Cross Rejection

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this is the Lord's doing and we marvel at it’?” (Matt. 21:42).

Our Lord uses the word “rejected.” Rejection was a common thing in Our Lord's life. Christ was rejected.

He uses this example fairly clearly, frequently, placing Himself as “the stone which the builders rejected,” as though saying that for all times, those who want to follow Christ may also experience rejection. Rejection from this world.

That's part of God's plan, part of the way of making them the cornerstone—a cornerstone which is a keystone—a stone on which the whole of the building may depend.

It’s part of being “fruit that will last” (John 15:16), not just a passing fruit.

“After this Jesus traveled around Galilee. He could not travel around Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him” (John 7:1).

All through His public life Our Lord was able to move around freely, say what He wanted. But then there came a moment which the Church is leading us to, in this period of Lent, to commemorate, to remember, that the atmosphere changes.

From one of acceptance, it changes to one of rejection, of bitterness, of hatred, of envy, of jealousy, and all the ugly things.

“As the Jewish Feast of shelters drew near…However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went up as well, not publicly, but secretly” (John 7:1, 10).

So with little words here and there, the Gospel narrative reveals to us how this atmosphere has changed, how the leading people in society are out to get Him.

The heart of Christ must have felt this rather acutely. He must have felt that rejection.

If ever Our Lord allows us to pass through a situation where we are rejected, we are in good company.

As always, we can find our peace with Christ on the Cross. There is an eternal freshness in the wounds of Christ. The Holy Spirit is there. We derive our consolation from there.

There is a balm in His wounds. The wounds of Christ help us to understand, and to accept, and to love the contradictions of life; and to realize then that any form of rejection is not a catastrophe or a crisis or an especially difficult moment.

It's just one of those things that may come along. “We receive less blows than we deserve” (cf. Luke 12:48).

One of the ways that God may permit blows could be through rejection. We might be rejected by life. We might be rejected by our boss. We might be rejected by a teacher. We might fail an exam.

We could be rejected by our friends. We could be rejected in a talent competition, in a team. We might be rejected by the police. The excuses we give for breaking the law might not be acceptable.

We might be rejected because we are too young or too old or too this or too that. Everybody at some stage in their life is rejected.

St. Josemaría said that St. Teresa of Ávila went to heaven accompanied by all the garbage that her contemporaries could throw at her.

It was as though St. Josemaría got a certain solace in the recognition of that fact because he was going through something similar—misunderstood in his time.

Even decades after St. Josemaría’s passed on, he’s still rejected or misunderstood. It's a characteristic of many of the saints.

“Meanwhile, some of the people of Jerusalem are saying, ‘Isn't this the man they want to kill? And here he is speaking openly, and they have nothing to say to him! Can it be true the authorities have recognized that he is the Christ?” (John 7:25-26).

It becomes public knowledge that Christ is a politically incorrect person. There's something very healthy about being politically incorrect—–going against the grain; clashing a bit with our environment; saying things and doing things that don't quite fit.

It's a good sign because followers of Christ have to be different.

There's a Dutch missionary priest in Singapore who used to tell the sixty newly baptized adults every Easter, “Now that you're Catholics, you have to be different. You can't be the same as everybody else. You have a different message to give the world—a message of charity, of virtue, of holiness, of love, ultimately.

“If you try and live and point out the Ten Commandments to people, what is right and what is wrong, certain things are not acceptable, and that leads us perhaps to clash, or to be rejected, because it's not popular.”

There were moments when Christ went through periods of great popularity. The crowds flocked to see Him. It’s interesting to see how popular he was, how He attracted the millions.

But then we see all that changes. Things in life can be fleeting. Life can be fragile. It can be up one moment and down the next.

We don't put our hope in these things or in the things of the world. “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

We are here focused on something else: the eternal wedding feast.

“Yet we all know where he comes from, but when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from” (John 7:27). The people were debating among themselves whether or not He is the real Messiah.

“Then, as Jesus was teaching in the temple, he cried out, ‘You know me and you know where I came from. Yet I have not come of my own accord, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him, because I have my being from him. It was him who sent me” (John 7:28-29).

Christ is very clear: “I know Him. I have my being from Him.” The things He’s saying are very well-founded in truth. He knows what He is talking about.

“They wanted to arrest him then, but because his hour had not yet come, no one laid a hand on him” (John 7:30).

They didn't like Him saying these things. “I know Him.” I know my Father God. “I have my being from Him.” These things were making them tear their hair out.

‘I know what I am at. I know where I came from. I know where I am going.’ This was enough for them to make up their minds: ‘We need to arrest him. We have to get rid of him. He is not good for our popularity.’

“But because his hour had not yet come…” That word “hour” comes to be one of the keywords in the Passion of Christ, in the life of Christ.

A lot of importance is given to the hour. It is the hour of the Redemption. “It is for this that I came” (John 12:27).

Quite a few times in the course of His life, our Lord refers to that hour.

“Woman, my hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).

“Now has the hour come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23).

Christ recognizes His hour and its importance. And also, the Jews recognize the hour. This is not yet the moment to arrest Him “because the hour has not yet come.”

“When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit, and he testified and said, ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me’” (John 13:21).

Christ was rejected by Judas—the beginning of the great story of rejection, which culminates on Calvary.

The hour is the hour of the great rejection—the great rejection by society, by men, by those who had held Him in such high popularity polls.

“Then went one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, to the chief priests and said to them, ‘What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you?’ They appointed him thirty pieces of silver” (Matt. 26:14-15).

There is a price on His head. There is the price of His earning that rejection.

We find the Holy Family on many occasions experienced rejection. There was no room at the inn (Luke 2:7). Our Lady experienced rejection. St. Joseph experienced rejection. It was a common phenomenon.

We are invited to glory in these realities. St. Paul says, “It is for us to glory in the cross of Christ” (cf. Gal. 6:14).

He doesn't say we should glory in His miracles, that we should glory in the fact that He was able to speak to five thousand people and feed them. He doesn't tell us we should glory in all the wonderful moments of Our Lord's life.

He tells us we should glory in the Cross. Each year that Lent and Holy Week come around, it is a reminder to us: we are called to glory in the Cross; to contemplate the Cross, to look at it a little more, to learn a little more from it the aspects of the Cross that may appear in our life.

Signs of divine predilection. Signs of fruitfulness. We are in good company.

Even on the Cross, Christ experienced rejection by the bad thief: “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, for us to see it and believe” (Mark 15:32).

Even those who were crucified with Him taunted Him. You might think that at least in His dying moments Our Lord might be spared rejection.

But that was not the case. “Come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40, Mark 15:29). The ultimate insult.

“It is for this that I have come” (John 12:27).

‘But come down off it. Take it easy. Forget this mission that your Father has given to you. Forget His will. Look at things from a human perspective. Fall in love with this world.’

It is reminiscent of the temptations of the devil. “Fall down and worship me” (Matt. 4:9), but get down off that cross, and get down now. It is the easy solution. The quick fix: “for us to see it and believe.”

The irony! “If only you would come down off the Cross, then we would believe.”

‘Do something spectacular. Make those nails shoot out from your arms like bullets. Be like Superman. Then we would believe.’

But the will of God was for His sacrifice to be a holocaust.

Don Javier used to say, We have to dejar la piel. Spend ourselves, leave our skin, give everything to Our Lord.

“Identify ourselves in all the ways in which he calls us to identify ourselves with him” (Javier Echevarría, Homily, September 5, 2010).

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34). No matter what that means, I find my joy and my peace.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque says, “Every cross is precious to a heart that loves its God and wants to be loved by him” (Marguerite Marie Alacoque, Letters).

Every cross is an opportunity to show Our Lord with our deeds: ‘This is how much I want to love you. This is how serious I am.’

St. Robert Bellarmine says, “If the angels at Christ's birth sang, ‘Glory to God in the highest’ because of the humility of the crib, how much more do they sing the same hymn with greater exaltation because of the humility of the Cross?”

Angels were singing a Te Deum, ‘Glory to God in the highest’ because consummatum est. It is accomplished (John 19:30). Christ has fulfilled the will of His Father to the very dregs of the chalice.

Pope Benedict, when he was elected, at his opening Mass, he said, “The cross is the way to transformation. Without it, nothing is transformed.”

Cardinal Ratzinger made no secret of the fact that he wanted to go home to Germany. Three times he asked Pope St. John Paul if he could retire, and three times it was refused.

He felt he had been there long enough; he wanted to go back to the Bavarian hills, spend the rest of his life reading theology, reading, enjoying himself, indulging in the things that he had liked after so many years of work in the Vatican.

But all that was refused. Then he gets elected Pope.

The spokesman of the Pope said that during those years, the period of sede vacante, in between the papacies, he had to deal a lot with Cardinal Ratzinger.

There were public relations issues, and one of them was that this thing of—there was a big sign in the square, as you probably know, Santo Subito, that Pope John Paul should be canonized immediately.

The papal spokesman said, “I asked Cardinal Ratzinger, should we make a statement about this? Should we explain to people that things just don't happen like that; there's a process?”

Cardinal Ratzinger's answer was, “No, let's leave that issue to his successor.” Let's leave that for the next guy that's going to come along. Let's not handle that thorny problem or get involved in that.

It was very clear from that that he had no intention of becoming Pope. Another writer says nobody wants the job. Nobody wants the job. And least of all, Cardinal Ratzinger. He had been so many years there in Rome.

His secretary said when he got called into the Sistine Chapel after the election, he saw his boss Cardinal Ratzinger now dressed in white.

He said his cheeks were as white as his cassock. He did not expect it; he did not want it.

He wasn't, in a sense (in inverted commas), “very happy,” but he was accepting the cross. They said that when the votes mounted up and it was clear that he was elected, he put his head in his hands, as though saying, ‘Oh my God, what have you done?’

Cardinal Ratzinger, at a late age, was a great example of how to accept the things that may come along—rejection of our plans, of our likes and dislikes, at the eleventh hour, to do the will of God.

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity says, “There is no wood like that of the cross for lighting the fire of love in the soul” (Elizabeth of the Trinity, The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints).

In The Way we're told, “Jesus suffers to carry out the will of the Father. And you, who also want to carry out the holy will of God, following the steps of the Master, can you complain if you meet suffering on your way?” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 213).

Often, in our apostolate we meet rejection. We want to invite people to this recollection, or that retreat, or this meditation, or share with them the wonderful things, beautiful things we've learned, in the spirit of the Work, in our vocation, in the life of St. Josemaría, the great horizons that have been opened up to us.

Possibly, the doors are shut in our faces. No, thank you. I need to go and look after my farm. I've married a wife. All the excuses are the same. They have not changed down through human history.

But Our Lord wants us to experience all of that because down the line a little bit, around the corner, there is a soul, waiting. There is a door that He wants us to knock on, whose occupants will open to us.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will come to me, I will come in and dine with him” (cf. Rev. 3:20).

Our Lord wants us to earn that joy in our apostolate, that fruitfulness. From all the other No's, from all the little rejections, we find the acceptance. And that's the soul, the fruit, that God wants us to win.

Sometimes, with those little rejections, when we're told, ‘No’ or ‘Don't do this,’ or ‘That's not a good idea,’ or that initiative that you thought was the greatest idea that ever happened and we're told, ‘That's the most ridiculous idea that ever crossed anyone's mind’—we perhaps have to learn how to laugh

To laugh at ourselves when we're rejected—our initiatives, our ideas, our crazy things that come to our mind that we could do, that maybe we think is going to solve all the problems everywhere.

But in that way, God is shaping us, because maybe, the next, or the third idea that we get, that will be accepted. That will be the solution.

Often things don't work out the first time or the second time. But maybe they work out the third time, and God wants that effort—those three tries—to let us see also that the fruit is not the fruit of our great ingenuity. It's the Holy Spirit working in us and through us.

We're told in The Way, “God himself is the stone cutter who works on us” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 756).

Sometimes the stone cutter cuts us here and there. It cuts us down to size a little bit. Do this job, handle this other thing. Solve this problem even though you don't feel like it.

Have another go at writing this note, this proposal. Or, a dot is missing here or a comma is missing there; do it again.

The stone cutter is working on his stone. He is “the stone cutter who works on us, chipping off the rough edges, shaping us as he desires, with blows of the hammer and chisel. Don't let us draw aside, don't let us want to escape his will, for in any case we won't be able to avoid the blows.

“We will suffer all the more, and uselessly—and instead of polished stone, ready for the work of building, we will be a shapeless heap of gravel that people will trample contemptuously underfoot” (Ibid.).

All those little blows have a purpose. We are the blocks of stone that can move and feel in perfectly free will.

God is shaping us, using this, using that, smoothing us here, smoothing us there, getting us ready for future projects, like Cardinal Ratzinger.

We don't know what God will ask of us in the latter years of our life, what roles He will want us to plug, what roles He will want us to fulfill, in what way He will want to bring that fruit that will last from every moment of our existence.

We might find rejection in our blood family, misunderstandings, aspects of our vocation that they don't quite grasp.

Yet these are the things that Our Lord wants us to accept, love, to realize, ‘This is His will.’

Happiness does not consist in doing things that are easy. “To be happy in this world, we don't need an easy life, but a heart that is in love” (cf. J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 795).

Lord, help me to be more in love with my vocation. Help me to be more in love with the cross.

These hours, and days, and weeks coming to Holy Week are particularly significant for us to grow a little more in our love of the cross, to accept it a little better, to thank God for the crosses that He sends us, because there is something sweet about the cross.

The cross is sweet, there is light in the cross, there is joy in the cross, there is rest in the cross.

Thank you, Lord, for the crosses that you have permitted in my life. Teach me to love it a little more.

Thank you for the wisdom that you give me in not running away from the cross, but leading me to try to bear, with joy for the love of Christ, the discomforts, the scarcity of means—all the consequences of the real poverty that I am called to live, the extra demands that may be made on me at the eleventh hour.

St. Josemaría had that aspiration: Siempre mas (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 462; Friends of God, Point 72).

We can always give more, we can always do more. We can summon up a new energy with the little divine calls or invitations that God may make on us.

Help us to accept with love, as wanted by you for our growth, all the sufferings, physical and moral, contradictions, misunderstandings, miscommunications, sicknesses, limitations.

I thought I could do that, and now I find, Oh, I can't do that. Twenty years ago, I was able to do it. I could do it—no problem. But now I have to accept humble pie. I am not twenty-one anymore. Reality has sunk in. This is your will, Lord.

And so, that desire to co-redeem leads us not just to accept, but to seek, with generosity, how to give ourselves a little more.

St. Josemaría had that phrase: Excederse gustosamente, en el deber y en el sacrificio. “To outdo ourselves joyfully in our duty and in our sacrifice” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 527)

Love is active. It seeks. It doesn't just wait to be asked. It's dynamic, it's proactive.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). St. Augustine says the cross is a seat of learning. Our lives are written with Christ on the cross. Fulton Sheen says the cross is a book we have to read.

It contains so much knowledge, so much wisdom; a seat of learning that explains so many things, gives us so many answers.

Tristitia vestra convertetur in gaudium–“Your sorrow will be turned into joy” (cf. John 16:22).

God is at work. G. K. Chesterton says that of all the things that have been written about Christ on the cross, one aspect that has not been written enough is the joy of Christ on the Cross, the joy in the fact that “it is accomplished”–consummatum est (John 19:30).

There is a constant joy in our life—profound, deep—because we know we're doing the will of God. We know we're being used for greater things. God is at work in us and through us.

In those moments of apparent suffering or rejection, or the other things that may happen to us, we know that God is particularly at work in this moment. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). How much joy and consolation we can get from those words.

One time somebody in Rome had a stye and they went to have the stye removed. When they came back from having the stye removed, St. Josemaría wanted to see where the stye had been removed. He wanted to see the little wound.

The person lowered their eye, I think it was Cardinal Herranz, and let St. Josemaría see where the stye had been removed—the little growth that was there. He saw that it was gone and he saw that there was hardly any scar there at all.

Frequently, when St. Josemaría saw these sorts of things, he made some supernatural consideration.

He said, “When we have to excise something from the soul of our sister or brother, we have to do it in the same way—to leave no scar. But also, we have to hold still, like the patient in that operation, so that the divine surgeon can do His work.”

“Be still, and know that I am God.” With this indication, with this fraternal correction, with this major change of orientation perhaps, in our charity, in our patience, in our kindness, in being a different person.

These moments help us to see how important God is. We grow in our intimacy with Him.

The whole spirit of Opus Dei is a pathway of profound intimacy with God, so that we are still, and we know that it's Him. Our initial zeal or energy may disappear, but then we rely on the deeper things.

We come to sense and appreciate the apostolic value of the cross. ‘God is using me in this moment a little better, perhaps in ways I don't understand, ways I don't like; I don't feel like I'm doing anything.’

The mysteries of life can have a great apostolic value, because we're continually in the hands of God.

God can use our experience of the cross to bring souls to Him in later life.

We learn from the cross so that when souls come to us, who perhaps are experiencing rejection—rejection in their family, rejection by their spouse, rejection by their children, rejection by their parents—we know what they're talking about.

We know the sentiments they have deep down. We know what it means to have a broken heart.

And because we know what that means, we can reach out to all the broken hearts that God brings into contact with us and point them the way to the broken heart of Christ on the cross, which is a fountain of life, fons vitae. “From his side flowed blood and water” (cf. John 19:34).

Our priestly soul leads us to savor the sweetness of the cross. “My yoke is sweet and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30).

Lord, help us to see your providence in little things—in the little things of every day. Help us to react with a smile—cheerfulness. That can be our greatest mortification: silent cheerfulness.

Our silence can often be an indication of our acceptance of the holocaust, a joy that comes from being with Christ on the Cross.

In The Forge, we’re told, “These are the unmistakable signs of the true Cross of Christ: serenity, a deep feeling of peace, a love which is ready for any sacrifice, a great effectiveness which wells from Christ's own wounded side. And always—and evidently—cheerfulness: a cheerfulness which comes from knowing that those who truly give themselves are beside the Cross, and therefore beside Our Lord” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 772).

Our Lady, beside the Cross, Our Lady of Sorrows. But yet at the same time, she is Our Lady of Joy—Cause of our joy, showing the whole world where to find authentic joy, because our Lady also shares in that consummatum est–“it is accomplished.”

Mary, may you help us in all moments of rejection, to be with you beside the Cross and to find a profound deep peace and joy in knowing that we are cooperating in the Redemption, just like you did.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW