Today’s Scripture Readings for Mass discuss something rather uncomfortable: the necessity of sacrifice; of taking up our crosses to follow Christ, even when following Christ comes at great personal expense. We see that perhaps most clearly in the lives of the martyrs. At this moment I am thinking particularly of St. Lawrence and St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast days we recently celebrated.
Perhaps we can begin to understand what St. Paul is saying in Romans 12:1-2 when we realize that we probably make various sacrifices already for those whom we love. We also make sacrifices during Lent and Advent as we practice fasting and abstinence or participate in other activities to deepen our spiritual lives. But if we are truly honest with ourselves, many people have probably also felt like Jeremiah at times (Jeremiah 20:7-9): “You duped me, Lord!” he cries. The age-old question of “Why do bad things happen to good people?” rears its ugly head and strikes at our sense of “justice,” as if we have somehow “earned” a life free of difficulties. Paraphrasing Jeremiah, some might declare, “It’s not fair!”, but “fair” is not part of the Gospel message, though love and mercy are. The message of the Gospel goes well beyond what many people would consider “fair” and instructs us to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile. I have sometimes posed the question, “Do we want God to be just or to be merciful?” Nearly always the person with whom I am speaking responds “merciful,” and in doing so they demonstrate wisdom. In justice, one receives what one deserves – good or bad. In mercy, one receives what might be described as “better than what they deserve.” We do not earn a place in Heaven through our own actions. Salvation has been offered to us as a free gift by the sacrifice of Jesus upon the Cross. And so we, who aspire to be Christ-like, must be willing to take up our own crosses – to make our own sacrifices – for the good of others and to help us conform ourselves more closely to the Heart of our Savior.
Our crosses can be heavy – sometimes unbearably so. But in the Gospel today (Matthew 16:21-27), Jesus calls us to take up our crosses and follow him. He gives us his Body and Blood in the Most Holy Eucharist as food for the journey, as we bear our sufferings and bring our imperfections before him seeking forgiveness through his Divine Mercy. As we carry our crosses, we can rejoice with the knowledge that the Gospel – the “Good News” - did not end on Calvary.
We know that with Christ, there is life. Furthermore, we are invited to participate in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross by uniting our suffering to his. That was a key point in Pope St. John Paul II’s papal encyclical
Salvifici doloris, in which he emphasized that human suffering only finds meaning when seen as a participation in the suffering of Christ on the Cross. St. Paul tells us that in offering our very selves as a living sacrifice, we worship God more fully and we can be transformed through the power of God’s grace, becoming more holy as we are evermore united to the will of God.