The Congregation at This Time Is Very Aware of the Cross in Our Lenten Experience

Julie Billiart and the Cross

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24

The Congregation at this time is very aware of the Cross in our Lenten experience and mourns the martyrdom of our Sister Dorothy Stang.

Inspired by the words of a farmer from Anapu, Jo Depweg … declared at the beginning of the Funer-al Mass for Dorothy that “We are not going to bury Dorothy, we are going to plant her.” Nilda, the SND postulant who had accompanied Dot to the village, was not with her when she was shot. They had stayed in separate houses. … she told the people that when she had asked Dot how she prayed, Dot told her, “Nilda, I light a candle, and I look at Jesus carrying his cross and I ask for the strength to carry the suffering of the people. Brazilian President Lulu has promised to officially set aside a large area of the Amazon rainforest for the settlement of the people. Within two weeks of her death, Dot accomplished what she has been working for over three decades. CLT Letter February 26, 2005

Brazil’s president ordered the creation of a 1.1 million-acre national park and a 8.15 million acre ecological reserve in the region, effectively banning the logging that has sparked much of the conflict. L.A. Chung, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 18, 2005

Stang’s killing is being compared here to the 1988 murder of Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper whose slaying galvanized international interest in protecting the rain forest from developers. On a cross near her gravesite, a piece of paper bearing her name hangs just below one with his. Monte Reel, Washington Post, Feb. 21, 2005

The cross is the sign of the ever-returning daily struggle of birth and new life – the sign of a com- passsionate, all-loving, all-forgiving God. This is the God with whom Julie was permeated, exempli- fied again and again in her continual cry of ‘How good is the good God’. A cross of resistance against evil is not easy and in no way takes away the pain or all the fear, but persistency in action comes from a deeply held certainty of the rightness of personal stances and action. Myra Poole, Prayer, Protest, Power, p 139

I must learn to accept the cross, something that takes different forms in the lives of different people, but for everyone it is demanding, difficult, and most important, necessary. … no person at any place or any time is without the cross. It is a part of Christian life and the only path open to the Christian is the one that Jesus takes. Receive the cross, accept the cross, carry the cross. Jim Nisbet: Stations of the Cross, p 24

You can see that each one has her little cross. All this is nothing, is it, my good daughter? We only need a little courage and we shall see that heaven matters more than these little contradictions we have to suffer on earth. L166 -- To Soeur St Jean, January 24, 1811

… Julie found that the cross necessarily marked her spirituality. She was signed with it, not only in her baptism and her prayer, but in her whole experience of Christian living. ‘Praised be Jesus and his holy cross’, she said. ‘Let us love it; let us carry it. May this be our happiness for time and eternity.’ This love of the cross was not the pious comment of one who had not known suffering. Before she ever founded Notre Dame, Julie had experienced the cross in her family, in poverty, in the hatred that attacked her father, in the drudgery of hard work, in illness and dependence, in persecution, in the threat to her life during the revolution, in the long years of helplessness resulting from her paralysis. It was as a Christian woman that she matured under the cross, learning its importance and its value in the experience of her own life. Mary Linscott, This Excellent Heritage, p 73

If with all this there were no cross, I should not hope for any good to come out of it. But since the good God never leaves his children who are dear to him without one, he lets us find crosses here. It is a good sign that all will be for his greater glory. Without the cross, I should never hope for any good to come from this foundation. L45 -- To Soeur Blin, December 16, 1806

My good daughter, you have no idea how completely I share the cross the good God has sent you. It is my cross, for I take my part of it with all my heart. I ask for you all the graces you need. L355 -- To Soeur Angele, November 3, 1814

As she traveled from place to place opening and closing schools and houses for her Sisters, perse- cutions dogged Julie every step of the way; to which her only reply was: ‘If you live by crosses you will die of love.’ Julie’s cross took two particular forms. The first was her bitter power struggle with some church authorities over the governance of her Congregation; the second, which she consi- dered worse, was the criticism of her judgment from some of her Sisters. Myra Poole, Prayer, Protest, Power, p 134

In all the corners of the world little granny Julie is talked about, while she herself is thinking of nobody except those with whom the good God has associated her to carry the cross of her good Jesus. L98 -- To Mere St Joseph, January 26, 1809

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. Romans 6:18-19

Though it seems as if only crosses and sacrifices are met with on the road, I can assure you that the peace we have the happiness of finding in it makes up for all the short times of trial. L4 -- To Francoise Blin de Bourdon, September 1, 1795

Julie’s understanding of the cross, as one of birthing freedom, means she hangs in the tension of living in ‘liminal’, threshold, space, between the death of the old and the coming of the new. In this way she has left a very rich cross heritage to the Sisters who have followed her. Myra Poole, Prayer, Protest, Power, p 161

God is faithful, and will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

I have seen somewhere, my good friend, that the more crosses the good God prepares for anyone, the more lights and graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit he gives him. So, my dear friend, let us help each other to carry the cross the good God is preparing for us. L77 -- To Mere St Joseph, June 29, 1808

Let us submit in everything to the good pleasure of the good God. We must have crosses, but above all let us not choose them. Let us accept them from the divine hand of the good God. He knows so well the right proportion of our strength. Before all, let us accept them with confidence in his infinite goodness. May that be our only support! L434 -- To Soeur Anastasie, November 8, 1815 Celebrating N tre Dame