Take Up His Cross Daily

Take Up His Cross Daily

Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2013 C

By Joe McCloskey, SJ

Thus says the LORD: I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition; and they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a firstborn.  Zechariah 12:10

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”  Luke 9:23

Piety

Our piety tells Christ and our world who we think Christ is.  Having put on the mind and the heart of Christ, we look at our world with His eyes and His values.  How we offer our lives back to Christ is seen in what we do for the sake of our world in the name of Christ.  How much of a Christ we are willing to be is seen by how well we carry the crosses of our lives in His name.  So Piety is the reaction to the wonder about a Christ who was willing to die for little me even if I was the only offender of his Father in the way I kept the commandments.  Love is how we give our freedom back to Christ.  There is no greater love than the love the Father has for the eternal Word.  The Father gave all of himself to the Son.  The Son has nothing he has not received from the Father.  Perfect giving and perfect receiving is the makeup of love.  We do our best by our piety to put on the mind and the heart of Christ.  We need to be able to say with Paul.  “Now I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Study

Christ tells us what we must do.  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  We study how to get closer to Christ.  Ultimately we want to become his presence in our world.  We study the paradox of saving out lives by losing it for the sake of Christ.  We study the invitation to clothe ourselves with Christ.  We decide for ourselves what it means to be one in Christ.  Christ gives us his life and in our oneness with Christ we discover the oneness of the Mystical Body of Christ.  How we enter into the suffering of Christ is how we become his life for each other. 

Action

We work at there being no differences between ourselves.  We live out the words of Paul that we are all children of God in Christ Jesus.  There is no American or European, or oriental when we are one in Christ.  There is no white or black or any of the intermediate colors when we find our deepest meaning of life in Christ.  All our actions work toward becoming one in Christ.  We are all children of God in Christ.  Can we dare to say we are Christ to our world? We are the Mystical Body of Christ in our togetherness.  We are created in Christ and for Christ.  We name ourselves as children of God in Christ.