Dear Friend,

Reflection by Carlos Vargas Hernandez

Embracing the Cross

For centuries, the Franciscans have had the Church of the Transfiguration under their care. As observed in the above photo, there is a statue in the gardens outside of the Church depicting Saint Francis hugging the crucified Lord. This statue is perhaps the Franciscans’ little “touch” or “mark” of their charism or community on the property.

I looked at the statue before entering the Church; it is such a powerful depiction of Francis’ love of our Crucified Lord.  As I pondered, I began to carefully think about the need for a type of crucifixion before having a transfiguration experience.  Of course, we know from Scriptures that the Lord’s Transfiguration happened before His crucifixion, but might our Lord be asking us to submit to carrying the Cross and a type of crucifixion before we have our own Mount Tabor encounter?

In the Church of the Transfiguration, I considered the need to be purified and molded into a new creature being able to see God’s glory and power as it took place at this very place. I saw the statue as an invitation to unite myself to Jesus’ passion and death before entering in the Church where God’s beautiful and transcendent glory is expressed in the architecture of the building. Likewise, I continue to see that this is an invitation for our own personal lives, especially as we get close to the feast of the Paschal Mystery.

Every Lent, the Church invites us to prepare our own purification—both in body and soul by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving— to worthily celebrate the Holy Triduum. The commemoration of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection is not merely a remembrance but a mystery by which we, too, can unite ourselves to our Crucified Lord so to be resurrected with Him on Easter to a new Life in Him. Similar to St. Francis, we must embrace Jesus and His cross because there cannot be an Easter Sunday without a Good Friday. And there cannot be Redemption without the crucifixion.

In the Gospel, Jesus says, “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt. 16: 24). Therefore, we must imitate the Lord and do the same by taking up our crosses and denying ourselves, always seeking to love as Christ loves us.  Because of His love for us, He carried the cross with the weight of our sins to make us worthy again and to reconcile us with the Father. He, additionally, without complaining, died on the cross to win the battle against evil so that evil would not have dominion over us.

By carrying the cross, our Lord Jesus taught us that love without sacrifice is not true love. We cannot separate the cross from Jesus. The cross is a reality of our identity as Christians, and it teaches us how to love like the Master. With the cross, we embrace the One who died on it, and say like the apostle, “I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Galatians 2:19-20). With this in mind and without reproach, let us faithfully and lovingly take up our daily crosses and unite ourselves to Him, who offered us redemption by dying on the cross.

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Carlos Vargas Hernandez is a First Theology seminarian for the Diocese of Paterson, N.J.