How Do We Pray the Cross of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit?
In baptism, the Holy Spirit plants us in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; for we are buried with Him, so that we may rise with Him. We must learn how to pray the Cross, not just to make the sign of it.
This is the way to pray the Cross: to make the Lord's words on the Cross our personal prayers. These words brought the Cross exceedingly close to our thoughts. They remind us of the Lord's Prayer "Father," of forgiveness, of the Kingdom, of care for relatives as John cared for the Mother of God, and of all bodily needs "I thirst." Generally, these words plant us in the Cross.
And as the apostle said, "I show you a more excellent way" (1 Cor 12:31), let us pray the Cross in this manner:
First: To begin by accepting death, our physical death, as a reality, and to carry this death with us into faith in the crucified Christ, transforming natural death into the death of grace of the Crucified One, the death of the Cross, by stripping ourselves of every thought and every desire during prayer.
Second: To ask the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly King, to fix our gaze on the meanings of the Cross: self-sacrificing love that gave everything, kept nothing, but left all things, titles, names, and even attributes of glory and power, and accepted shame, scourging, death, mockery, the denial of friends, and the cruelty of enemies... What more can we add? Is this not the realm of daily life?!
Let us pray to approach all these things by the power of the Holy Spirit, making them the nails of the spiritual life and the wounds of love, so that we may rise with the Lord in the glory of the Holy Spirit.
#Prayer #TheCross #HolySpirit #SpiritualLife #UnionWithChrist #Baptism #Contemplation ๐ How Do We Pray the Cross of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit? ๐๏ธ
In baptism, the Holy Spirit plants us in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; for we are buried with Him, so that we may rise with Him. We must learn how to pray the Cross, not just to make the sign of it.
This is the way to pray the Cross: to make the Lord's words on the Cross our personal prayers. These words brought the Cross exceedingly close to our thoughts. They remind us of the Lord's Prayer "Father," of forgiveness, of the Kingdom, of care for relatives as John cared for the Mother of God, and of all bodily needs "I thirst." Generally, these words plant us in the Cross.
And as the apostle said, "I show you a more excellent way" (1 Cor 12:31), let us pray the Cross in this manner:
First: To begin by accepting death, our physical death, as a reality, and to carry this death with us into faith in the crucified Christ, transforming natural death into the death of grace of the Crucified One, the death of the Cross, by stripping ourselves of every thought and every desire during prayer.
Second: To ask the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly King, to fix our gaze on the meanings of the Cross: self-sacrificing love that gave everything, kept nothing, but left all things, titles, names, and even attributes of glory and power, and accepted shame, scourging, death, mockery, the denial of friends, and the cruelty of enemies... What more can we add? Is this not the realm of daily life?!
Let us pray to approach all these things by the power of the Holy Spirit, making them the nails of the spiritual life and the wounds of love, so that we may rise with the Lord in the glory of the Holy Spirit.
#Prayer #TheCross #HolySpirit #SpiritualLife #UnionWithChrist #Baptism #Contemplation