Ask any priest and he will tell you, if theology is learned at seminary, pastoral ministry is learned at one’s first parish. Of the many lessons learned as an assistant priest, the words I can hear as clearly today, as when first bellowed from the lungs of my venerable Proistamenos Fr. Byron Papanikolaou, are these, “No Cross…No Crown!” Succinct, profound, a life lesson aimed at revealing the inner reason for human suffering. As we approach Great and Holy Week our human sensibilities are about to be challenged. How, we must ask ourselves, are human beings able to perpetrate and execute such a gross injustice against the Son of God? That Jesus accepted the Cross as a response to His love is very telling of the depths of His love. In ascending the Cross He fulfilled the prophetic words of Isaiah, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4).” Equally important, to the penitent thief at His right, not only did Jesus forgive, but promised, “This day, you shall be with Me in Paradise! (Luke 23:43) ” As well, His final prayer on the Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do, (Luke 23:34)” is the paradigm par excel lance for how we ought to respond to those who inflict suffering upon us.

These lessons learned at the foot of the Cross are instructive to those of us struggling to carry our own crosses in life. Just as Jesus loved unconditionally and accepted the pain inflicted by those He came to save, so too should we look beyond the short-sidedness of those who hurt us as a response to our love for them. Just as Jesus promised salvation to the penitent thief who could see who Jesus was in his own hour of intense suffering, so too does He grant the same reward to those who, in the midst of their temporal pain, can see clearly enough to confess that same faith in His ultimate sovereignty. Just as Jesus chose to expend His last breaths of earthly life praying for those who crucified Him, so too are we called to be liberated from hatred by “loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44)!”

By worldly standards, the Cross makes no logical sense. Understood in the Light of the Resurrection, however, we begin to comprehend the necessary interdependence of the former upon the latter. Only when we dare to take up life’s crosses with faith in the promise that we will share in His Resurrection, can we ever imagine the possibilities, which the Cross affords each and every one of us for a truly meaningful and fulfilled life.

Dare, my brothers and sisters, to venture into Holy Week with the intent of faithfully suffering with Christ and I give you every assurance that He will lift your hand as He emerges from the tomb. Rise with Him in equal glory and you will certainly attain that heightened consciousness of the power of the Cross!