There's a saying: "How did I become an adult?" It means that while living frantically, one suddenly finds oneself an adult. Still, it also expresses the regret of having to live as an adult unprepared. But what does it mean to become an adult?
Passing the years or growing older does not make one an adult. One must die to the state of a child to become a true adult. We need to be born anew daily.
To be born anew, one must pass through the cross. For the cross symbolizes death. Yet the cross is also called the 'tree of life'. Because only when one truly dies can one gain new life.
Every year on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14th), we hear the story of the bronze serpent. (See Numbers 21:4-9) The Israelites, having escaped Egypt and journeying through the wilderness, grew impatient and complained bitterly to Moses. The Lord sent fiery serpents among them, and many Israelites died. When Moses prayed for the people, the Lord commanded him to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole. Moses made the bronze serpent and mounted it on the pole. Anyone bitten by a fiery serpent who looked at the bronze serpent was healed.
The journey from Egyptian slavery to the land of freedom could not have been easy. If only we had stayed in Egypt, we wouldn't have suffered like this! The 'fiery serpents' serve to kill the part of me that wants to give up walking the path, the part of me that grows impatient and doubts the Lord's presence. The 'bronze serpent' likely symbolizes God's generosity and mercy, who does not cast me aside when bitten by the fiery serpent, but welcomes me back with my pleading. God knows human weakness, does not turn away from supplication, and reopens the path.
The journey the Israelites walked is also the life journey each of us walks. Through baptism, we died to the past and were reborn, receiving a new life. Yet the journey of faith is also a difficult one, constantly composed of moments of self-denial, requiring us to be reborn anew each time. Like the Israelites experienced, we too struggle, agonize, and suffer amid the trials and hardships life brings, sometimes doubting God's presence and companionship. Though thoughts of returning to Egypt (the past) may arise, and though we bear wounds and bruises, the Lord never turns a deaf ear to our pleas. He hears us, heals our wounds, and strengthens us.
In this process, we gradually shed and discard parts of ourselves, like a snake shedding its skin. Faith does not free us like magic. It does not provide complete answers. Instead, it compels us to keep walking the path, practicing the gradual letting go, emptying, and shedding of self. Thus, it is a difficult path, yet one that simultaneously brings joy, making us forget the pain. Just as the joy of seeing a newborn baby makes a mother forget the labor pains.
Life is a school. It is a school where we learn to shed, to abandon, to let go. And it is a school where we learn about God's boundless mercy, which endlessly accepts my fragile self, my wounded self. Let us acknowledge that the path we are on now is not an ideal one, but a realistic one. The life we live is the right answer; there is no separate, predefined correct answer. Let us not be lazy today in practicing stripping ourselves bare through the cross, so that we may continue to walk this path well.
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