Homily: March 3, 2022, Thursday after Ash Wednesday

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 “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”.

First, do you wish to go after Jesus? Make a firm decision.

Second, deny yourself – your desires and ambitions for comfort, convenience, wealth, pleasures, fame, success.

Third, take up your cross – the difficulties, challenges, sufferings that come with the decision to go after Jesus.

Finally, follow Him – the way He fasts, prays, serves. The way he loves, sacrifices, forgives and obeys.

A few weeks ago, a friend with a medical condition was experiencing extreme, unbearable pain. She was sent to the ER at Unity Point. I visited her in the waiting room. While talking to her, she pointed to another suffering man in the room. She said, “He must be in a lot of pain.”

She was bearing a heavy cross. But at that moment she was not thinking about her own. She felt for the suffering of others. That their crosses were heavier than hers.

Do you feel you have the heaviest cross? Do you complain about your cross?

Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow Him. Where do you think we are going?

Yes, heaven. Our faith is the passport, our cross is the luggage, God’s grace is the flight.

So, let us not negotiate for a lighter cross. But ask for more grace. Take it up and follow. All the way.

We Adore You, O Christ, and We Bless You, Because by Your Holy Cross You Have Redeemed the World. 


Comments

  1. Lisa Schwarte4 March 2022 at 08:41

    Our faith is the passport, our cross is the luggage, God’s grace is the flight. Jeff and I love this sentence. So poetic! Well Done!

    ReplyDelete

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 “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.’” As a young man, Joseph must have had beautiful dreams about his future family. He could have imagined a helpful and capable wife, children playing around the house and growing up to be well respected people in the community, a vision of a stable and peaceful life. When he got engaged to Mary, it seemed like his dreams would become reality soon. Many of us, married or not, can identify with the dreams that Joseph could have had. Yet like Joseph, the realities of our lives would have unfolded quite differently from how we have dreamt it. Joseph’s family life turned out totally unlike his own dreams, yet he continued to dream, now with God’s will revealed and God’s plan unfolding in the reality of his life. The hardship he went through in Bethlehem, with the birth of Jesus, did not end there. Today’s Gospel shows another unexpected cha...
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 “Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.” To be careful, is to put care and attention into what we do. It is to be mindful, to be intentional. This verse in the first reading today makes us reflect: we are ending the first week of Lent, have we been careful with our Lenten observances? Lent is a beautiful season during which the church recommends all the faithful to put in extra effort into our spiritual life, so that we can advance in holiness, to come closer to God. Abstinence, prayer, almsgiving, fasting. These are what we are called to practice every day of the year, but during Lent, these same activities are especially emphasized. We are called to be careful in doing these, to observe them with greater sincerity and effort. For example, abstinence from meat on Fridays. It is such a very simple and easy act, to be in sync with the universal church, and in solidarity with those who do not even have proper meals on any day of their lives. So...
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