God, The Great Investor.

My brother,
On this Holy Week, I write to you that I may share with you some thoughts about our loving God, "Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for the benefit of us all." ( Rom. 8:32)
During these days, the Church Liturgy calls us to remember and meditate on the events that led to the last days of our Lord's life on earth.
The first five weeks of Lent have been preparing us for this very moment. The Son of Man willingly surrenders Himself to the Enemy, that the great drama of the redemption of humanity from the tyranny of death might unfold.
Through prayer and penance, we open our hearts that the Heavenly Father might give us the grace to comprehend what Jesus and His Mother went through in these final days on the way to the cross.
It is sad to think that God's greatest gift of love had to be mingled with sinful humanity's vilest acts. After a long period of machinations and plotting to destroy the Lord of Life, He is betrayed by a close friend, denied and abandoned by those who had promised Him loyalty, lied about, and made victim of the most shameful piece of lobbying in the history of humanity, condemned by a cowardly politician, even though he knew he was condemning an innocent man. He was jeered, scourged, crucified, and humiliated, then killed by violent men gone wild, who manifested what lies hidden in our sinful hearts.
This, the greatest event, reveals to us the unimaginable love God has for us. He was willing to invest this most precious gift of Himself, that He might, in the future, reap a harvest of love. For love can only be repaid by love.
Now, my brother, consider that God is not sadistic, Scripture tells us "He does not grieve or afflict anyone willingly." ( 3:33.) All that Jesus suffered He sufferred because it had to be suffered. If God had to make His Son suffer so much. How ugly must sin be that it needs so much to repair for it?
God, the Great Investor, "out of the very love He has for us, even when we were dead through our transgressions, brought us alive together with Christ." ( Eph. 2:4.).  He chose the Cross as the instrument of His investment, and thus turned the world's suffering brought on by sin, into a precious jewel made perfect in the dimension of the cross sanctified by Christ.

Is it a wonder then, my brother, that great friends of God teach us to treasure suffering? St. John of the Cross advices us that when something unpleasant happens to us, we ought to look at Jesus crucified and be silent. And, he asks, "What does anyone know who does not know how to suffer for Christ?" As we go through the mystery of our Savior's death on the cross, we rejoice in the knowledge that it leads to His Resurrection and victory over death. And, if the All Knowing God turned the hideous cross into a priceless investment instrument, how much ought we to treasure it and learn to see all the events of our lives as steps toward this now precious cross that will lead us to life?

I used to think of life
a chain of hits and misses.
But now I make of it
a garland of God's kisses.

I used to gauge each act
a change for gain or loss,
But now I know that all
combine to make the cross.

For God has said to me,
through grace.
My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor your ways, my ways.