Here is an interesting question: What is the difference between these two sentences:
We all have our crosses to bear
And
Pick up your cross and bear it.
If you look carefully the difference is that one assumes a burden, the other chooses to assume a burden. These are important sentences for us to consider. One is an act of acceptance of what otherwise is beyond one’s control and the other is an act that causes a difficult, painful or challenging event this is chosen for a greater cause.
If you look at today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us using the latter sentence. He calls us to be His disciples but requires us to act upon the request. He calls us to self-denial, and to pick up our cross and follow Him.
The obvious question is why? Because if we do not have the why, then why would be following him in the first place, why would we pick up a cross or engage in self-denial?
The immediately question is so that we may get to Heaven, but that is not all that accurate. Yes, it is so that we may go to Heaven, but Jesus calls us to be his disciples and what does he call his disciples to do? Join in his mission. That is what disciples do, we join in the mission of Salvation.
If you want to be a disciple of Christ then you must pick up your cross and follow him. Why? because as a disciple you join in his mission which is the salvation of souls. So we do not pick up our cross to be saved. We pick up our cross to be agents in the salvation of souls.
That is what we are all about, we are agents in the salvation of souls. You were made such agents at your baptism, it is in your baptismal promises.
Let us contrast that with what most people think of what it means to be a Christian. “If I live a good life, I will be saved. It does not matter if I go to Church or even believe in the teachings of Christ, what matters is that if I live a good life, I will go to Heaven.”
That is what is known a presumption of God’s mercy and it is the gateway to sin.
Jesus calls us to be active agents of his plan of salvation, we do that not by trying to be good people, but by engaging in the battle against those forces of evil that seek to destroy humanity. That is a far demanding and difficult role and our enemies are good at their destructive work as well.
Our weapons are not weapons for physical war, but of spiritual war: prayer and obedience that leads us to act in a way radically different than they ways of the world around us.
The core of our battle is this and is taught by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. We are beings that have a spiritual and material dimension. The sacraments, our prayer and bible study and our actions of self-denial in prayer, etc. are there to feed the spiritual dimension and let the fruits of that manifest itself in the physical.
The world around us does not believe in the spiritual, so all they do is to enhance the physical and because in their mind, without the physical, there is nothing. If things go wrong in the physical world they have no recourse but to accept it or run from it. If things go wrong in the physical world for us, we have a spiritual reality that teaches us how to deal with everything from inconvenience to gross tragedy in the physical world for we understand that what defines the human being is not his physical dimension, but his spiritual and physical dimension rooted in Jesus Christ.
Let me give you an example: You see me celebrating mass and we all celebrate that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We may not see physical realities happening, but we know that spiritual realities are happening. It is something that we understand, but that those who do not believe do not comprehend.
Now, if you have a full understanding of what is happening at mass, it will affect every aspect of your behavior outside of mass because you understand what is happening here, what you are receiving etc.
Now let me give you a simple piece of information that may reflect this. When you come to receive communion, you receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ—that is a powerful act. But do you realize that you do something that angels cannot do. Angels do not receive the body and blood of Christ. Only humans. Angels would love to do what you do and they celebrate that you do it. That shows you how powerful an act it is that brings you here and that you actually do. That is who you are, it is a great dignity, but a great responsibility.
If you carry that fact with you throughout the week, it will affect everything you do. There are people whom you will meet during this week, who once had an opportunity to receive the Eucharist, but they chose and continue to choose not to because they do not understand what I just told you. They also rejected all but a fluffy understanding of the angels, if they have anything at all and they have a fluffy understanding of the spiritual world, if they believe in it at all.
Your behavior and theirs should be radically different because you are working out of a self-understanding, that understood in its fullness, would leave you frozen in awe. However, that is who you are and because you hold this powerful dignity, God has called you to testify to it by doing His will even when it is difficult. That is how you join in his mission of salvation.
This is why we live a different morality than the world, why we cannot change our teachings as much as the world is working to do so. We have a mission to testify to our a greater reality than those outside the Church can comprehend.
We have a powerful dignity it is this dignity that calls us to pick up our cross and to engage in acts that lead us to strengthen our witness because of the dignity that we maintain. It is a witness the world does not understand but without it, many people in the world are lost. So we are part of Jesus’ mission of salvation to all around us and beyond.
God bless you,
Fr. Robert J Carr
Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MAand is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube. You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook