On this ninth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection follows Christ and St. Dominic in embracing the Cross with love.
If you are joining us after the beginning of the 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! Fifteen weeks is a long time, and you can begin at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic through joining in.
Carrying the Cross with Love
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame and is seated at the right hand of the Father. (Heb 12:2)
All for love. Every single halting step. Every single labored breath. Every single precious drop of Blood. All for love. All to show us true love, the love of self-emptying sacrifice, the love that ultimately opens our way to never-ending life and never-ending joy in heaven. These things are worth stopping to think about. Holy Mother Church gives us a practice that includes 14 stops precisely to help us enter in to this mystery, this profound mystery of Jesus’ embracing the cross and climbing, even with joy, to the summit of Calvary.
It is beautiful to note that at the beginning, Jesus embraces the cross. He venerates and takes up the instrument by which He will redeem the world. Because He did this, the cross has become the universal sign of ultimate love, the highest love, the most heroic love ever known. A symbol of horrible death has become the sign of life-giving love, the sign of our conquering King, who lives forever to intercede for us.
St. Dominic embraced the cross too. He is often depicted venerating the cross or holding the cross high as the instrument of salvation. St. Dominic is known for his deep devotion to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, often spending his nights keeping vigil and meditating on these profound mysteries. This steeping of his interior life in meditation on Christ gave him a rich life of contemplation that overflowed into his life of holy preaching. He modeled this for his newly founded Order, and he models it for us. St. Dominic’s imitation of Jesus gives us an inspiring example of doing everything, even and especially the little things with great love. We may not be called to meditate in the same fashion as Our Holy Father Dominic with nightly vigils, but we are certainly called and invited to fix our eyes on Jesus, to embrace the crosses that the Lord permits and sends us, and to take up the cross, even with joy, to follow Jesus.
God knows that we need examples of how to carry our crosses, how to persevere along the right path to love. For this reason, God the Son Himself became man and embraced our human nature, taking up the cross willingly to show us love and generosity. St. Dominic knew this truth very deeply, and preached it with his words and with his life. Many Albigenses were deeply impressed and converted by the radical witness of St. Dominic’s embracing and preaching the poverty of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. No one escapes suffering and pain in life, therefore no one without exception is unable to unite with Jesus and His suffering for us. Meditating on the way of the cross is a powerful aid for each one of us, facilitating this union with Jesus that we are all made for and have always desired in the depths of our souls.
As Nuns of the Order of Preachers at Marbury in particular, one of the ways we take to ourselves the devotion of Our Holy Father Dominic is through the practice, given to us by our founding Mothers, of individually praying the Stations of the Cross every day. Keeping this road of love and suffering before our eyes each day in every season of the year and of life, is incredibly fruitful. We especially unite to Our Lady and her experience and remembrances of walking that road with her Son. These mysteries are inexhaustible in their richness and the power they have to unite us to Christ and His abundantly generous love.
All for love. Every single step, every single breath, every single drop of blood. All for love. Let us join Our Holy Father Dominic today and fix our eyes on Jesus, taking up the cross, even with joy, to follow Him.
Additional Prayers
If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past:
