to welcome 2 new religious vocations here in our men's community. Pray that these (at least) will be generous with God in the self-surrender they make to Him, as they progress steadily and surely in the holy virtues and in their studies towards Holy Priesthood. Pray also that they will root out of themselves all vestiges of self-will - God can do NOTHING with a man whose will is focused on himself, and evidently will make no use of him in the ministry to souls.

May we ALWAYS strive to imitate the model of Mary whose will was so perfectly conformed to God's and merited that she become the Virgin Mother of God.

One of the most striking examples of religious tenacity in the history of France is the story of the Vendee during the French Revolution. This region had been heavily evangelized by St. Louis Marie de Montfort two generations earlier, such that although the flames of revolution ravaged the rest of France, this region at least, stayed faithful to the Catholic Faith. These people were rock solid in their faith. They were not wafted to and fro by every wind of change. They were not listening for every whisper of fable that came along. Too many of our shepherds have abandoned their posts. They have become shepherds in the mist. They have laid down the tools of war. During the French Revolution, the Vendeen people raised an army to restore the throne and the altar - a mighty band of warriors that routed army after army that the revolutionary government sent upon them. Sadly, they were at last beaten, but not without a glorious struggle for the truth. True Vendeen culture is to be found in stoutness of heart and intrepid faith - the spirit that we English used to resume in the phrase: "Fear God and dread naught" (from which the famous British battleships took their name the "Dreadnoughts") - it is not found amongst pusillanimity or insipidity. Generosity in carrying one's cross - means a Divine generosity: usque ad mortem, mortem autem Crucis (unto death, even to the death of the Cross). +TF

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