Toward the Solemnity of the Holy Cross Accompanied by Blessed Elena Guerra
Let us prepare for the Solemnity of the Holy Cross accompanied by Blessed Elena Guerra, who will be proclaimed a saint next Octobre 20
“Another beautiful feast is approaching, which is that of the Holy Cross.”
This was written by the young Elena in a circular letter she sent on September 8, 1866, to the sisters of the Pious Union of Spiritual Friendships, which she founded.
The feast of the Holy Cross, which is celebrated on September 14, is particularly felt by every good Lucchese as the “great feast” that marks the resumption of every activity, whether in the ecclesial, economic or civil fields.
The Holy Face
A crucifix dating back to the 9th century, which became the emblem and protector of the ancient Republic of Lucca, is venerated in the cathedral of San Martino. The Lucca calendar revolves around the solemnity of the exaltation of the Cross, with illuminations on the evening of the eve. There is no Lucchese saint who did not feel the attraction and was not inspired by the contemplation of this icon, which legend attributes to Nicodemus, in the sculpture of the body, while the face, was carved by the Angels, for this reason considered as acheropite, and venerated with the name of Holy Face.
A face both sorrowful and serene, majestic and merciful, with large open eyes that scan the world and hearts, revealing an infinite love for every man, calling all to conversion. The great Cross is surmounted by a Dove in flight, wings outstretched, representing the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Blessed Elena reminds us how to prepare for the feast
Blessed Elena also perceived all the spiritual power emanating from the grandiose Crucifix (mm4.34×2.65) and warned of the importance of the great feast, which requires a good preparation of hearts. “To prepare oneself as is fitting,” he wrote, ”one must procure to invest oneself with the spirit of the Crucifix, which is the spirit of the most perfect Charity.
How can men clothe themselves with this spirit? The apostle John, who stood with Mary under the cross, writes that Jesus “delivered the spirit.” Jesus died delivering with His last breath His own spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love that had sustained Him up to that supreme hour and will resurrect Him on Easter morning.
From the Cross He delivers His Spirit to all to those who will believe in Him, to sustain the hour of pain and passion that every disciple will face. “The adorable humanity of the Savior,” the Blessed wrote, ”which, joined to the divinity, we adore in the Eucharist, is the work of the Holy Spirit. So the contemplation of the Cross, the Eucharist and the gift of the Holy Spirit, help to carve the habitus of grace, that disposition of the soul, supernatural, which makes man capable of doing good steadily and joyfully.
What is the Cross?
“What is the Cross?” Mother asks. “It is the pivot,” she responds, ”on which our life above the earth revolves.
According to the Fathers of the Church, the Cross is the Axis mundi, in the meeting of the two axes that form it, the horizontal and the vertical crossbeam, it is an expression of a connection between heaven and earth, and it is offered to the whole world.
This is why Blessed Elena considered “Happy is he who to this pivot of security embraces himself […]. He will have nothing to fear, indeed he will have everything to hope from that God-Judge who wanted to be Crucified, from that God-King who made the cross His throne on earth, His scepter in heaven.” Blessed Elena, writing to her friend Adelaide Politi of Viareggio, speaks of the embrace of the Cross in spousal language, as in a wedding. “We want,” she writes, ”to make our nuptials with this dear bride of true Christians, with the Cross, we want to embrace her, we want to promise her love and treat her for the future as a dear companion instead of casting her out. […] You will feel how many beautiful things He will then put in your mind, and how much generosity and peace He will instill in your heart. After this wedding with the Holy Cross of Jesus we will be better off because that suffering which is inevitable in the world. It will give us less pain. Indeed it will perhaps become dear to us.” From these “nuptials” with the Cross Elena will mature the vow of Victimhood, the offering of one’s life, for the Pope and the Church. Spirituality that will be particularly put to good use in St. Gemma Galgani and in Msgr. Giovanni Volpi himself, their spiritual director.
The universal embrace
The image of the Holy Face, with arms outstretched on the wood of the Holy Cross are a symbol of welcome and a universal embrace that Christ extends to all humanity. His arms are outstretched, very outstretched, almost in an act of extreme tension; they are indicative of that infinite love with which God sustains the world from the beginning; they indicate the breadth and depth of his charity. Moved by this charity God loved everything and everyone, even to the point of giving his own Only Begotten Son.
Cross and Charity spring from the same source of God’s heart and are for Elena Guerra the proof of love and the foundation of fraternity. That is why she exhorted mutual love: “after the example of Jesus, and in order to please Jesus let us love one another, and let us endeavor to give one another all the marks of that holy friendship, which binds our hearts, and forms one.” From the love of Christ and for him flows forgiveness, the ability to bear the faults of others, but above all the ability to see in one’s neighbor the very person of Jesus.
The Cross of Christ is the source of true charity. There is nothing in the world that speaks of charity more clearly than the Cross of Christ. At this school one learns to love and in life always make consistent choices. This is why Elena advises, “Go under the cross and fix your eyes on Jesus to learn from him […] and take norm for your actions.”
The Passion of Jesus
To the mystery of the Passion and the Cross Mother Elena dedicates meditations, prayers, Stations of the Cross, Litanies and works.
Among the meditations we have the “Passion of Jesus Christ” where she reflects on the reasons for the Passion of Jesus, rereading it in terms of obedience to the Father’s will and proof of love. In the work “Gleanings,” several pages are devoted to the mystery of the Cross, opening with an invitation, “make room for the Cross!”
Just as for the laying of a Cross a hole must be prepared in the ground, so the heart of man must prepare to welcome it into his life. Again to the mystery of the Cross he dedicates the daily meditations, “A Month with Passionate Jesus.”
Then he proposes some pious exercises to be done on days that the liturgy consecrates to some Mystery of the Lord’s Passion: Prayer in the Garden of Olives, Crown of Thorns, Nails and Spear, Shroud, Five Wounds, Holy Cross, Precious Blood. The origin of the latter devotion, in Lucca, still leads back to the legend of the Holy Face. The Basilica of St. Frediano preserves one of the ampullae of Blood, found inside the Simulacrum, which prodigiously landed on the shoreline of the Roman Port of Luni.
Every year on Good Friday it is displayed and carried in procession, through the streets of the City. Elena Guerra also proposes twelve meditations to be done on Good Friday and all Fridays of the year: “A God on the Cross,” who “dies for love, dies with love, dies in love.” Contemplating this glorious Passion of the Redeemer, she concludes by inviting, “embrace the Cross of the dying Jesus, invoke from Him a look of mercy, and beseech Him to pour into your heart that adorable Spirit which He already put back into the hands of the Father.”
Mother ends the letter to the Pious Union by exhorting, “Let us therefore procure, O my good Sisters, that this year the Holy Cross may not come for us in vain, but let us pray to God to grant us an increase of charity: divine virtue, which came from the pierced heart of the Savior; heavenly virtue which is the sign, by which Jesus will recognize whether we are His true followers.”
In this time plagued by wars and often individualism, there is a need for an increase in charity. May Holy Cross, with the enlightened guidance of Mother Elena Guerra, bring an abundance of charity to each person.
Photo
- “Luminara di Santa Croce nel tempo” U. Palagi and M. Puccinelli