Editorial: The Cross is Easter
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
Editorial: The Cross is Easter
A common criticism of the teachings of Saint Louis de Montfort is that they overstress the cross and ignore the resurrection of Jesus. From one point of view, there is some merit in the objection. Although his writings are permeated with the praise of the cross, he has no special section on Easter in any of his works. His mention of the resurrection is almost limited to brief statements concerning the first glorious mystery of the rosary. This should cause no surprise! Since the resurrection itself, in Montfort’s time, was not given a distinct or thorough study even in the manuals of theology.
Does Saint Louis de Montfort, then, treat the Easter mystery? Most definitely. But only together with the cross. For this saint, Easter does not come after Good Friday. Glory does not come after the crucifixion. Rather, Good Friday is Easter, the cross is glory, the ignominious death on Calvary is victory.
The Cross IS Glory
Father de Montfort would be definitely upset by those who separate the cross and glory. He would find incomprehensible those who distort the truth that we are an “Easter people” to mean that the cross is now to be left aside. For Louis de Montfort, victory is only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in his total surrender on Calvary that we are a triumphant people. It is in his dying on the cross that the new creation is born.
Montfort’s writings proclaim this understanding of the victorious cross. It is the cross which “opens up to glory . . . and sings victory in heaven and earth . . Victory, Victory, to Jesus on the cross”! It is only through the cross, Montfort says in The Love of the Eternal Wisdom, that Jesus enters into his glory; it is only through the cross that we share in the triumphant, risen Christ. The cross is the true tree of life; whoever eats of the fruit of this tree, the crucified Jesus- Conqueror, will never die.
Much of what modern theology attributes to the resurrection side of the paschal mystery, Montfort ascribes to the victorious cross. The new creation, glory, eternal life, the certainty of the final victorious out- come of God’s plan: these are part of the saint’s preaching on the triumph of Good Friday. His thought is akin to the teaching of the contemporary theologian, Bishop Walter Kasper, who writes: “the resurrection is as it were the profound divine dimension of the cross … in this paradoxical unity of cross and resurrection, God’s love and power enter human existence wholly and irrevocably . . . cross and resurrection together form the one Pascha Domini (the Passover of the Lord)”.
Editorial
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The saint insists that especially in times of pain, we join ourselves in faith and love to the victorious King who reigns from the cross.
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Understand Why We Take Up Our Cross Daily
More importantly, Montfort’s teaching echoes the thought of Paul’s theology of the cross and his condemnation of those who believe that our resurrection has already taken place.
Saint Louis de Montfort’s teaching leads to a healthy, evangelical spirituality. We better understand why we are to take up our cross daily. Understand why the grain of wheat must die, why we are to be crucified with Christ.
The strength and consolation of Montfort’s gospel preaching is evident. When illness strikes, when apparent failures abound, when the depth of suffering seems bottomless, we are immersed in the cross, yes; but the cross radiant with victory. The saint insists that especially in times of pain, we join ourselves in faith and love to the victorious King who reigns from the cross.
Those who strangely believe that all suffering is caused by some type of diabolical possession, who condemn the cross as alien to a strong faith in Christ risen, who hold that for a true Christian everything must constantly be “joy, joy, joy,” are far from gospel truth, far from the spirituality of Saint Louis de Montfort. Rather, they have been swallowed up in the erroneous contemporary thought that there is to be no pain, no cross, only self-pleasure. How far from the teachings of Jesus!
Our Sufferings Are With Christ
We all instinctively shun pain and suffering. And understandably so. There is a God-given yearning in each one of us for infinite peace, limitless joy, eternal life. Suffering and pain are stabbing ordeals of the sin of the world, of our finitude, our mortality, our unconquerable weakness. Yet here is the gospel paradox so loved by Saint Louis de Montfort: it is through suffering with Christ that we conquer our weakness. It is through the painful experience of our helplessness that we enter into immortality. It is by dying with Christ that we are born to eternal life. This is the mystery of the triumph of the cross.
All who take Saint Louis de Montfort as a guide come to realize that the cross is the royal road to triumphant, eternal life. The cross is glory. Importantly, the cross is victory. The cross is Easter.
