My wife and I spoke to Edmonton’s Catholic Renewal Services group. They are affiliated with the Charismatic Renewal movement. They are on fire for the Lord. My wife and I loved them!
We sang songs of praise to God, we prayed, had breakfast together, laughed and fellowshipped together. The presence of the Holy Spirit filled the room.
When it came time for us to speak, LaRee and I shared our life story which included abortion, post-abortion grief, acquiring serious degenerative disability and the fears (sometimes downright terror) that comes with it. We spoke about a journey that began with sin and broken hearts, anger with life and God, then gradually moved toward acceptance, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. It was only then, with God’s tender leading, that we began to receive a renewed understanding about life, love (both human and divine), and something about what our Lord meant by taking up our cross daily (Luke 9.23). It was not an easy presentation because it required us to be vulnerable and brutally honest ― but we were among Christian friends.
This is not unique to us. Everyone must take up a cross of one sort or another. Sometimes it is obvious to other people and sometimes it is not. But each of us is called to take up our cross and carry it. In his classic Christian book The Imitation of Christ, the fifteenth century priest Thomas à Kempis wrote about the universal calling of taking up one’s cross: “No man’s heart can experience what Christ endured in His passion except the man who suffered as he did. ... The cross is, therefore, always in readiness for you and everywhere awaits you. Wherever you choose to run you will not escape it because you always take yourself with you and you will always find yourself.”
Taking up your cross will turn you toward your interior self. It is a critically important decision you must make every day. Taking up your cross involves the essential work of Christian growth. The daily struggle and suffering under the weight of your cross is where personal purification occurs. Bearing the cross requires you to chastise your will and body and bring them into subjection of God. It is not easy but it is necessary. Like I say, it requires work and suffering. Some people will refuse the cross ― but they can not escape it. As Thomas à Kempis reminds us, the cross is always before us and waiting because we cannot escape ourselves.
The sick or disabled must face and accept their affliction. The lonely must face their loneliness; their cross may change it to sweet solitude. The addict must face his addiction demons. Bearing the cross may be different for each person, but they must face it, and face it each day. In extreme cases, they must decide every hour to take up their cross.
What’s your cross? Don’t be surprised that it requires suffering (emotional, spiritual or physical). Suffering can have a refining effect as with gold in fire. Saint Paul said in his letter to the Romans that he considered “the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.” Later in 2 Corinthians he reflected, “ For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”
For those who allow the cross to conform them to Christ crucified, they will find it is the way that leads to the Kingdom of God.
A consolation of the cross you take up is that Christ will walk with us under its weight. Your individual cross – no matter how onerous or burdensome it may be – is never heavier that the cross Christ endured. Remember that you are not alone. Christ is there just as He has been with Christians throughout history who took up their crosses.
If we unite our lesser sufferings with Christ’s Passion , crucifixion and Resurrection, we will discover a strange yet wonderful internal transformation is beginning to occur that's drawng us closer to Christ and away from ourselves.
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