Friday, September 16, 2016

Met Saba (Esber): Maxims on the Cross

Arabic original here.


+ The cross is my life and there is no life except through the cross.

+ Jesus will continually look down with open arms because He wants my soul, for which He died, in order to embrace it.

+ The cross is not only a place of divine justice; it is also a place for love to the point of death.

+ The cross is not a fixed point upon which Jesus was hanged on a certain day. Rather, it is the basis for the movement of the Lord's heart towards all humanity.

+ In its outward appearance, the cross was an expression of the injustice of the world, but inwardly the cross is all joy, love and surrender to the Father for the salvation of the world.

+ The cross is the place of the soul's conforming to God: "with Christ you were crucified."

+ The cross is the beacon upon which Christ places the light of the world, by which we become a light for the world.

+ Fleeing the cross is equivalent to fleeing from the glory of God.

+ The cross is a school.... to flee from it is to lose the future.

+ The cross is the sole path to the resurrection... to flee from it is to enter into eternal death.

+ He who loses his cross loses his Christianity.

+ He who loses his cross has lost his path to God.

+ If one loses his cross, his life becomes cold and tepid, without cooperation with God.

+ Constant meditation on the cross of our Lord gains for the soul freedom, peace, power and forgiveness.

+ By its nature, the cross is the strongest and deepest degree of love.

+ Inasmuch as our contemplation of the cross increases, so deepens our communion and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

+ The cross is the path of freedom from the bonds of the world and the lust of the body.

+ If one is trained to taste sweetness in the word of God and the cross, He will make the soul resent every bodily pleasure.

+ The cross is the means of liberation from the self and its crucifixion.

+ The cross is not merely a sort of beautiful spiritual meditation. It is also enduring suffering in order to stand against the sinful world.

+ The cross is our weapon during spiritual warfare.

+ Every struggle against sin in order to preserve my freedom is bearing the cross.

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