The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
This week’s readings make me uncomfortable, but at the same time they comfort me. I suppose that’s to be expected when we’re dealing with the Alpha and Omega, First and Last, God who is also 100% man.
Isaiah, boasting in the Lord, dares me to be confident: confident in the Lord God who is my help. He reminds me that God will be at my side when—not “if”, but when—I am beaten or spat upon. This profound promise from God through Isaiah is intended for my fickle, frightened, and forgetful heart, and yours as well. This definitely is a boost as I reflect on the presence of this ally in my life.
The Psalmist then calls me to exalt the Lord for freeing my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. Death, sorrow, and mistakes. I begin to feel a bit uneasy as I am reminded of how each of these unavoidably human experiences tastes, feels, or sounds. However, I am reassured as the psalm reminds me that the Lord will be walking with me through all of this.
My moment of greatest discomfort is when Christ calls me to take up my cross. He doesn’t say “take up a cross.” Jesus specifically says that each must “take up his cross” in order to follow Him. This isn’t a generic cross, but rather, one that is just for me. This is the way to allow Jesus to save my life.
What does taking up your cross look like? For me, it’s choosing to put my wife’s and 4-month-old’s needs and wants before my own. It’s making time to reflect on scripture and talk to God daily in order to avoid sin and lead my family to heaven.
For you it may look like inviting your spouse to come to mass with you this week for the 43rd week in a row. For you it may mean not participating in the culture of lust and death that surrounds you even though you’re convinced that you’ll have no friends if you do. For you it may look like preaching hard truths from the pulpit in order to save the souls of the parish the Father has entrusted to you and bravely standing on the steps after mass to hear everyone’s opinion on it.
Depending on our vocations, states in life, and a million other circumstances, our crosses will look different. But 2 things are scripturally promised to each of us:
1. We must embrace that cross in order to follow Christ
2. The Lord GOD is your help and you will not be disgraced.
What is your cross and how can you more closely follow Jesus by embracing it this week?
Tomás Aguilar is a husband, dad, and Marine Corps Officer from Pennsylvania living in Monterey, California. Check out his Instagram to see his world travels, his beautiful wife and daughter, Natalye and Verona, and his attempts to find and imitate the face of Christ in everyday life.