For Heaven's Sake, What's the Point in Turnips?

For Heaven's Sake, What's the Point in Turnips?
January 5, 2009
WHAT’S THE POINT WITH TURNIPS?
Yesterday morning, I found myself contemplating a particular cross of mine, which has weighed me down for years. Finding myself in this uncomfortable place once again, despite my best efforts, I apologized to our little Savior, for choosing these dark thoughts over His joyous presence during Christmastide. I asked Him to please teach me how to yoke myself to Him, so that these sorrows will become sweet and light. Hard as I try, I cannot seem to maintain seeing this particular cross in this light! Subconsciously, I find myself ever feeling its presence, and wishing it would please just go away, so I could breathe once again without its crushing weight upon me. It affects all I do, and no matter how joyful the occasion, or how loved the person, there is this dark shadow that permeates all, and so all is bitter. It is impossible for me to see it as a gift from the hand of my God, although everything we read in the spiritual life tells us this is so. That the cross is our greatest treasure, and yet it is still so hard to appreciate it as such!  Turnips may be good for us, but this fact alone does not make me like the taste of them any better, and I would never buy them! So there! There’s lots of other stuff that makes us healthy, and they taste much better, thank you very much, and so what’s the point with turnips?
When I imagined myself walking into the spiritual supermarket, I knew without a doubt that I would not freely choose this cross and put it into my shopping basket. Nuh uh, no thank you! Okay, if you insist on putting it in there for me, dear Lord, okay, I will try not to grumble too much or make too many faces, but I certainly do not like it and if you ever give me the choice, I will drop it off at the next aisle and trade it for that can of, uh, peas. Yes sir! And so this is how I have spent my time with this cross, wishing and wishing I could dump off this particular cross, or somehow it would just sort of disappear. You know? In the meantime, until it goes away, I more or less do my best to whistle a tune, and not look at it. I try to cover it up with other stuff of my own choosing, hoping to blind and numb myself to its painful presence there, and so it has become sort of a comfortable lump of discomfort, if that is possible. I know I am supposed to take up my cross and follow Our Lord if I am to be a worthy disciple, and I hope somehow I am doing this as I carry it in this thankless manner. Yet I see in myself my children, often when asked to do something they do not like, let me know it with heavy sighs, with stomping feet and glaring eye, with mutterings. Oh dear. Somehow I doubt there is much merit in that manner of things.
So, this is how it has been for the most part. I live in the concentration camp of the cross… always hoping to find a break in the fence so I can escape and live free once again. Yet I know even when I do, most likely I will just get another one! Oh golly! Dear Lord, how does one deny themselves and picking up their cross follow You? I can’t imagine I am supposed to follow You with stomping feet am I? Help!
Then, during the consecration at Mass yesterday morning, I found help. I found myself suddenly offering this cross to Our Heavenly Father, in union with Our Lord and His own Sacrifice. It was almost as if I was being nudged by another to make this offering, perhaps my angel? I was being led almost in spite of myself to do this. Along with this hand under my spiritual elbow, I was forcibly reminded of a newsletter I had received the previous morning, written by one who is doing much damage within the Church, and leading many souls astray. A person I once wholeheartedly supported until I realized my own schism.  It seemed as if I should offer my sacrifice for his conversion. That my cross was the money which would pay for his release from this prison of error,  but only if I offered it willingly. That only when I saw my cross in this light, and freely embraced it, would it transform from the heavy, dark and painful prison which held me, into rays of golden light which not only released me and raised me up, but other imprisoned souls as well.
By the end of the Mass, I was filled with a great peace and gladness, fully realizing my cross was of such great value! It is one thing to understand this intellectually, and quite another to grasp it interiorly. For the first time, I could honestly thank God for it, seeing that it was truly money from heaven, which could be spent to ransom souls and give glory to God!
Still, I am a creature of habit, and keep finding myself wandering back to my usual stomping grounds of depression over this cross. But now something is different. I see a Y in the road now, and a choice. On the left there is a “NO, I reject this cross”, and on the right is a “FIAT” with a question: “Will you choose this way of the cross out of love as I did? To save souls and honor My Father?”  Put that way, it is a “no brainer”, as my husband would say.
And along with the salvation of this soul, I feel encouraged to offer it for many more souls that pour into my mind, and there is a sudden joy that comes with the realization that my cross can make such a difference for them! For the first time I can truly say that if my cross contains so much good and salvation, then yes, I want it. I not only accept it, but actually want it! And with the desire of it, there is a happiness and lightness in it of a sudden, and I can see now how there can be true joy in the cross. When we open our arms to it with anticipation rather than simple resignation, we open our arms to Our Lord Himself, don’t we? And He is our greatest joy, isn’t He?
Like I said, I have always known all of this, yet knowing it still did not make me want it. How it is this happened I do not know, perhaps it is through those who have opened their arms to Him in their crosses, and ransomed me?  I thank God for His mercy and all who love Him and their neighbor so! How the world would be transformed if all of us who profess the Faith truly loved it and lived it! Oh dear God, may I begin today! AMEN.
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BROKEN JESUS
Thinking upon this, I see now the significance of something that happened years ago pertaining to a crucifix. I was on pilgrimage in Italy with a group of others, and visited many shrines, and their accompanying gift shops. Italy is like a Catholic Disneyland, and the array of relics and statues can make your head spin. For the most part though, shopping just makes me very tired, and so I found myself usually resting in the chapel with Our Lord until the others finished with their purchases. After all, I have a Catholic shop of my own, and so what do I need that I do not have? However, in one shop, I was struck by a Corpus propped up on a bookshelf behind the counter. Our poor Lord was broken and worn, without a cross, yet something about it spoke to me. I asked to see it and the lady behind the counter thought I was crazy, and in broken English told me so. “Oh, you don’t want that.” I grinned and nodded I did too, and shaking her head she handed Him to me. I asked her how much and she said it was free if I really wanted it. To me, it was the greatest treasure in all of Italy’s gift shops, and it seemed wrong for such a treasure not to be valued more, so I gave her $25 for Him.  I had to force her to take the money.
There was so much meditation in this Corpus for me! Our Lord, so forgotten, so broken, so unwanted… it was how I saw Him in our world. It seemed when I wanted Him in this broken form, I was consoling Him somehow. As time went on though, I became busy with other thoughts, and Our poor Lord returned to the shelf in our bookcase, propped into a corner, forgotten once again. Then, just a few months ago, while I was making my morning meditation, He re-entered my mind most forcefully. I got up and took Him out, and as I held Him, it seemed to me that He desired so much for me to become His support, His cross. That He needs all of us to open our arms to Him in this way. It was a new thought for me. To become His Cross and allow Him to rest in me. What a concept! Always, when I ran to Our Lord, it was to rest in Him, to find comfort in Him. I hadn’t given so much thought to Him resting in me! How can that be? How can I who am so broken give Him any rest?  
A few days later, while reading from a book of prayers, I read this very thing! That Our Lord desires us to stretch out our arms and forming a cross, give Him a bed and a place to rest. Isn’t this an amazing thought? That Our Lord, Our God and Creator, needs us in this manner? That we are to support and comfort Him even as He supports and comforts us?  What a beautiful mystery! It brings to mind the scriptural passage:  “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us…”
An elderly friend of mine who actually met Padre Pio, shared a story that relates to all of this. She wanted to have a crucifix in her home blessed by the saint, and went shopping for one. She finally found the perfect one, except it had a broken arm. The shopkeeper told her he could get a perfect one in a couple of weeks, but as she would be leaving before then, she went ahead and purchased the broken one. When Padre Pio blessed and returned it to her, it was with the message to treasure it. That when Our Lord draws us to a certain crucifix that is broken like this, it is because He is speaking to us through it, to become those parts of Him which are broken or missing! He needs us to become His hands, His feet, His cross…
Dear suffering brothers and sisters, I beg for your prayers, that I will persevere in opening my arms to the crosses Our Lord sends me. And I will pray for you too, to find Our Lord and His comfort in your cross. Look at that cross He has given you, and pray for the grace to value it, and He will give it to you.
Perhaps our cross is composed of the suffering given by a close friend grown cold? A family member, our spouse or child, that has left the path and so their life and ours is filled with sorrow?  Our Lord has given us the very means to ransom them! Take the worries, the anxieties, the fears and angers that they give us, and turn them into gold. Open our arms to these pains, and comfort Our Lord, who feels them much more keenly than we do. First acknowledge our part in these pains, as quite often we too have abandoned Him and our neighbor, and through our neglect of them we have all arrived at this sorry place. Then weep with Him in them, comfort Him in them, love Him in them. Opening our arms to Him, and offering these pains for their conversion, we will comfort Our Lord, who is broken and forgotten and abandoned in them. There is great comfort in these sorrows then, knowing they comfort Our Lord and are the very means God has given us for their salvation and ours! In pain willingly suffered for another, there is love, and is God not love? “ "God is love: and he that abideth in love, abideth in God, and God in him" and "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends..."” Love dissolves the pain. Without love we are left only with pain, aren’t we?
Whatever the cross may be, ill health, financial worries, even if they are the result of our sinful behavior, such as our smoking leading to cancer… instead of these things leading us to depression and greater pain, let us open our arms and become the cross to comfort Our Lord for our sins and those of others. Pray and find that soul Our Lord desires you to ransom. It is easier to suffer when we can put a face on it. Whenever I find myself wandering back to my depression over my cross, I see a face now. It makes it easier to  turn to Our Lord and say “I will trade my pain for that soul” and seen in this light, it all becomes worthwhile.
For Heaven's Sake, What's the Point in Turnips?