Commentary on the Gospel of

Paulson Veliyannoor, CMF and Luis Manuel Suárez CMF

On this day of the Feast of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), Mother Church places before us Jesus’ invitation to take up our cross and follow him. It is, hence, apt to reflect on a beautiful poem written by St. Teresa Benedicta on Good Friday of 1938:


To Stand With You by the Cross

(by St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)

 

Today I stood with you beneath the cross

and felt more keenly than I ever did before

that you, beneath the cross, became our mother.

Even an earthly mother’s faithful love

desires to carry out her son’s last wish.

Yet, you are the handmaid of the Lord,

and surrendered in your entire being and life

to the Being and Life of God made man.

You have taken us into your heart,

and with the heart’s blood of your bitter pains

have purchased life that’s new for every soul.

You know us all: our weakness and our wounds.

You also know the spark of heaven’s flame:

your Son’s love longs to take it

and pour it on us – an eternal blaze.

You guide our steps with care,

no price for you too high

to lead us to the goal.

But those whom you have chosen as companions here,

surrounding you one day at the eternal throne,

we now must stand, with you, beneath the cross

and purchase, with our heart’s blood’s bitter pains,

this spark of heaven for those priceless souls

whom God’s own Son bequeaths to us, his heirs.


Paulson Veliyannoor, CMF - frpaulson@gmail.com

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Fr. Luis Manuel Suárez CMF

Deuteronomy 4:32-40; Matthew 16:24-28

Paradoxes. Life is full of paradoxes. What looked great becomes small. And what was born insignificantly, becomes something important. Such is life.

“What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”: That is something real. Believing that the urgent is the important. Thinking that by having more, I am more. Or losing our life trying to accumulate, without realizing that when we die, nothing will help us, but what we have delivered, loved and served.

Therefore, today is a good day to remember that it is not the same to live wanting to be the center, as to live centred. Because he who wants to be the centre seeks to affirm himself, flees from the crosses and cannot follow Jesus. But living centred means having taken life in your hands… being able to surrender it. To possess oneself to wear out: in the children, in the work, in the relationship, with the community, with the people, with the poor... The heart centered, so as not to spread. And off-centre hands where necessary. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it". Living like this is... a grace. Ask for it!

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