OF THE ROYAL WAY OF THE HOLY CROSS
“If you willingly bear the Cross, it will bear you, and will bring you to the end which you seek, even where there shall be the end of suffering; though it shall not be here. If you bear it unwillingly, you make a burden for yourself and greatly increase your load, and yet you must bear it. If you cast away one cross, without doubt, you shall find another, and perchance, a heavier.
Think you to escape what no mortal has been able to avoid? Which of the saints in the world has been without the cross and tribulation? For not even Jesus Christ our Lord was one hour without the anguish of His Passion, so long as He lived. “It behooved”, He said, “Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and so enter into his glory”, (Luke 24:46); and how do you seek another way than this royal way, which is the way of the Holy Cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and martyrdom, and do you seek for yourself rest and joy?
You are wrong, you are wrong, if you seek aught but to suffer tribulations, for this whole mortal life is full of miseries, and set round with crosses. And the higher a man has advanced in the spirit, the heavier crosses he will often find, because the sorrow of his banishment increases with the strength of his love.
But yet, the man who is thus in so many wise afflicted, is not without refreshment of consolation, because he feels abundant fruit to be growing within him out of the bearing of his cross. For while he willingly submits himself to it, every burden of tribulation is turned into an assurance of divine comfort, and the more the flesh is wasted by affliction, the more is the spirit strengthened mightily by inward grace. And ofttimes, so greatly is he comforted by the desire for tribulation and adversity, through love of conformity to the Cross of Christ, that he would not be without sorrow and tribulation; for he believes that he shall be the more acceptable to God, the more and the heavier burdens he is able to bear for His sake. This is not the virtue of man, but the grace of Christ which has such power and energy in the weak flesh, that what it naturally hates and flees from, this it draws to and loves through fervour of spirit.
It is not in the nature of man to bear the cross, to love the cross, to keep under the body and to bring it into subjection, to fly from honours, to bear reproaches meekly, to despise self and desire to be despised, to bear all adversities and losses, and to desire no prosperity in this world. If you look to yourself, you will, of yourself, be able to do none of this; but if you trust in the Lord, endurance shall be given you from heaven, and the world and the flesh shall be made subject to your command. Yea, you shall not even fear your adversary the devil, if you be armed with faith, and signed with the Cross of Christ.
Set yourself, therefore, like a good and faithful servant of Christ, to the manful bearing of the Cross of your Lord, who out of love was crucified for you. Prepare yourself for the bearing of many adversities and manifold troubles in this wretched life; because so it shall be with you wheresoever you are, and so in very deed, you shall find it wherever you hide yourself. This it must be; and there is no means of escaping from tribulation and sorrow except to bear them patiently.”
Thomas a Kempis
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