Dear members of the Third Order,

Since the last newsletter of April 2001 I was not able to prepare and publish the newsletter. As some of you know by experience, the schools are extremely demanding in time and energy. Also the opening of a new Priory require to accomplish many tasks of organization in order to establish a strong structure for the future development of the apostolate. After a little health problem the last November (a minor heart attack), some projects were delayed.

It seems now more reasonable to start a new series of Newsletter from January 2002, rather that to try to make up the lost time. I hope you will be very merciful because of that situation, and that you will still enjoying the newsletter.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary grant you an increasing love of God and love of His Divine Church.

In dilectione Christi,

Fr. Philippe Pazat

You are members of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 6, 15; 12, 27; Eph. 5, 30). What an honor!  But, also, what need for suffering this entails!  When the Head is crowned with thorns should the members be wearing a laurel of roses?  When the Head is jeered at and covered with mud from Calvary's road should its members be enthroned and sprayed with perfume?  When the Head has no pillow on which to rest, should its members be reclining on soft feathers?  What an unheard of monster such a one would be!  No, no, dear companions of the Cross, make no mistake. The Christians you see around you, fashionably attired, super-sensitive, excessively haughty and sedate, are neither true disciples nor true members of the crucified Jesus. To think otherwise would be an insult to your thorn-crowned Head and His Gospel truth. My God!  How many would-be Christians there are who imagine they are members of the Savior when in reality they are His most insidious persecutors, for while blessing themselves with the sign of the Cross, they crucify Him in their hearts.

If you are led by the spirit of Jesus and are living the same life with Him, your thorn-crowned Head, then you must look forward to nothing but thorns, nails and lashes, in a word, to nothing but a cross. A real disciple needs to be treated as his Master was, a member as its Head. And if the Head should offer you, as He offered Saint Catherine of Siena, the choice between a crown of thorns and a crown of roses, do as she did and grasp the crown of thorns, fastening it tightly to your brow in the likeness of Jesus.

You are aware of the fact that you are living temples of the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6, 19) and that, like living stones (I Pet. 2, 5), you are to be placed by the God of love in the heavenly Jerusalem He is building. You must expect then to be shaped, cut and chiseled under the hammer of the Cross, otherwise you would remain unpolished stone, of no value at all, to be disregarded and cast aside. Do not cause the hammer to recoil when it strikes you. Yield to the chisel that is carving you and the hand that is shaping you. It may be that this skillful and loving Architect wants to make you a cornerstone in His eternal edifice, one of His most faithful portraits in the heavenly kingdom. So let Him see to it. He loves you, He really loves you; He knows what He is doing, He has experience. Love is behind every one of His telling strokes; nor will a single stroke miscarry unless your impatience deflects it.

At times the Holy Spirit compares the cross to a winnowing that clears the good grain from the chaff and dust (Matt. 3, 13; Luke 3, 17). Like grain in the winnowing, then, let yourself be shaken up and tossed about without resistance, for the Father of the household is winnowing you and will soon have you in His harvest. He also likens the cross to a fire whose intense heat burns rust off iron. God is a devouring fire (Deut. 4, 24; 9, 3; Heb. 13, 29) dwelling in our souls through His Cross, purifying them yet not consuming them, exemplified in the past in a burning bush (Ex. 3, 2-3). He likens it at times to the crucible of a forge where gold is refined (Prov. 17, 3; Eccli. 2, 5) and dross vanishes in smoke, but , in the processing, the precious metal must be tried by fire while the baser constituents go up in smoke and flame. So, too, in the crucible of tribulation and temptation, true Friends of the Cross are purified by their constancy in suffering while the enemies of the Cross vanish in smoke by their impatience and murmurings.

Behold, dear Friends of the Cross, before you a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12, 1-2) who silently testify that what I assert is the truth. For instance, consider Abel, a righteous man, who was slain by his own brother; then Abraham, a righteous man, who journeyed on the earth like a wanderer; Lot, a righteous man, who was driven from his own country; Jacob, a righteous man, who was persecuted by his own brother; Tobias, a righteous man, who was stricken with blindness; Job, a righteous man, who was pauperized, humiliated and covered with sores from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

Consider the countless Apostles and Martyrs who were bathed in their own blood; the countless Virgins and Confessors who were pauperized, humiliated, exiled and cast aside. Like Saint Paul they fervently proclaim:  Behold our beloved Jesus, "Author and Finisher of the faith" (Heb. 12, 2) we put in Him and in His Cross; it was necessary for Him to suffer and so to enter through the Cross into His glory (Luke 24, 26).

There at the side of Jesus consider Mary, who had never known either original or actual sin, yet whose tender, immaculate Heart was pierced with a sharp sword even to its very depths. If I had time to dwell on the Passion of Jesus and Mary, I could prove that our sufferings are naught compared to theirs.

Who, then, would dare claim exemption from the cross?  Who would refuse to rush to the very place where he knows he will find a cross awaiting him?  Who would refuse to borrow the words of the martyr, Saint Ignatius:  "Let fire and gallows, wild beasts and all the torments of the devil assail me, so that I may rejoice in the possession of Jesus Christ."

If you have not the patience to suffer and the generosity to bear your cross like the chosen ones of God, then you will have to trudge under its weight, grumbling and fretting like reprobates; like the two animals that dragged the Ark of the Covenant, lowing as they went (I Kings 6, 12); like Simon the Cyrenaean who unwillingly put his hand to the very Cross of Christ (Matt. 27, 32; Mark 15, 21), complaining while he carried it. You will be like the impenitent thief who from the summit of his cross plunged headlong into the depths of the abyss.

No, the cursed earth on which we live cannot give us happiness. We can see none too clearly in this benighted land. We are never perfectly calm on this troubled sea. We are never without warfare in a world of temptation and battlefields. We cannot escape scratches on a thorn-covered earth. Both elect and reprobate must bear their cross here, either willingly or unwillingly. Remember these words:

This means that if you will not suffer gladly as Jesus did, or patiently like the penitent thief, then you must suffer despite yourself like the impenitent thief. You will have to drain the bitterest chalice even to the dregs, and with no hope of relief through grace. You will have to bear the entire weight of your cross, and without the powerful help of Jesus Christ. Then, too, you will have that awful weight to bear which the devil will add to your cross, by means of the impatience the cross will cause you. After sharing the impenitent thief's unhappiness here on earth, you will meet him again in the fires of hell.

But if you suffer as you should, your cross will be a sweet yoke (Matt. 11, 30), for Christ will share it with you. Your soul will be borne on it as on a pair of wings to the portals of Heaven. It will be the mast on your ship guiding you happily and easily to the harbor of salvation.

Carry your cross with patience: a cross patiently borne will be your light in spiritual darkness, for he knows naught who knows not how to suffer (Eccli. 34, 9).

Carry your cross with joy and you will be inflamed with divine love, for only in suffering can we dwell in the pure love of Christ.

Roses are only gathered from among thorns. As wood is fuel for the fire, so too is the Cross the only fuel for God's love. Remember that saying we read in the Imitation of Christ:  "Inasmuch as you do violence to yourself," suffering patiently, "insofar do you advance" in divine love (Bk. 1, Chap. 15, 11). Do not expect anything great from those fastidious, slothful souls who refuse the Cross when it approaches and who do not go in search of any, when discretion allows. What are they but untilled soil, which can produce only thorns because it has not been turned up, harrowed and furrowed by a judicious laborer. They are like stagnant water which is unfit for either washing or drinking.

Carry your cross joyfully and none of your enemies will be able to resist its conquering strength (Luke 21, 15), while you yourself will enjoy its relish beyond compare. Yes, indeed, Brethren, remember that the real Paradise here on earth is to be found in suffering for Jesus. Ask the saints. They will tell you that they never tasted a banquet so delicious to the soul than when undergoing the severest torments. Saint Ignatius the Martyr said:  "Let all the torments of the devil come upon me!" "Either suffering or death!", said Saint Theresa, and Saint Magdalen de Pazzi:  "Not death but suffering!" "May I suffer and be despised for Thy sake," said Saint John of the Cross.  In reading the lives of the saints we find many others speaking in the self-same terms.

Dear Brethren, believe the Word of God, for the Holy Spirit says:  The Cross affords all kinds of joy to anyone without exception who suffers cheerfully for God (Jas. 1, 2). The joy that springs from the cross is keener than the joy which a poor person would experience if overladen with an abundance of riches, than the joy of a peasant who is made ruler of his country, than the joy of a commander-in-chief over the victories he has won, than the joy of a prisoner released from his fetters. In conclusion, let us picture the greatest joys to be found here below: the joy of a crucified person who knows how to suffer not only equals them but even surpasses them all.

Be glad, therefore, and rejoice when God favors you with one of His choicest crosses, for without realizing it you are being blessed with the greatest gift that Heaven has, the greatest gift of God. Yes, the cross is God's greatest gift. If you could only understand this, you would have Masses said, you would make novenas at the tombs of the saints; you would undertake long pilgrimages, as did the saints, to obtain this divine gift from Heaven.

The world claims it is madness on your part, degrading and stupid, rash and reckless. Let the world, in its blindness, say what it likes. This blindness which is responsible for a merely human and distorted view of the cross is a source of glory for us. For every time they provide us with crosses by mocking and persecuting us, they are simply offering us jewels, setting us upon a throne and crowning us with laurels.

What I say is but little. Take all the wealth and honors and scepters and brilliant diadems of monarchs and princes, says Saint John Chrysostom, they are all insignificant compared with the glory of the Cross; it is greater even than the glory of the Apostles and the Sacred Writers. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, this saintly man goes as far as to say:  "If I were given the preference, I would gladly leave Heaven to suffer for the God of Heaven. I would prefer the darkness of a dungeon to the thrones of the highest heaven and the heaviest of crosses to the glory of the Seraphim. Suffering for me is of greater value than the gift of miracles, the power to command the infernal spirits, to master the physical universe, to stop the sun in its course and to raise the dead to life. Peter and Paul are more glorious in the shackles of a dungeon than in being lifted to the third heaven and presented with the keys to Paradise."

In fact, was it not the Cross that gave Jesus Christ "a name which is above all names; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those that are in heaven, on earth and under the earth" (Phil. 2, 9-10). The glory of the one who knows how to suffer is so great that the radiance of his splendor rejoices heaven, angels and men and even the God of Heaven. If the saints in Heaven could still wish for something they would want to return to earth so as to have the privilege of bearing a cross.

If the cross is covered with such glory on earth, how magnificent it must be in Heaven. Who could ever understand and tell the eternal weight of glory we are given when, even for a single instant, we bear a cross as a cross should be borne (2 Cor. 4, 17)!  Who could ever collate the glory that will be given in Heaven for the crosses and sufferings we carried for a year, perhaps even for a lifetime.

Evidently, my dear Friends of the Cross, heaven is preparing something grand for you, as you are told by a great Saint, since the Holy Ghost has united you so intimately to an object which the whole world so carefully avoids. Evidently, God wishes to make of you as many saints as you are Friends of the Cross, if you are faithful to your calling and dutifully carry your cross as Jesus Christ has carried His.

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