I kneel in a dark church gazing at this old wooden Jesus and I am filled with awe. It is a visual, visceral reminder of the price God paid to rescue me from Satan's realm. Sometimes I feel the crucifix was put there just for me, the convert who would kneel here nearly a century after it was carved. I'd spent half a lifetime looking only at an empty, unbloody cross, hardly pausing to think hard about the price of true love. I have come to love looking at this crucifix, especially at those times when Christ beckons me to share in his suffering. There is always a message for me there.
This is my sixth year as a Catholic. Since my spiritual homecoming I have experienced the overwhelming joy of my salvation again and again in the Eucharist, in Reconciliation, in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and in rosary prayers, meditating on the life of Christ. To become Catholic was a feast, a banquet fit for a king. It was to become the richest woman on earth. Every one of Christ's promises was now available to me, every grace, every possible blessing. And something unexpected also.
Jesus promised his closest friends that if they followed in his footsteps they would experience persecution (Mark 10:30.) I have been a Christian all my life but it wasn't until God led me to the fullness of the Faith in the Catholic Church that I had any inkling of the misunderstanding and prejudice I would consequently experience for my decision to follow Christ unconditionally.
The first time, it came from my own brother. “You have turned your back on Jesus Christ,” he said. “You have repudiated your faith.” Other things were said, ugly, hurtful things. “The Catholic Church is of Satan. You have walked straight into his jaws.”
“You don't understand,” I replied. “If you would only read a few of my books it might ease your fears.”
“I don't need to read any books,” came his answer. “I already know they are full of lies. You have been duped.”
I fled to Mass that morning, seeking sanctuary in my Lord's presence. The tears flowed freely. I stayed behind to pray, but how to pray about this?
I wondered. It was too unfair. It hurt too deeply. Our parish priest asked if everything was all right and I told him what had been said. He shook his head sadly and pointed to the tabernacle beneath the big crucifix. “Well, you're in the right place. Tell Jesus. He knows all about this sort of thing.”
This sort of thing? The crucifix was blurry because of my tears. I'd thought there would be some rumblings about my becoming Catholic, but not downright malice, and not from family. I had been astounded by my brother's hostility. Our priest had not been surprised, just sad. “Try to get used to it,” he seemed to be saying.
I cried some more until the Holy Spirit gave me this prayer. “They misunderstood you too,” I whispered to Jesus. “They hated you, they called you names. They even said you were from the devil. They falsely accused you, tortured you and nailed you to a cross. You let them do it. And you loved them anyway. It was the perfect offering to God. Help me respond as you would.”
In that moment I felt a sense of peace. How minute my own suffering compared to that of Christ! It was not worth mentioning. Could I offer such a small gift up to God in thanks for his gift of the Church to me? Could I respond in love to those who hate and misunderstand the Church I had embraced?
Offering up suffering and sacrifices was a new idea. Sharing in the redemptive suffering of Christ was new too, yet in sacred scripture I had read St. Paul's words to the Colossian Christians: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…” (Col. 1:24).
Being the victim of harsh, hateful words was hardly the kind of physical suffering St. Paul had experienced, but Jesus is known for accepting a small gift and turning it into a big blessing. I thought of the little boy laying his loaves and fishes at the Savior’s feet, and I offered the hurt from my brother's words in the same spirit. With a sense of inexplicable joy I dried my tears. I went home and wrote my brother a kindly letter. I asked him to trust God with the situation, even though he couldn't trust me. He didn't respond to that or any of my letters or emails for more than nine months, but at least I knew I'd done my part.
It turns out my brother was only the first. Most of my Protestant friends rejected me when I became a Catholic. They avoided me and my family in the grocery store, refusing to reply when greeted. My closest sister withdrew to cool politeness. My father mocked the Sacraments.
“Here is fifty bucks,” he wrote just after we were received into the Church. “You'll have to pay off the priest to re-baptize and marry you so your kids won't be illegitimate. Priests are all a bunch of drunks, you know.”
Even a New Age friend expressed regret that I had so tragically regressed to an even lower evolutionary stage of spirituality than before! In each instance I wrestled against an angry response and tried to echo the words of Christ, at least in my own heart: “Forgive them, Father.”
I found out that many other Catholics suffer for their faith. Some have hostile, belligerent spouses. Some have children who've left the Church and now belittle its teachings. Some have lost jobs or important business relationships. One friend was disinherited. Another's wife and children left him when he became a Catholic.
In 1995, the National Conference of Christians and Jews took a survey and discovered that the number one prejudice in the United States is anti-Catholicism. I never in a million years imagined myself at the receiving end of bigotry — not in twentieth century America, not for my religion. The reality was that faithful Catholics across the nation were experiencing it on a regular basis! “Pick up your cross daily and follow me,” said Jesus. It was as though God was reminding me not to forget where exactly one hauls a cross and what the route along the way looks like. It is a good lesson for us all.
The Via Dolorosa was lined with mockers and scorners. We too can expect to carry our crosses to the sound of jeers and the occasional wet splat of spit on our cheeks. We can expect that God will call every faithful Catholic to a daily crucifixion of self, of pride, of the right to be understood and respected. We can expect that the call to be faithful comes with a call to lay down our lives in both big and small ways so that we can share in the suffering and consequent blessing of Our Lord, “who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame…” (Heb. 12:2).
Finally, we can expect that God will require us to respond to those who hate us in exactly the same way Jesus did — with nothing but love.
We may never stare down a lion or face the gallows for the sake of our Faith, but we can be assured that if we follow Christ and the teachings of his Church closely, God will offer us many opportunities to enter into a deeper understanding of His own sacrificial love. The message of the crucifix is for all of us. Obedience, no matter how difficult, ends in resurrection to eternal life.
