'Big Love' also means 'Big Cross'

originally FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2011

'Big Love' also means 'Big Cross'

I can't tell you how many times this week I have heard people pity our family for all the great Crosses that we seem to have been clobbered with these past 6-8 years -all Bobby's cancers, Johnny's death, Theresa's cancer, little Cecilia's stroke and seizures, now Karen's cancer -not to mention Mom and Dad's numerous surgeries, as well as many other personal crosses each 'family' in our bigger Kloska family has had to bear. Yet, in looking at these 'crosses' in the light of the 'Big Cross' -I can't help but keep a smile from coming across my face. Why? Am I losing my mind? (some might argue :) ) -Or is there something deeper, a hidden meaning and 'gift' in all this crazy struggle? I'd like to believe that the latter is true.

First of all, to put all things in perspective, the Kloska family has come off relatively easy when I compare our 'crosses' to those of many others I've seen and served throughout the world. Take my visit to northern Nigeria in January of 2006 -Catholics were being set on fire in the streets by radicals (Muslims). Take communist Russia (1917 up to the present) -the fear, apathy, pain, and confusion on the faces of young boys on the streets, prostitute mothers whose children occupied my nights, abandoned elderly left on the streets to die. Take right here in our own country -the kidnappings, murder, sexual abuse of children and -worse than all else -the evil that has overtaken the souls of so many of our youth (especially in inner cities). Look at the wars in the Middle East, the tsunamis and earthquakes, the abortion and homosexual lifestyles that separate people from God and His plan of love for us. And now, let's return to 'Pleasant Place' -where the grass might look a little greener once we've crossed over to gaze at it from our 'neighbor's' point of view. I'll take the 'cross' of medical illness any day -over hatred, terror, lack of love and God and hope. Because even if the Kloskas have suffered a little, we've been graced by that suffering more than we could ever conceive in this life.

Suffering is a grace that Jesus shares with all of us -a 'megaphone to wake up a deaf world' as C.S. Lewis used to say. And suffering has a deep relationship with Love -it is its very source and perfection at times. Suffering draws forth love from hearts that one may never had known was there. And it perfects our love -for sacrifice makes virtue real and union with Jesus perfect. Yes, suffering contains all these opportunities -if only we have the eyes to see them, the arms open (like Jesus') to embrace them, the trust to love through them. Love and suffering are connected closely -and so the more one loves, the more one suffers in this fallen world (where perfect love can only be lived by the Cross.)

I look at the 'Kloska Nation' that God has grown in the Elkhart -South Bend area and I'm overwhelmed and awed -not by the problems, but by the strength and love He has blessed us with -by the grace He's entrusted to us by feeding us His Love on the Cross. Mom and Dad lived heroic trust in their marriage -against all advice of doctors and bankers and anyone else who thinks like the world -and they simply said 'Yes!' to God's plan of love for their marriage and family. They consecrated each of their children to the Blessed Mother, taught us the Rosary, brought us up in the faith -and now they are watching it bear fruit. Yet fruit is born through labor -and God wants to bear fruit from Mom and Dad's love by the Cross.

Growing up Dad always lectured us (as a prophet for our family) that God wanted to 'lift us up' to be 'lights in this world' of His Way, Truth, Life and Love.

And so, God has fulfilled this prophesy -using each of the members of our family in profound ways as the 'yeast of His Life' in the world.

Yet we will be 'lifted up' to be a light of His Love in the same way He was -and that is by and through the Cross. Jesus is pruning us through sickness and death and other sufferings -to make us holy and to teach us 'Big Love.' And so, for this we must be thankful -nothing but grateful to God for all the great blessings He has bestowed on us. For suffering brings holiness -and suffering love is the greatest witness of His presence in the world.

So, thank You, Jesus, for the 'Big Love' and 'Big Suffering' in our family and in our lives. And help us always to remember that we are not to be pitied, but instead envied -for Your Love that created us is pruning us to be powerful instruments for You -preparing us to be ready to meet you some day face to Face. Please use us to help those who truly suffer most horribly in this world -those who are totally alone, afraid and lost without You. Amen. +