9 February 2014
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:1-5)
The strictest contemplative order in the Church, the Carthusian Order has, as its motto, the words: “Stat Crux dum Volvitur Orbis.” The Cross stands while the world turns. The Cross stands: it abides, while all else is changing.
And what is this Cross? It is the Cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified and which stands above the world until the end of time, when the Risen Christ returns in glory. It is our one sign of hope in this fallen and passing world.
We, for our parts, keep placing our hopes on everything but the Cross: on ephemeral pleasures, dreams, desires. On pleasant faces, humans who please us. And our hopes are always turned to dust, as is everything that is not of God, for only God is immortal, only God is perfect, only God satisfies the truly deep longing of our hearts. We are called to love God, and we are called to love others: but we can only love them safely if we love them in the Cross through which God reveals Himself to us.
And so St. Paul is committing himself to true love when he says that entering into relation with people his eyes will be firmly fixed on the Cross of Christ and Christ alone. Imagine what the state of married commitment would be like if our marriages were build on the foundation of knowing and serving Christ Crucified in each other: and imagine what clarity would come to our societal debates on issues in and around marriage if we understood that any true, lasting relation must be based on the mortification, the putting to death, of every ungodly impulse! The Cross abides.