Pints With Aquinas - "You Meant EVIL Against Me, But God Meant it for GOOD" | Mthr Natalia

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

💌 Support the Channel: https://mattfradd.locals.com Mother gives a meditation on the Exaltation of the Cross. She talks about how the Crucifixion and other stories from the scriptures can teach us to trust in and rejoice in our suffering. 🎧 Mother's Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com/ 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd  

Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, and this is Pines of the Aquinas. Yesterday we celebrated both East and West, those who are on the new calendar, the exaltation of the Holy Cross. And as I was thinking about the day

that this episode was coming out and what I could talk about regarding the cross, I thought, well, in addition to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, we have during the Great Fast, during Lent, we have the Feast of the Veneration of the Cross. Every Wednesday and Friday during the year, we commemorate the cross.

We have special hymns on Wednesdays and Fridays to commemorate the cross. We have special hymns on Wednesdays and Fridays to commemorate the cross. And then we have obviously Great and Holy Friday or Good Friday. And on August 1st, we celebrate the procession of the honorable cross. And I just thought, we have so many feasts about the cross. And at first glance, that seems kind of morbid.

Like we're holding up, we're exalting this place of so much suffering and so much pain. And yeah, that just seems like really morbid. And I thought maybe I should talk about why we have such a focus on the cross. In order to do that, I prayed about this. And so what I'd like to share about why we focus so much on the cross is really just that.

It's really just the fruit of my prayer and in reflecting on how keeping the cross in my sight is so good for me and so good for those that I love. And yeah, so I hope that in some way, it can be helpful for you as well. The first thing that came to me as I prayed with this is the story of Joseph in the Old Testament when his brothers just totally abandoned him and sell him into slavery.

And then as we go through this story, I don't have time to do that now, so if you're not familiar with this story, I would encourage you to look it up. It's one of the most beautiful stories in Scripture. In the end of this story though, as the brothers come and they realize that Joseph is alive, and they realize that he is alive and they realize that he's doing so well and all of that, they're just so remorseful. And even more than remorseful, they're afraid. They're afraid that Joseph is going to take revenge on them. But what Joseph says to them is, I'm paraphrasing here, there's nothing to take revenge for.

Like you think you sent me here, but God sent me here. God wanted me here to help his people. What you intended for evil, God intended for good. What you intended for evil, God intended for good. And I think it's helpful for us to look at the cross and remember that. What those who crucified the Lord intended for evil, what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good.

I think also of the story of St. Josephine Bakita, who is a tremendously beautiful saint. And when she was abducted into the slave trade when she was abducted into the slave trade and then horrifically tortured. And she ends up becoming free. She discovers Christ. She had never heard of him before. And I think actually it was in seeing a crucifix that she,

first, I don't know if that's true, but I think that she saw a crucifix and said, "'Who is this?' And in my country, this is what you would do to the worst of criminals. That's my memory of it. But regardless, she ends up becoming a nun. And she said later on in her life,

if I were to meet the slave traders who abducted me and those who tortured me, I would kneel down to kiss their hands, because if it had not been for them, I would not have become a Christian and a religious woman. These people who horrifically tortured her, she said, if I were to encounter them today, I would kiss them and thank them because without them I would not have discovered Christ. I would not have come to know Christ so intimately. not have discovered Christ. I would not have come to know Christ so intimately. And I think that's the part, that's part of the reason of looking at the cross in our life, God intends for good.

And I can see this even in my own life. There are places that have been deeply painful, deep suffering in my life that I can see now. I can look back at them not only with acceptance, not only with forgiveness, those things too, but genuinely with gratitude. You know, looking at certain things in my life that were so painful and thinking, if that hadn't happened,

I don't think I would have come back to the church. If that hadn't happened, I don't think I would be a nun at this point. And I so deeply love my vocation that I would never want to lose that. So, and to be clear, I don't have that view on all of the suffering in my life, but my point is that I hope to be able to come to that level of acceptance and gratitude for suffering by keeping my eyes fixed on the cross. Secondly, looking at the cross should remind us of the resurrection. In a lot of our hymns about the crucifixion, about the Lord's passion, we don't stop at the cross,

but we then mention also the resurrection. Even on Great and Holy Friday, on Good Friday, I just opened the book to Vespers and picked out a couple of hymns because this is in a lot of them. We have things like, we're putting words in the mouth of Mary, and in part of this hymn it says, Where has the beauty of your countenance gone, O my son. I cannot endure this sight of your unjust crucifixion. Hasten and arise so that I may also see your resurrection from the dead on the third day." So it's not only about the crucifixion. We're saying, come resurrection. You know, and then another one that I had seen was

And then another one that I had seen was in the Apostica, also at Vespers, one of the hymns says, it ends with, O gracious Lord, with what song shall I hymn your departure? I exalt your suffering. I extol in song your burial and resurrection, calling out, oh Lord, glory to you. And this is one of the gifts of being Christians in the 21st century is, you know, I remember when our community went to the Holy Land

several years ago, I was praying at the tomb of Christ. And because I'm at the tomb of Christ, I just, I wanted so desperately to be sad and I wanted to mourn his death and his burial. And I'm sitting there outside the tomb, and all that is in me is joy. And I'm trying to like muster up some sadness and force myself to be sad

because it doesn't feel right to be joyful at the tomb. But then as I sat with that, I was like, the thing is, I know that tomb is empty. And I know why it's empty. And so there's something right about the joy. The point of looking at the cross, the point of looking at the cross is not to say, You are so horrible. Look at what you did to him. The point of looking at the cross is to say,

Look at what he has done for you. Look at how much He loves you. Yes, He was crucified for our sins. He was crucified for our redemption. To crush the power of death by His death. To bind up Hades. But, But we didn't force him there. It's not like we backed God into a corner and because of our sin, he now has no choice and this is what has to happen. God willingly chose this. But the devil wants us to look at the cross with that first mentality. You are so horrible. Look at what your sin did.

He wants us to look at the cross. The devil wants us to look at the cross, when the Lord wants us to look at our own sin, He never wants us to look at our own sin without also remembering his mercy, without remembering his love, he wants to call us forward to the resurrection, not to get stuck at the cross. We don't have to seek out suffering. The world gives us plenty of suffering.

The point of suffering in Christianity is not to suffer. The point of pain is not pain. The point is encounter with the Lord. And in this life, every resurrection that we experience is tinged with the cross. Whether that be because this beauty that I'm experiencing right now, I know is going to pass and I can't have it forever and there's a death in that.

Or whether it's because even this joy that I'm experiencing right now is tinged with my selfishness and my pride, and so it's not a perfect joy. Every resurrection in this life is tinged with the cross, but every cross in this life is also tinged with the resurrection. We are called to look at every place of suffering with hope to try to encounter the Lord in

that suffering. And then in eternity, it's pure resurrection. The last thing I want to mention of, again, there's so many reasons for us to look at the cross, right how we are called to live, how we are called to die. We must die so that Christ can live in us. We, like Saint Paul, need to say, I bear in my body the marks of my Lord Jesus Christ. Again, not to suffer for suffering's sake, but to allow suffering in order to be with the Lord and to allow him to bring good out of it. To pour out ourselves, our lives, as Christ did for us on the cross. To love as he loves on the cross.

To hope in the resurrection as he hopes in the resurrection on the cross. as he hopes in the resurrection on the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the gift of the death and resurrection of your Son. The death and resurrection of your son. Thank you for conquering death through his death in order to open up to us eternal life.

That we may be with you with your son, with your Holy Spirit for all eternity. Thank you, Father, for the ways that you hold us in our suffering. I ask that you help us to become more the midst of our lives with gratitude, not because suffering is good, but because we have the goodness of meeting you in our suffering. Help us to pour out ourselves as you poured yourself out, as your son poured himself out on the cross, as you poured yourself out, as your son poured himself out on the cross, for the sake of union with you and for the sake of love for others. Help us to never look at the cross without also seeing the resurrection. Help us to never look at the cross without also seeing the resurrection. Help us to never look at our sin without also seeing your mercy. And help us to be patient with ourselves as we suffer poorly. Grant us faith, hope, and love.

I ask all of this through the prayers of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Nathaniel, Saint Josephine Bakita, Saint Helen, Saint Dismas, Saint Helen, Saint Dismas, the Most Holy Theotokos, and all the saints. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, the Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.