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Sessione 3
You are here:Home / Family News / NEF 2013 / Family News - 2013 September 14th / NARRATIO FIDEI... of Father Michael Garicoïts
Sep 12, 2013

NARRATIO FIDEI... of Father Michael Garicoïts

At the age of a PHOTO-MONTAGE the NEF has taken the bold decision to imagine or rather to reconstruct a narratio by our Founder. The passages in his correspondence are few and far between where St Michael gives us some intimate impressions of his own life story. But when it comes to Cross and temptations, he openly shares his feelings. Here then is a “Narratio fidei” by Father Garicoits with the complicity (yet without the consent) of his biographer, Father Basilide Bourdenne.

St Michael Garicoïts

“If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me”.

(Luke 9,23)

“Here is an important teaching, this is a great mystery I am proposing; and so as to understand it well come and meditate on it on Calvary at the foot of our Saviour’s cross.  There you will see two actions totally opposed which the Father is performing at the same time: he is there practicing his mercy and his justice;  he is punishing and at the same time forgiving sin; he is taking revenge and at the same time being reconciled; for the love of criminals he strikes his Son who is innocent and at the same time forgives criminals for the love of his Son who  is innocent.  Oh Justice!  Oh mercy! Who has thus assembled us?  It is the mystery of Jesus Christ, it is the foundations of his glory and of his elevation on the Cross to have reconciled in his body these two attributes mercy and justice. (...)
Learn this way, Christians, how and in what spirit you should receive the cross.   It’s not enough to suffer, for who goes through life without suffering?  It’s not enough to be fixed to the cross; many are there already, like that unrepentant old thief, who are far from the Crucified Lord.  For some the cross is a great favour, for others it’s a form of revenge;  all this depends on what use we make of the cross.  Take note, Oh you whom Jesus is trying, and make up your mind in which of these two categories you wish to be: and so that you make a wise choice, see in a few words the appearance of both who are going to  be sharers of this speech”.

(Extract from the Second Sermon for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross by Bossuet)

Narratio...Is it not an act of Faith to enter heaven by the Cross? But by which Cross? You must take up your cross, says Jesus Christ, meaning the cross of one’s station and not the cross we are making ourselves.

This is something which concerns everyone without exception. Our Saviour Jesus was addressing everyone. It is therefore a general rule, necessary and inevitable, says St Paul.  It is necessary, it is necessary.  So what, Oh Great Apostle, is the way into heaven a path of tribulations!  And why is the Apostle speaking like this to the early Christians? To consolidate them in their faith.

And what about those who grumble about the cross.  For St Paul they are enemies of the faith; they are renouncing it, they are denying it in a manner of speaking. How many renunciations of the faith? What are we complaining about? To be on the way to heaven? I have just received a letter from a Daughter of the Cross.  In it she says how happy she  is in her vocation, even in the midst of all the thorns she finds there and which she says are inevitable. What a wealth of teaching in a few words!

Yes, yes, the cross everywhere: it is the eternal law, necessary, merciful, whether you view it from God’s angle or from our own.  You run away from it in vain, it is to be found everywhere for it is the cross which saves; unfortunately, not everyone.  Everybody has the cross but in different ways. There are those who want it and those who refuse it; there are those who accept the cross and adore it; there are others who carry it in spite of themselves. These latter suffer without merit, they increase the pain, and by tear strewn paths are heading for hell.  There are those who are happy in the midst of sorrows just like that simple Daughter of the Cross.

If it was permissible to complain now and again it should be for lack of big crosses; Who would dare to grumble and complain about the little crosses linked to our station?  Is this not a common failing?  Woe betide the person who doesn’t love or share the cross of Jesus Christ!  He will still suffer, and he will suffer even more and without merit, risking suffering eternally in hell.

Take a look at the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the Cross; she is standing, suffering indescribable pain, without a murmur and without asking for a change in her situation, happy and contented as she is in the situation which Divine Providence has chosen for her. Obedient like when the Angel greeted her as Mother of God, and always saying “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” perfectly obedient to the will of God.

Our mission is to imitate her and not to say: “I want to please; here I am displeasing.  Therefore I want to change residence. I want to do good, so I must change work.  I must find employment elsewhere.  We should be saying: “Where I am is where God wants me to be; behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it done unto me according to thy word!”

It’s not unusual to feel tempted in the opposite direction. Everybody is tempted.  I’ve often felt like that myself.  More than once I have pictured to myself my little village Ibarre, with its poor little church, the fountain whose waters I can still see, and the old Father who I would be so happy to see again and the sister who Providence has kept for me.  I was tempted to say to the Bishop: “Pick another superior and let me leave. There would have been no car at Ibarre but I wouldn’t have needed one in any case. When I would have had to dig the ground I would have felt strong enough with just some soil.

That poor little church, so bare and neglected! I would have gone begging for money to decorate it. That would have been enough to keep a man busy. But I always regarded such images as temptations. If I believed that this was God’s will I would have left everything and set out at once.

Let’s listen to the words of the Divine Master to his disciples: “As my Father has sent me, so I also send you.”  Like Our Lord, we are there to do the Divine will.  What a mission!

But what are we sent to?  Like our Lord, we are sent to the Cross of our station in life to make the best of it.

This is how all the states of life should be viewed and we should embrace the crosses and pains which accompany.  This is how we should view our ministries, our teaching, our missions and we should embrace all the crosses which litter all our ministries.

Are there dangerous crosses which we should try to avoid?  Yes, there are but they can be pushed aside:  “I desire to support all these crosses and others besides so as to participate in the humiliations, poverty, and sufferings on the cross of my Divine Master.” What a marvellous disposition! In a short time one becomes a saint and a great saint by being willing to make the best use of our present situation.

Witness the Good Thief: to start with he was a well-known robber, cursing God, then accepting the cross as coming from God himself, finally happy to be associated with his God by means of the cross, considering himself unworthy of such an honour .

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