Montfort and The Cross
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS
The Cross in mystery
Is veiled for us below
Without great light to see;
Who shall its splendor know?
Alone the lofty mind
Shall this high secret trace;
And none shall hearen find Who grasps it not by grace.
St. Louis de Montfort
T he Cross was a dreadful symbol and with good reason. To die on a cross meant that one had lost everything, even one’s identity as a human person. The very posture of hanging there helpless, unable to even brush a fly from one’s brow or ease the agony of the body reacting to the unnatural position, shouted out that, in the eyes of whoever put you there, you are nothing. Our Lord died like that, dumped on a rubbish-tip outside of town as his Mother watched. Crucifixion spelt out utter helplessness. The purpose of the punishment was meant to instill horror. There is a famous graffito scratched on stone from the earliest age of the Church – “Alexamenos worships his god,” written beneath the figure of a man, with a donkey’s head, on a cross. The Christian is being ridiculed for his belief. The finality and helplessness of such a death seems total.
THE WORLD AS IT IS
The Christian symbol says that this is an unjust, unfair world which at times may even crucify good people. This is what life is like. As with Mary nailed to the cross with her crucified Son, parents today can be crucified through the behavior or misfortune of their children, with everyone powerless to do anything. The medical expertise of a fine hospital or the selfless love of a genuine friend or relative, may be unable to help. In the first place, therefore, the Christian sign of the cross accepts the world as it is and at its worst.
Secondly, because Our Lord really was crucified and died on The Cross only to rise in power from the grave, the Christian sign of the cross says that we have something to say and see in every circumstance of life, not even excluding death itself. The sign of the cross gives perspective to whoever is blessed (like Alexamenos) with the insight of faith, and enables us to see life whole. St. Louis-Marie de Montfort was particularly graced to see this: “We preach Christ crucified to those who are called. Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-24).
ONE OF THE POOR
Father de Montfort, soon after his ordination in 1700, was invited to accept the post of chaplain to the poorhouse in Poitiers. It was in a dreadful state and he was advised not to go there: “I entered this poorhouse, or rather this poor Babylon, quite determined to bear, in union with Jesus Christ my Savior, the cross that would not fail to fall to me if this work was really God’s work” (Letter 11). He was hopeful that Our Lord, through his mother’s intercession, would change it to a holy place, becoming rich and peaceful, although it forcibly housed the dregs of society.
“Wisdom is the Cross and the Cross is Wisdom.”
“I explained to the Bishop that even in the poorhouse I do not wish to be separated from my mother, divine Providence; and with this in mind I am happy to share the meals of the poor and to have no fixed salary” (Letter 10). Living with the poor as one of them, it is perhaps no surprise to find that Fr. de Montfort was treated as one of them. He used “to go round the town begging for something extra for them to eat with the dry bread they were usually given” (Letter 11). He had to stop after three months because of opposition from the management of the poorhouse. As one of the poor, Fr. de Montfort their chaplain had no more status than they had.
THE WISDOM CROSS
He organized a prayer-group of some twenty or so women from the poorhouse and invited them to meet around a cross he made for them. To lead these destitute people, he placed a blind woman in charge. He named the group, ‘Wisdom.’ On the vertical beam of the cross he wrote (in part): “Deny yourself/carry your cross to follow Jesus Christ/Love the cross/Desire . . . contempt . . . insults . . . illness, injuries/Divine love . . . patience, obedience. ” The cross-beam echoes the Gospel: “If you are ashamed of the cross of Jesus Christ, he will be ashamed of you.“
People in such a home at such a time, hidden behind high walls to be kept out of sight (and perhaps out of mind), might have felt themselves as ‘nobodies,’ meaning nothing to God nor man. Fr. de Montfort’s cross offered these people in rags with little or no status and dependent on hand-outs from a grudging authority, another perspective.
Jesus their Lord, born in a stable, traveling about so often with “no-where to lay his head,” and dying too as a ‘nobody’ on a rubbish-tip, has much to say to them in their place. The point of the Cross in an unfair world, is to try to be at one with the will of God no matter what circumstances might do. Life may crucify as so much can go so wrong so often. The underlying key to sanity is found in trying to respond to what God is asking IN the situation.
The Wisdom group gathered around the cross, were invited to live at one with God’s will in the poor-house. To be at one with God’s will can mean being at odds with people and circumstances around them. The tension is real, and what it may mean in practice, Fr. de Montfort listed on the cross he gave them. So often life is given not chosen. Circumstance led these poor people to the poor- house. But in that place and time with their present situation so like the humiliating loss of identity symbolized by the cross, there is more to be seen.
OUR RISEN LORD
Life treated Jesus like that. The Cross reflected his life too. It is the way Jesus walked in total abandonment to his Father’s will, “obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phils. 2:8). The tension between his attachment to his Father’s will and the opposition from those around him who saw things differently, led to his crucifixion.
It will be the same for Alexamenos and whoever accepts the invitation of Jesus to follow him. Is it not ridiculous, therefore, to become involved with Christ and his cross? The gospel would say unequivocally ‘No,’ since it begins from the premise that Jesus who died on a cross and was buried, has risen from a grave and is now alive and present among us! … “ the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord . . .” (Phils 2:8-11). Name here means ‘person,’ Jesus is not recalled through evocative memories of yesterday, but now from within a present living relationship of worship and wonder. He rose from a grave to be with us.
The wheel of life which broke Jesus’ body and his Mother’s heart has come full circle. To see this means that the cross, which Fr. de Montfort placed at the heart of his Wisdom group of the poor and handicapped, reflecting so many of the circumstances of their hopeless situation, speaks to their situation. But graced with the power and wisdom of the insight of faith, they can see too that there is purpose in their lives. In so far as they live trying to respond to whatever God is asking in that situation, whatever it is like, they are in the company of their risen Lord Jesus. He knows what they are going through, and he is there. Helpless they may be, open to ridicule and hopelessness, but given the perspective of faith, they ought to see themselves as nailed to the cross with Christ. As with their Lord, fidelity will bring its reward.
Perhaps a phrase from a letter of Fr. de Montfort, already mentioned, best sums it up: “. . . even in the poorhouse I do not wish to be separated from my mother, divine Providence.. . .” To live genuinely poor among the poorest of society obviously leads to insecurity, and all that follows from having no status. The young priest chose to be there always because that space left little or nothing between himself and God in Christ. He would live for God alone then, believing through the Cross that God would never ever leave him alone. To glimpse what Fr. de Montfort expressed in that phrase, is to see the point of the Cross in Christian life. To quote St. Louis Marie once again: “Wisdom is the Cross and the Cross is Wisdom.” (L.E.W. No. 180)
