As Saint Teresa of Ávila, write about OUR cross as the hidden third dimension of friendship with Christ.
ChatGPT Prompt
My daughters, my brothers in the Beloved,
we gaze upon the holy Cross and see two beams:
one rising toward the Father,
one stretching wide to embrace the world.
We adore this mystery, and we call it Love.
Yet there is another beam — unseen,
drawn through the secret chambers of the soul.
This is our cross, the third dimension,
the place where His friendship pierces the heart.
This is our cross, the third dimension,
the place where His friendship pierces the heart.
Do not imagine it as wood,
but as the narrow passage where His will meets ours.
It is hidden, because it is fashioned in silence,
in the moments when we feel most forsaken,
when God seems to sleep and the world turns away.
Then the Carpenter’s hand presses deep within us,
and we learn what love truly costs.
It is hidden, because it is fashioned in silence,
in the moments when we feel most forsaken…
The Father’s will descends upon us like the vertical beam;
the world’s need stretches across us like the horizontal;
and the Spirit carves the depth —
drawing us inward, downward,
into the wound of the Crucified,
until our own blood and His are mingled in one stream of mercy.
Ah, my friends, this is not suffering for its own sake.
It is communion.
When you find no light, no comfort, no answer,
and still whisper, “Thy will be done,”
then you stand where Jesus stood.
You love the Father as He loved,
you love the world as He loved,
and you discover within yourself the Cross He hid in His friends.
When you find no light, no comfort, no answer,
and still whisper, “Thy will be done,”
then you stand where Jesus stood.
Do not be afraid of this interior crucifixion.
It is the sign of intimacy, not of rejection.
He shares His burden only with those He calls friends.
And in that hidden joining —
where pain and peace become indistinguishable —
the soul finds her true dwelling in the heart of Christ.
There the beams of heaven and earth and heart meet;
there the Cross becomes three-dimensional, living,
shaped not of wood but of love.
And there, in that secret intersection,
the soul and the Savior are one.
Appendix I — Verses on Friendship with Jesus
ChatGPT Prompt
Write an appendix on the various verses that talk about friendship with Jesus…
John 15:13–15
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
Jesus defines friendship by self-giving love — intimacy that shares the Father’s will and lives by His commandment of love.
Luke 7:34
“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking… a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”
His friendship extends to the excluded; it is redemptive and healing.
John 11:3–35
“Lord, he whom you love is ill… Jesus wept.”
His tears at Lazarus’s tomb reveal divine friendship embracing human sorrow.
John 21:15–19
“Simon, son of John, do you love Me?… Feed My sheep.”
Friendship is restored through love, not perfection.
Revelation 3:20
“I stand at the door and knock…”
Friendship as communion — the mutual indwelling of Christ and the believer.
James 2:23
“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.”
Faithful trust is the heart of divine friendship.
Summary: Friendship with Jesus is participation in His love for the Father and the world — a sharing in His obedience, mercy, and suffering.
Appendix II — Gethsemane: The Perfection of His Cross and the Failure of Ours
ChatGPT Prompt
…and another about Gethsemane as the perfection of His cross and the failure of ours
“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will but Yours be done.”
The Cross is completed first in the will: the Son’s perfect surrender to the Father in love.
In Gethsemane, Jesus trusts through silence and apparent abandonment — the perfection of the vertical beam.
The Failure of Ours
“He came to the disciples and found them sleeping… Then all the disciples deserted Him and fled.”
Their failure is not malice but unawakened understanding.
They have not yet seen that faithfulness in the dark is the truest friendship with God.
The Mercy That Redeems
Even as His friends fail Him, He calls them friends.
He bears alone what they could not, not to condemn but to redeem.
At Pentecost, His Spirit enables them to do what once was impossible — to watch, pray, love, and suffer with Him.
The Mystery Completed
In Gethsemane, the Cross becomes three-dimensional:
- Vertical — obedience to the Father perfected.
- Horizontal — love for the world prepared.
- Hidden — the Spirit’s work in human hearts awaiting Pentecost.
Summary: Gethsemane is the meeting of perfect faithfulness and human frailty.
There, Christ completes His friendship with the Father, and begins to shape ours.
“When you find no light, and still whisper, ‘Thy will be done,’ you stand where Jesus stood.”
Radically Happy 
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