Our Salvation is in the Cross.
St. Alphonsus de Liguori observed: “Many persons are delighted to hear others speak of prayer, of peace, of love for Jesus Christ; but they find little pleasure in hearing anyone speak of crosses and of sufferings.”
Such persons, he said, “love Him only so long as they enjoy spiritual sweetness, but if this ceases and there comes some adversity or desolation, in which God hides Himself in order to try them, and deprives them of their accustomed consolations, they leave off prayer, Communions and mortifications and abandon themselves to sadness and lukewarmness and seek comfort in worldly amusements.”
These souls “love themselves more than Jesus Christ; on the contrary, they who do not love Him with an interested love for the sake of consolations, but with a pure love, and solely because He is worthy of love, do not leave their usual devout exercises for any dryness or weariness which they experience, being content with pleasing God; and they offer themselves to suffer any desolation, even till death and through all eternity, if God should so will it.”
St. Philip Neri said, “In this life there is no Purgatory, but either Paradise or Hell. He who bears tribulations with patience, has Paradise; he who does not, Hell.”
St. Alphonsus added: “What does he do who refuses the Cross? He increases its weight. But he who embraces it and bears it with patience, lightens its weight, and the weight itself becomes a consolation; for God abounds with graces for all those who carry the cross with a good will in order to please Him.”
Our Lord told St. Rose: “Affliction is always accompanied by Grace; Grace is proportionate to suffering. The measure of My gifts is increased with the measure of trials. The Cross is the true and only road that leads souls to Heaven.”
St. Alphonsus observed: “Some persons, when they receive some spiritual consolation, offer themselves to suffer as much as was endured by the martyrs—racks, nails and red-hot iron plates; but then they cannot endure a headache, the neglect of a friend, the ill temper of a relation.” St. Francis de Sales said, “The merit of crosses does not consist in their weight, but in the manner in which they are borne. It may show much greater virtue to bear a cross of straw than a very hard and heavy one, because the light ones are also the most hidden and contemned, and therefore least comfortable to our inclination, which always seeks what is showy.” St. Teresa said, “Observe that we gain more in a single day by trials which come to us from God and our neighbour, than we would in ten years by penances and other exercises, which we take up of ourselves.”
In Nicaragua Our Lady told Bernardo Martinex: “They ask of me things that are unimportant. Ask for faith in order to have the strength so that each can carry his own cross. The suffering of this world cannot be removed. That is the way life is.”
Father Leszek Czelusniak, MIC, asked Nathalie Mukamazimpaka, one of the visionaries of Kibeho, to summarize the messages of Our Lady.
Nathalie said, “The Holy Virgin insisted on the need for prayer. She said that the world is bad. It is necessary to pray, to pray, to pray a lot for this world that is bad, to pray for sinners, to pray for their conversion. She insisted a lot on the need for conversion: Convert to God! Convert to God! Convert to God! While saying that people don’t respect God’s commands, that people have a hard heart, she also asked us to meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary and to recite it every day. She also taught us the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows. She asked us to pray it every Tuesday and Friday. She asked us to obey the Church, to love God in truth, and to love our neighbor in humility and simplicity. She spoke of the need for mortification, a spirit of penitence and sacrifice. She also spoke of the need for suffering, to bear our sufferings every day. She said that no one enters heaven without suffering.”
十字架帶領靈魂到天堂裡去
我們的救恩是在十字架裡。聖亞豐索觀察到：『很多人都喜歡聽到他人提及祈禱，和平和愛耶穌基督；可是他們是不甚喜歡聽到任何人提及十字架和受苦。這樣的人只要享受屬靈的甘甜就愛祂，但是如果甘甜終止了，而且逆境或淒愴到來了，在那裡天主隱藏自己，要給他們考驗，並褫奪了他們慣常的慰藉，他們便放棄祈禱，領聖體和克己並陷落於愁悶和冷淡，便會在世界的樂趣中尋找安慰。這些靈魂愛他們自己多於愛耶穌基督；相反地，不因為喜愛得到慰藉，只是為單純的愛和祂是藉得我們的愛而去愛祂的人，在體驗到乾燥和憂慮時，他們不會放棄他們慣常虔誠的行為，卻能知足地去取悅於天主；他們奉獻自己去忍受淒愴，甚至死亡而達至永恆。』
聖斐理伯說：『如果生命中沒有煉獄，只有天堂和地獄。那些以忍耐去接受苦難的有天堂；不然其他都只有地獄。』聖亞豐索補充說：『那些拒絕十字架的會如何呢？他加重了它的重量。但是那些擁抱它並以忍耐背負它的，減輕了它的重量，而那份重量變成了一的慰藉；因為天主為那些以好意和悅納祂而背負十字架的，會賦與大量的恩寵。』
我主告訴聖羅莎說：『痛苦經常與聖寵同行；聖寵是與苦難成正比的。考驗的份量增加恩寵的份量。十字架是真的和唯一的道路，帶領靈魂走到天堂去。』
聖亞豐索察覺：『一些人得到了一些靈魂的慰藉，奉獻他們自己去忍受致命聖人般的苦難—拉肢刑具，釘和火紅烙鐵；但是他們不能忍受一份頭痛，朋友的冷漠，親人的脾氣。』聖方濟各、沙雷氐說：『十字架的功德並不在於它的重量，但卻是在於它是怎樣的背負。背負一禾草般重的十字架的功德可能比背負一實木重的更高，因為那輕的也是最隱蔽的和最被為鄙視的，所以它在我們的傾向中是最不舒服的，因為我們都傾向於表現自己。』聖德蘭修女說：『因遵循一天從天主或鄰人而來的考驗所得來的，比我們自己作十年補贖和其他善功所得的還多。』
在尼加拉瓜，聖母告訴納鐸.馬天力說：『他們求我的事都是不重要的。要求的是一份信德好能有力量去背負自己的十字架。世界上的苦難是不能剔除的。這是生命的路途。』
一位神父請基貝霍其中一位的神視者(娜塔莉)去總結聖母的訊息。娜塔莉說：『童貞聖母堅持祈禱的需要。她說，這世界是敗壞的。祈禱是需要的，祈禱，祈禱，為這敗壞的世界作很多的祈禱，為罪人祈禱，為他們的皈依祈禱。她堅持為皈依作很多的祈禱：皈依天主！皈依天主！當她說世人不再尊重天主的誡命，世人都有一個硬的心腸，她也叫我們去默想玫瑰經的奧跡並每天誦念它。她也教導我們七苦的玫瑰經。她叫我們每星期二和星期五誦念它。她叫我們服從教會，真正的去愛天主，以謙遜和純樸去愛我們的鄰人。她也談及受苦的需要，去接納我們每天的苦痛。她說沒有人能夠不經歷痛苦可以進入天堂。』
