VIII. Tranquil and Steadfast Amid the Crosses, Toils and Disappointments of Life

From the Series: Beneath the Standard of Mary – The Heart and Voice of an Auxiliary Member

Nobody told us it was going to be easy. In fact, Jesus told us the exact opposite. Take up your cross and follow me. If they hated me, they would hate you. Walk away from everything that competes with God and put Him first. These are not the words of someone promising a comfortable journey. These are the words of someone preparing us for a real one. And if you have been on this road for any length of time you already know, it is real. It is sometimes brutally, relentlessly, on your knees real.

So why does the Legion prayer ask for something that sounds almost impossible, to be tranquil and steadfast amid the crosses, toils and disappointments of life?

Because it is not impossible. It just does not come from where we expect it.

Tranquility in the middle of suffering is not the absence of pain. It is not pretending the cross is lighter than it is or smiling through gritted teeth and telling everyone you are fine when you are not. It is something much deeper and much quieter than that. It is a settled peace in the interior life that the exterior circumstances simply cannot reach, no matter how hard they try. And they will try.

I have carried crosses in my life. I will not put the details on display because that is not the point of this reflection and frankly it is not about me. But I will say this honestly, I have lost things. I have watched things fall apart that I worked hard to hold together. I have been on my knees not in a poetic sense but in the most literal, desperate, Lord-please-give-me-the-strength-to-get-through-this-day sense. And I can tell you from the inside of that experience that tranquility is possible. Not because the cross got lighter. But because I stopped fighting it.

There is a moment, and I think every person of deep faith eventually finds it, where you stop demanding that God explain the cross and you start trusting that He knows what He is doing with it. That is not defeat. That is the most courageous act of faith available to a human being. To look at something painful and say, I do not understand this, I did not want this, and I am not going to pretend otherwise, but I trust the One who is walking through it with me.

That is tranquility, it’s not the absence of the storm, rather the presence of God inside it.

Now here is something that took me a long time to understand and that I think is one of the most countercultural truths in all of Christian life. A difficult life is not a sign of God’s absence. It may very well be a sign of His closeness.

I have heard the question asked, why do people of deep faith seem to carry the heaviest crosses while people who never give God a thought appear to sail through life without a care in the world? It is a fair question. And I heard it answered once in a way that has never left me. Those people, the ones whose lives look so easy and abundant and uncomplicated from the outside, they are receiving their reward. Right now. In this life. The comfort, the security, the smooth road, that is what they have chosen and that is what they are getting.

But the person who suffers here and stays faithful here and drags themselves to prayer on the worst days and keeps the rosary in their hand when everything is falling apart around them, that person is storing up something the world cannot see and cannot take away. Their reward is coming. And it will make every cross they ever carried look like exactly what it was, a temporary weight that was producing in them an eternal glory beyond all comparison.

That is not just consolation, it is scripture, and I fully believe it. Here is what I also believe. God blesses certain souls with a difficult life. I know how that sounds. I know it is counterintuitive to everything the world tells us about what a blessed life looks like. But think about it honestly. When everything is going well and the bills are paid and the health is good and the relationships are smooth, how often do you get on your knees? How urgently do you seek God? How desperately do you cling to Our Lady?

But when the cross comes, when the thing you feared most actually happens, when the loss is real, when the road ahead is uncertain and the road behind is painful, that is when most of us finally stop pretending we can handle this on our own. That is when we pray like we mean it. That is when the faith stops being something we practice and starts being something we need. And God knows that. He has always known that. And for some souls the most loving thing He can do is allow the very circumstances that will drive them to their knees and keep them there.

That is not cruelty, it is mercy wearing a very difficult disguise.

Steadfast. That is the other word in this phrase, and it deserves its own moment. Tranquil speaks to the interior peace. Steadfast speaks to the refusal to quit. And they belong together because there will be days when the peace is harder to find and all you have left is the stubborn determination to keep going. To keep praying even when the prayer feels dry. To keep showing up even when the faith feels distant. To keep your hands on the rosary even when you are too exhausted to think about the mysteries.

That steadfastness, that refusal to put the cross down no matter how heavy it gets, is itself a form of worship. It is telling God with your actions what you may not be able to say with your words in that moment. I am still here. I have not left. I trust You even now.

He sees that. He honors that. And Our Lady, who stood steadfast at the foot of the Cross when every human instinct must have been screaming at her to look away, she walks alongside every soul who chooses to stay faithful when staying faithful is the hardest thing in the world.

You are not alone in your crosses; you never have been.

Pick them up and keep walking. The road ahead is worth every step.