The Cross is a Huge Plus Sign

So many of us – including me – hate our personal crosses when we should be embracing them! The cross is how Jesus chose to die for us, and He even told us to take up our own cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). The cross, in reality, is the New Testament Tree of Life foretold of in Genesis. Through this means of salvation, we can attain eternal life. 

One can easily see the parallel between the Tree of Life in Genesis and the cross in the New Testament by tying several Bible verses together. In Genesis 3:22, God said that if Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Life, then they would live forever. In Luke 1:42, Elizabeth calls the unborn Jesus the “fruit of Mary’s womb.” Jesus in John 6 says that.He is the Bread of Life, and if we eat of this bread, we shall live forever. This statement is the connection with the fruit of the Tree of Life. Thus, I like to think of the Eucharist as the fruit of the Cross, which is therefore the antidote to Adam eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This connection is a huge plus sign for us all: eternal life by consuming the very flesh and blood of Jesus.  

The Eucharist overcomes the two lies of the devil in the Garden of Eden. First, he said that if you eat the forbidden fruit, you will not die;  By eating the Eucharist, you will live forever (John 6). He then said that if you eat the forbidden fruit, you will be like God (Gen. 3:4-5). By eating the Eucharist, God abides in you and you in God (John 6:56). An interesting twist is that the devil also said that by eating the forbidden fruit, you will know right from wrong.  So many people who live in mortal sin today cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, as they love evils such as abortion, pornography, homosexual so called “marriage,” and transgenderism. By consuming the Eucharist, the fruit of the cross, as often as possible, one can easily tell right from wrong, thus overcoming yet another of the devil’s lies.

Taking Up Our Own Cross

If one decides to follow Jesus, then for sure, He will make sure that you have a cross designed specifically for you. I hear so many tales of woe from other people about the suffering that they have to go through daily, and I wonder how they can bear it. But then I realize that God made them, not me, to carry their own crosses. The crosses that I carry are heavy indeed, but I know that if I love everyone the way that Jesus does, and if I forgive everyone as Jesus does, then my cross gets lighter and lighter. If I, on the other hand, carry grudges and resentment toward others for the way that they have hurt me, and if I become stingy with my money, my crosses then become much heavier. It’s definitely worth praying daily for the gift of becoming like Jesus in my thoughts, words, deeds, and charitableness.  Jesus even said that the same measure we give to others will be given back to us (Matthew 7:2).

The Cross Design

The cross is designed with both a horizontal beam and a vertical one. The horizontal beam represents man reaching out to man in love and charity, as in helping the poor, listening to others talk about their situation, and doing good works, for example. But this by itself is not enough.  There are many secular organizations who help others, not in the name of God, but of man. Christians know that it also takes the vertical beam of the cross, which represents man reaching up to God, and God reaching down to man, to make the horizontal beam eternally fruitful. When you unite the two beams together, then you have the one-time sacrifice of Jesus powering your life here on earth and later on in heaven.

The Saints Speak Out on the Cross

The saints throughout history have had some wonderful things to say about our ticket to heaven, also known as the cross. Here are a few of them.

Our Savior’s passion raises men and women from the depths, lifts them up from the earth, and sets them in the heights. – St. Maximus of Turin

Mount Calvary is the mount of lovers. All love that does not take its origin from the Savior’s passion is foolish and perilous. Unhappy is love without the Savior’s death. Love and death are so mingled in the Savior’s passion that we cannot have one in our hearts without the other. Upon Calvary, we cannot have life without love, or love without theRedeemer’s death. – St. Francis de Sales

Mount Calvary is the academy of love. – St. Francis de Sales

No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ. His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against him. How much more does it bring to those who turn to him in repentance. – St. Leo the Great

As they were looking on, so we too gaze on his wounds as he hangs. We see his blood as he dies. We see the price offered by the redeemer, touch the scars of his resurrection. He bows his head, as if to kiss you. His heart is made bare open, as it were, in love to you. His arms are extended that he may embrace you. His whole body is displayed for your redemption. Ponder how great these things are. Let all this be rightly weighed in your mind: as he was once fixed to the cross in every part of his body for you, so he may now be fixed in every part of your soul.  – St. Augustine

The death of the Lord our God should not be a cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory. In taking upon himself the death that he found in us, he has most faithfully promised to give us life in him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.  – St. Augustine

The cross is the school of love.  – St. Maximilian Kolbe

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.  – St. Augustine

The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the hope of glory and a lesson in patience. What may not the hearts of believers promise themselves as the gift of God’s grace, when for their sake God’s only Son, co-eternal with the Father, was not content only to be born as man from human stock but even died at the hands of the men he had created? – St. Augustine

He died, but he vanquished death; in himself he put an end to what we feared; he took it upon himself and he vanquished it, as a mighty hunter he captured and slew the lion. – St. Augustine

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return. – St. Theodore the Studite

By nothing else except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ has death been brought low: The sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to despise the things of this world, even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God and we made children and heirs of God. By the cross all these things have been set aright… It is a seal that the destroyer may not strike us, a raising up of those who lie fallen, a support for those who stand, a staff for the infirm, a crook for the shepherded, a guide for the wandering, a perfecting of the advanced, salvation for soul and body, a deflector of all evils, a cause of all goods, a destruction of sin, a plant of resurrection, and a tree of eternal life. – St. John Damascene

Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  – St. Paul

But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. – St. Paul

If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth. – St. Thomas Aquinas

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. – Jesus Christ

It is not the finest wood that feeds the fire of Divine love, but the wood of the Cross.  – St. Ignatius of Loyola

The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion.  – St. John Eudes

Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent. — St. John of the Cross

The road is narrow. He who wishes to travel it more easily must cast off all things and use the cross as his cane. In other words, he must be truly resolved to suffer willingly for the love of God in all things. – St. John of the Cross

O souls! seek a refuge, like pure doves, in the shadow of the crucifix. There mourn the Passion of your divine Spouse, and drawing from your hearts flames of love and rivers of tears, make of them a precious balm with which to anoint the wounds of your Savior. – St. Paul of the Cross

The Passion of Christ is the greatest and most stupendous work of Divine Love. The greatest and most overwhelming work of God’s love. – St. Paul of the Cross

Oh cherished cross! Through thee my most bitter trials are replete with graces! – St. Paul of the Cross

For the wood of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. – St. Paul

There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us. And on the far side of every cross we find the newness of life in the Holy Spirit, that new life which will reach its fulfillment in the resurrection. This is our faith. This is our witness before the world. – St. John Paul II

So the next time you go to Mass and see the crucifix, thank God for giving you a way to become one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). The cross is indeed a huge plus sign!