“And calling the multitude together with His disciples, He said to them: If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel, shall save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)

In his Friends of the Cross, St. Louis de Montfort wrote about the great blessing of being able to take up our cross and follow Jesus:

“[W]as it not the Cross that gave Jesus Christ ‘a name which is above all names; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those that are in Heaven, on earth and under the earth’ (Phil. 2,9-10). The glory of the one who knows how to suffer is so great that the radiance of his splendor rejoices Heaven, angels and men and even the God of Heaven. If the saints in Heaven could still wish for something they would want to return to earth so as to have the privilege of bearing a cross.” (p. 20)

What a profound thought: if the saints in Heaven could want for anything, they would want to return to earth to have the privilege of bearing a cross. This is what we who are still living can do to make all of Heaven rejoice — once we die, we no longer have this opportunity to carry our crosses out of love for Our Lord.

As the saints remind us — and as we all know from daily experience — none of us can ever truly escape the trials, pains, annoyances, and other difficulties that form the crosses in our lives. However, the fact that all men have crosses does not, of course, mean that all men carry their crosses in a worthy manner. To carry the cross worthily, we must follow the words of Our Lord:

“Then Jesus said to His disciples: If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

These words tell us how to carry our crosses in a way that honors God and merits reward in Heaven. Crucially, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus.

Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey described the way in which we worthily carry the crosses Our Lord gives us in our ordinary daily lives:

“This immolation consists, above all, in the strict and faithful observance of the law: ‘He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.’ This scrupulous fulfillment of the law, this fidelity to all its points, great and small, constitutes the very first degree of self-immolation. Those thousand details of life and insignificant trifles, as we improperly call them, weave for us the roughest and most practical hair shirt. If we are not saints in our ordinary daily lives it is not because opportunity for doing penance is wanting, but because the love, which gives merit and worth to the inevitable daily sacrifices, does not animate our souls. If your health does not permit of your using instruments of penance, just live your life as God planned it for you. Such a course of action will be a more painful mortification than any bodily penance, but accept all with great love.” (Jesus, King of Love, p. 70)

It is not enough to confront the countless opportunities for penance we all face — Fr. Mateo tells us that we must keep God’s commandments, suffer with love, and live our life as God planned it for us. Only by doing this can we cooperate with God’s grace to carry our crosses in a way that honors Him and leads us to Heaven as saints.

With Francis’s Synod and his partnership with the globalists, we can now see what appears to be the complete picture. Those who pursue a New World Order understand they can never actually destroy the Church, so they desire to do something even more useful for their wicked designs: to repurpose it (or rather a counterfeit version, the Synodal Church) to serve their anti-Catholic interests.

While most people could readily identify some of the crosses in their lives without instruction, nobody could know how exactly to lead our lives as God planned for them if He did not provide some way for us to learn. For this purpose He established His Church, which guides us and provides innumerable aids to us as we seek to follow Jesus. Those who have been blessed to practice their faith according to the beliefs and practices that existed prior to Vatican II know how beautifully the Church assists us.

But Vatican II ushered in radical changes, encompassing not only the Mass but a wide range of beliefs and practices. If we were to go back in time before the Council and think about the various changes that might have emerged from Vatican II, we would identify some that likely would have helped souls carry their crosses as the world became far more hostile to God’s immutable truth. Vatican II might have implemented any of the following, for example:

• Instructions for churches to place greater emphasis on fulfilling the requests of Our Lady of Fatima (e., prayer, penance, and avoiding sin)
• Firm prohibitions of any forms of entertainment leading to sins of concupiscence
• Heightened scrutiny of publications to protect souls from the Liberal and Modernists errors identified by the pre-Vatican II popes
• A renewed effort to convert non-Catholics to the sole Ark of Salvation, the Catholic Church
• A formal condemnation of Communism, which draws souls away from the Cross of Jesus
• Clear teaching that Catholics have a fundamental duty to avoid corruptions of the modern world and protect those under their care from the ever-expanding allurements to sin

One can debate whether any of these would have been useful, but the point remains that the Council could have taken steps to fortify souls against the modern forces seeking to separate them from the Cross of Christ. Obviously we saw none of this — or anything like it — from the Council or what followed.

Not only did the Council fail to provide substantive help for us in carrying our crosses worthily, essentially every innovation from Vatican II and it aftermath has hindered souls in denying themselves, taking up their crosses, and following Jesus. Most of us could readily identify numerous examples of how the post-Conciliar changes have led souls to despise their crosses (and ultimately Jesus’s Cross). In his Prometheus: The Religion of Man, Fr. Alvaro Calderon deciphered the rationale for this rejection of the Cross:

“The only thing humanism needed to make the Gospel amicable and exploit its goodness was to dissolve the Cross of Christ. For integral humanism, the great — perhaps the only — defect of medieval Christianity was having centered the mystery of Christ in Sacrifice, coloring religion with its negative hue, so repugnant to the heart of men.” (p. 236)

Fr. Calderon further explained the various ways in which the Council and its aftermath have managed to “dissolve the Cross of Christ,” but the key here is that the architects of the Council’s innovations actually desired the minimization and obscuring of the Cross and its practical meaning in our lives.

So the true enemies of the Cross are not the pagans who do not know how to carry their crosses but rather the wolves in sheep’s clothing who have robbed Catholics of the great treasures that the Catholic Church gives us to help us worthily carry our crosses.

With Francis’s Synod and his partnership with the globalists, we can now see what appears to be the complete picture. Those who pursue a New World Order understand they can never actually destroy the Church, so they desire to do something even more useful for their wicked designs: to repurpose it (or rather a counterfeit version, the Synodal Church) to serve their anti-Catholic interests. By ridding the religion of the Cross of Christ, they simultaneously extinguish the desire and ability of Catholics to deny themselves and follow Jesus. Once they do that, nominal Catholics will eventually follow their own human impulses and ultimately the globalist initiatives, all the while thinking they are on the way to Heaven.

So the true enemies of the Cross are not the pagans who do not know how to carry their crosses but rather the wolves in sheep’s clothing who have robbed Catholics of the great treasures that the Catholic Church gives us to help us worthily carry our crosses. These fiends are worse than any of the men who Crucified Our Lord, because they have every reason to know what they are doing. These fiends today occupy the highest places in the Vatican.

Who are the true friends of the Cross today? Here are the words that St. Louis de Montfort used to described those to whom he wrote his Friends of the Cross:

“Friends of the Cross, you are a group of crusaders united to fight against the world, not like those religious men and women, who leave the world for fear of being overcome, but like brave, intrepid warriors on the battlefront, refusing to retreat or even yield an inch. Be brave. Fight with all your might. Bind yourselves together in that strong union of heart and mind which is far superior, far more terrifying to the world and hell than the armed forces of a well-organized kingdom are to its enemies. Demons are united for your destruction, but you, be united for their overthrow . . .” (p. 7)

The true friends of the Cross today deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Jesus in the battle against the world. Because the true friends of the Cross must fight for the overthrow of the demons — who have now convinced the world that they run the Catholic Church — they must refuse “to retreat or even yield an inch.” We have truth on our side, and only cowards or fools barter with God’s immutable truth to make peace with the demons.

Will we suffer if we resolve to be true friends of the Cross? Yes, but everyone suffers and only the suffering of the saints will be bearable as Satan and his minions gain more power. Not only will our sufferings be more bearable if we are true friends of the Cross, St. Louis de Montfort insisted that it is the “real Paradise here on earth”:

“Carry your cross joyfully and none of your enemies will be able to resist its conquering strength (Luke 21,15), while you yourself will enjoy its relish beyond compare. Yes, indeed, Brethren, remember that the real Paradise here on earth is found in suffering for Jesus.” (p. 19)

If we seek that “real Paradise” on earth, we will find it beneath the Cross, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, suffering for Jesus. And if the saints could return from Heaven for anything, it would be to stand there with any of us who have the courage and wisdom to stay close to Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us! 

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