"The cross of Christ is the rest he wants to give us.

"
Crux enim Christi sua requies est.
--St. Stephen of Muret, Maxims

"It is in the divine Eucharist that Jesus Christ becomes our interior Master, that he disperses
our errors and our prejudices, that He tells us secretly what He spake openly to His first
disciples."
--Jean Nicholas Grou, SJ, The Practical Science of the Cross

"The Cross is the royal and usual instrument of all renewal. There is nothing it does not
expiate, nothing that it does not restore."
+Charles Louis Gay

"Oh! if the world knew what is to embrace fully, truly, unreservedly, with madness of love,
the Cross of Christ. . . .!"
--St. Rafael Arnaiz Baron, Spiritual Writings

People are saved through sorrows. Nobody’s ever been saved without sorrows.
Without sorrows and trials, don’t expect any repose in the life beyond the grave.

» Elder Ephraim of Arizona

"If you wish to be perfect, sell your will and give it to the poor in spirit, and come to Christ by
the path of meekness and humility and follow him all the way to Calvary and the grave."
--St. John of the Cross,

All those who’ve been sanctified, and then those who’ve been saved, all those who’ve
passed through the furnace of sorrows. Some though illness, some through the struggle
against the passions and so on. That is, the whole catalogue of Godly sorrows.

These have the right to eternal repose.

+Elder Ephraim of Arizona

"Christ died praying. . . . On the cross, therefore, he held aloft his 'Yes' to the Father,
glorifying the Father in the cross, and it was this manner of his dying which led, by an inner
logic, to the Resurrection."
--Pope Benedict XVI,

"GOD, who for our sake did will your Son to undergo the torments of the Cross, that you
might drive far from us the power of the enemy; grant unto us your servants that we may
attain to the grace of his Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen."

+the Raccolta, from the '62 Roman Missal

"God yearns for us infinitely more than we yearn for him. . . . Our so-called 'search for God'
proves often to be no more than a particularly sophisticated pastime, bordering on the
frivolous, when compared to God's simple passionate longing for us in Christ, ready for any
sacrifice, which climaxed in Jesus' cry from the Cross: 'I thirst.'"
--Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy

"Pay heed to how great are the things that He [Christ] suffered so that you might embrace
the Cross with a desire for suffering: chained as if helpless, the Omnipotent suffered as if
powerless, goodness treated as if a vile convict, wisdom mocked as if stupidity, justice
tormented as if evil."
--St. Bonaventure, The Theeefold Way

"The Incarnation has accordingly no other ultimate purpose than the Cross: 'He descended
into what is ours, that he might assume not only the substance, but also the condition of the
sinful nature; the Son of God had no other cause of his birth than that he might be able to
be fastened to the Cross.'"
--Hans Urs von Balthasar

"If a soul is seeking God, its Beloved is seeking it much more."

--St. John of the Cross,

"Christ on the cross bows his head, waiting for you, that he may kiss you; he stretches out
his arms, that he may embrace you; his hands are open, that he may enrich you; his body is
spread out, that he may give himself totally; his feet are nailed, that he may stay there; his
side is open for you, that he may let you enter there."

--St. Bonaventure

"'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow
me.' . . . . [T]he word daily implies, that the self-denial which is pleasing to Christ consists in
little things. This is plain, for opportunity for great self-denials does not come every day.
Thus to take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all, it consists in the
continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us."
+St. John Henry Newman

"Jesus has many lovers of his heavenly kingdom, but few carriers of his cross."
--Thomas à Kempis

"If we wish to be united to God, we must do exactly what the Word did to become united to
human nature. He followed a path of prodigious self-abatement, of infinite humility! Here
there opens up before us the path of the 'nothing,' of total abnegation. 'All, nothing; all,
nothing!' This was the lullaby sung by St. John of the Cross to his God made man."
--Fr. Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, OCD,

"The Cross is the abyss of wonders, the center of desires, the school of virtues, the house
of wisdom, the throne of love, the theater of joys, and the place of sorrows. It is the root of
happiness, and the gate of Heaven."
--Thomas Traherne

"The Cross is the key, the gate, the way, and the splendor of truth."
--St. Bonaventure

"There is no other way to life and true and internal peace, but the road of the Holy Cross,
and the daily dying to self."
--Thomas à Kempis

"[T]he Cross is the symbol above all symbols. Whoever impugns it, condemns the world to
unintelligibility." --Romano Guardini

"[W]hoever wishes to stay in a state of grace should never turn the eyes of their souls away
from the cross."
St. Angela of Foligno

"Success [in worldly terms] is definitely not one of the names of God, and it is not Christian
to have an eye to outward success or numbers. His success comes about through the cross
and is always found under that sign."
--Pope Benedict XVI, God is Near Us

"The authentic image of God in the world is the image of crucified love--nothing else."
--Hans Urs von Balthasar

"On every step we take, coming in or going out, putting on our dress and shoes, washing,
taking our meals, lighting the candles, lying or sitting down, whatever we have to do, we
make the sign of the cross on our forehead."
--Tertullian, De corona militis

"Adore the cross; mediate on it, examine it closely, understand it, love it, embrace it,
espouse it; I will say, eat it, for it is food, a part or rather a form of that bread which the
Gospel calls 'supersubstantial' (Matt. 6:11)" --Msgr. Charles Louis Gay

"God has committed himself unsurpassably and beyond return [in Jesus Christ]. Whoever
has been able to read the image of the Son who bled to death on the Cross will not then be
really 'surprised' by the prolongation of that commitment in the Eucharist."
--Hans Urs von Balthasar

"My mercy, which you receive in the blood [shed on the Cross], is incomparably greater
than all the sins that have ever been committed in the world. "
--St. Catherine of Sienna

"Christ's death on the cross is a judgment of judgment."

--St. Maximus the Confessor

"Watch yourself then: may you be shameless, show even effrontery when you are
reproached because of Christ. Show plenty of effrontery. Don't let yourself be browbeaten
when your brow is armed with the sign of the cross." --St. Augustine

"How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no
mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good
to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not
cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return."
--Saint Theodore the Studite

"Behold: the centurion struck a lance into [Christ's] sacred side with such violence that the
very cross did tremble, out of which side did gush abundance of blood and water, for the
redemption of all mankind. O river of paradise, running forth to water the whole earth! O
precious wound which rather the love you did bear to us sinful men than the enemies'
weapon did inflict! O gate of heaven, window of paradise, place of rest, tower of fortitude,
sanctuary of the just, nest of doves, tomb of pilgrims, flourishing bed of the spouse! Hail
sacred wound, which pierces devout hearts; hail, rose of incredible beauty; hail, precious
stone of inestimable value; hail, door through which lies open a free passage to the heart of
Christ, an argument of his love, and pledge of eternal felicity."

--St. Peter of Alcántara, A Golden Treatise on Mental Prayer

"The cross of Calvary, the tables of Sinai, the waves of the deluge, the days of creation, are
the four great monuments of divine legislation; imperishable monuments, which, after so
many ages, exist in all the vigor of the first day."

--Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

"Oh my God, I am lost if the virtue of the Sacraments save me not; and I am lost without any
hope of salvation if I make bad use of them."
--Jean-Nicolas Grou, SJ,
"Certainly in times of tranquillity the cross should give you joy. But maintain the same faith
in times of persecution. Otherwise you will be a friend of Jesus in times of peace and his
enemy during war."
--St. Cyril of Jerusalem

"One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy
of it."
--St. John of the Cross

“Think of nothing else but that God ordains all, and where there is no love, put love, and you
will draw love out.” -St. John of the Cross

A discussion of Tertullian's concept: caro salutis est cardo, "the flesh is the hinge of
salvation" (in this formulation referring both to Christ's flesh, and our flesh). Without Christ's
flesh, how could the Cross save? Without Christ's flesh, where would the Eucharist come
from? Without Christ's body, where would the Church, his body, be? Without our body, what
meaning would the Sacraments have? Without our body, how could we do penance?
Without our flesh, what would Jesus have saved or accomplished in the resurrection of the
flesh? And on and on . . .

"To arrive at that which you do not know

You have to go by a way you do not know."
+St. John of the Cross

"Behold this heart of mine, which, made tender by Your death, and enamored of You,
desires to offer no further resistance to Your calls. Oh, do You draw it to Yourself, and make
it all Your own! You have died for me, and I desire to die for You; and if I continue to live, I
will live for You alone.

O pains of Jesus, O ignominies of Jesus, O death of Jesus, O love of Jesus! Fix yourselves
within my heart, and let the remembrance of you abide there always, to be continually
smiting me, and inflaming me with love.

I love You, O infinite goodness; I love You, O infinite love. You are and shall ever be, my
one and only love."
+Alphonsus Liguori

"Let us, therefore, who believe, run to meet a Bridegroom who is beautiful wherever he is.
Beautiful as God, as the Word who is with God. Beautiful in the Virgin's womb, where he did
not lose his divinity but assumed our humanity. Beautiful he is as a baby, as the Word
unable to speak, because while he was without speech, still a baby in arms and nourished
at his mother's breast, the heavens spoke for him, a star guided the magi, and he was
adored in the manger as food for the humble. He was beautiful in heaven, then, and
beautiful on earth, beautiful in the womb, and beautiful in his parents' arms. He was
beautiful in his miracles, but just as beautiful under the scourges. Beautiful as he invited us
to life, but beautiful too in not shrinking from death. Beautiful in laying down his life, and
beautiful in taking it up again. Beautiful on the cross. Beautiful in the tomb. And beautiful in
heaven." --St. Augustine,

"God falls in love with the soul not because his eyes are attracted to her greatness, but to
the greatness of her humility."
--St. John of the Cross

"'[I]f Christ is not risen'--in the words of St. Paul--then I for one don't give a damn about
Paul's experience of him. . . . Christ rose from the dead and thus established his claims or
he was the most gigantic fraud in history. And if he was a fraud, then all of Paul's
experiences serve us nothing: 'our faith is in vain.' . . . Our God does not trick us with private
breakthroughs. He was publically murdered on a cross."
--Frederick D. Wilhelmsen

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?

No flags are fair, if Freedom’s flag be furled.
Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled,
And has for captain Him whose thorn-wreathed head
Smiles from the Cross upon a conquered world.

--Joyce Kilmer, "The Peacemaker."

“It is not enough to believe in general all that which the Church proposes. We are obliged to
believe and to know distinctly certain mysteries in particular, which are as follows:
--that there is only on God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
--that the Son of God, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, became man and died on
the cross to deliver us from sin and the pains of Hell;
--that following this life there will be a Heaven where the just will be rewarded, and a Hell
where the wicked will be punished with a sentence that will never end.
If we do not distinctly and clearly believe all these mysteries, we cannot be saved, inasmuch
as the truths they contain are the first principles and the foundation of our religion.”
--St. Jean Baptiste de La Salle