Thursday after Ash Wednesday (February 26, 2009)
When Jesus extended His invitation to each of us to follow Him on this journey, He never told us that it would be easy. All of us have a cross. It may be a sickness that we are fighting. It may be problems in our relationship with a loved one. It may be our job. It may be dealing with the ailments of someone we love. It may be our kids or our parents or our spouse or someone we deeply care for. Whatever that cross is, Jesus wants each of us to take it with us on this journey. He doesn't want us to drop it for a while and pick it up in a few days. No, He wants us to carry it "DAILY."
The choice we made to follow Jesus was a free choice. Yes, He extended the invitation, but He is not forcing us. Every step on this journey we are going to come upon a fork on the road. We can choose to continue on the path that will lead us to Him or we can choose to take the other way, leave the journey and take the easy road. The easy road seems more exciting. It promises us the pleasures that this world has to offer: materialism, possessions, thinking only of me, no sacrifices for anyone else, partying all the time, the joys of the flesh... However, this easy road leads nowhere. Eventually, these pleasures will die and we will feel completely empty inside.
If we choose to stay on the journey, it will be difficult, there are times when we will fall and we will have a very hard time getting up. But Jesus is not asking of us anything that He has not already experienced. He has walked this journey already, 2000 years ago. He also had a choice. He knew what was going to happen to Him. He could have run away, but He chose to stay because He loved us so much that He took all our sins upon His cross and He carried them all the way to the crucifixion.
I know in my heart that even the person on this journey that is carrying the heaviest cross, is not even a fraction of the weight of the cross that Jesus carried for each and every one of us. The cross that He continues to carry because whether we believe it or not, He is helping each one of us to carry our cross.
Even though He cannot promise that our journey will be easy because we will be fighting against the current of the world every step of the way, He promises that when we reach our destination we will reach such level of pleasure that we cannot even imagine it because we have never experienced it here on earth.
Our blessed Mother is walking with us every step of the way. She also carried a very heavy cross because she suffered in her heart and in her soul everything that her Son endured because of us. She is offering to help us in our journey, she is offering to sit by our side when we need to take a break, she is offering to console us when we fall, to wipe away our tears like she did to her Son when He felt on His walk. Talk to her today, tell her what is troubling you, she understands and she will listen to you. Share your cross with her and she will help you make your load so much lighter.
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