Wisdom and the Cross
A dear friend and fellow Carmelite had been hospitalized not too long ago. She had an accident which caused multiple fractures and a great of deal pain. The next day, she sent a text which astonished me considering the suffering she was enduring. It was not a litany of complaints, but a testimony to her faith. The text read:
Where charity and love are… God is there!
(1 John 4:16)
This is wisdom. A life that is lived in love, seeking the Face of Christ, will find that love on the Cross. St. Louis de Montfort once wrote, “Wisdom is the Cross and the Cross is Wisdom.” The Cross is the school of Love. In order to love and seek Divine Incarnate Wisdom, who is Jesus, we need to know Him, and to know Him we must follow Him to the Cross. It is at the Cross that the Holy Spirit’s supreme gift of wisdom produces in us the most faithful resemblance to Jesus Christ.
Christ gave Himself to us by suffering on a Cross. When we suffer in Charity, and offer that suffering for the love of Jesus, we are giving something of ourselves that turns to joy. St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face wrote about the profound mystery of the cross in her own spiritual life: “I found happiness and joy in the world, but only in pain.” The reason Therese said this was that she knew that the pain she suffered for souls, in the charity of total self-giving, purified her love and made it triumphant, resulting in a joy and a peace which nothing in the world could take away.
So many in the world are suffering now. Everywhere you turn, you meet the Cross! If only they would seek the Face of Christ in their pain, as my friend did, they would experience for themselves that Christian suffering is divinized suffering. Since incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ, had to enter heaven by the Cross, we must enter by the same way. In the pain that is offered through Christ, the Holy Spirit produces, by the gift of wisdom, a deep and profound peace in our soul, stilling the turbulent waters, and reflecting the most perfect image of the Face of the Son to the Father. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “But we all, with face unveiled, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into His very image from glory to glory, as through the spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18). Who can comprehend it? But this is the Wisdom of God: His Cross is His glory.
“Eternal Wisdom is a breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty. Hence nothing defiled gains entrance into Him. He is the reflection of eternal light, the spotless mirror of God’s majesty, the image of His goodness” (Wisdom 7:25).
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The ‘Wisdom’ Cross by St. Louis De Montfort
DENY
ONESELF
CARRY
ONE’S CROSS
TO FOLLOW
JESUS CHRIST
IF YOU ARE ASHAMED OF THE CROSS
OF JESUS CHRIST, HE WILL BE
ASHAMED OF YOU BEFORE HIS FATHER
LOVE
THE CROSS
DESIRE:
CROSSES
CONTEMPT
PAIN
ABUSE
INSULTS
DISGRACE
PERSECUTION
HUMILIATIONS
CALUMNIES
ILLNESS
INJURIES
MAY JESUS PREVAIL.
MAY HIS CROSS PREVAIL.
DIVINE LOVE
HUMILITY
SUBMISSION
OBEDIENCE:
COMPLETE
PROMPT
JOYFUL
BLIND
PERSEVERING
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“Remember the surpassing worth of the wisdom that is yours. Bear in mind the kind of school in which you are to learn your skills, the rewards to which you are called. Mercy itself wishes you to be merciful, righteousness itself wishes you to be righteous, so that the Creator may shine forth in his creature, and the image of God be reflected in the mirror of the human heart as it imitates his qualities. The faith of those who live their faith is a serene faith. What you long for will be given you; what you love will be yours forever…Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God… what words can express the great happiness of seeing God? Yet human nature will achieve this when it has been transformed so that it sees the Godhead no longer in a mirror or obscurely but face to face–the Godhead that no man has been able to see. In the inexpressible joy of this eternal vision, human nature will possess what eye has not seen or ear heard, what man’s heart has never conceived.
The blessedness of seeing God is justly promised to the pure of heart. For the eye that is unclean would not be able to see the brightness of the true light, and what would be happiness to clear minds would be a torment to those that are defiled. Therefore, let the mists of worldly vanities be dispelled, and the inner eye be cleansed of all the filth of wickedness, so that the soul’s gaze may feast serenely upon the great vision of God.”
~Pope S. Leo the Great, from his sermon on the Beatitudes
“Hail the Cross of Christ, Our Only Hope!”
Illumina Domine Blog - Devotion to The Holy Face 
Thank you for this beautiful reminder of why and how we should bear our crosses every day. The quote from St Louis Marie de Montfort is especially profound. I find your blog very beautiful.
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As a grandmother of two grandchildren 4 and 6 years and my Octogenarian time of my life, I can resonate with you, Tricia. We try to be hopeful but worry (as grandparents do) for we are in an age of “darkness” On the other hand, we have hope because of our belief in our Triunne God of Love, Mercy and Forgiveness. When we remember Jesus’s sacrifice for all, it is then we can say: Jesus I trust in you. We then try to let go and let God enter the crosses we bear.
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