Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (September 1, 2002)

Suggested Emphasis from the Gospel according to Matthew

"If a person wishes to come after me he must deny his very self, take up his cross and follow in my foot steps."

Salesian Perspective

By now we are all-too familiar with this invitation - and its accompanying challenge - to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, and what it requires on our part.

Perhaps too familiar.

Ever read/listen to this admonition slowly, carefully? Jesus does not challenge us to carry his cross; no, Jesus calls each of us to carry his or her own personal, particular, one-of-a-kind cross. To understand what it means to carry our crosses, we must first consider what we mean when we are considering the cross of Christ.

The 'cross of Jesus Christ' was not just the cross that Jesus carried on the last day of his public ministry, the cross on which Jesus gave his life: Jesus' cross was his whole life. The cross that Jesus carried each day was his willingness to be faithful to who the Father called him to be and to embrace everything - success, setback and everything else in between - that came with his state, stage and mission in life. In particular, the cross that Jesus carried was his fidelity to embracing life - and giving his life - regardless of all the difficulties that frequently accompanied his efforts at proclaiming the reign of God.

We are followers of Jesus already. By virtue of God's creative, redeeming and inspiring love - a love publicly demonstrated in baptism - we must take up our crosses - we must understand who God calls us to be - and embrace all the challenges that come with giving our lives in service to others.

Especially the challenges that we do not choose: raising a difficult child; dealing with an unanticipated change of job or residence; receiving an unexpected diagnosis of a life-threatening disease; working with a troublesome colleague or neighbor; fighting depression; losing a wife, husband or other loved one. St. Francis wrote: "You are quite willing to have a cross, but you want to choose what sort it is to be…I want your cross and mine to be no other than Jesus Christ's cross, both regarding its kind and the way in which it is laid upon us." (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 79 - 80)

Want to follow Jesus? Then carry your cross - embrace your life deeply and fully - as it comes each day from the hands of a God who calls you to continue Jesus' ministry in your own day: at home, at work, at school, wherever you find yourself. In the end, however, it is not enough for any of us to merely carry it. St. Francis de Sales observed: "The more wholly a cross comes from God, the more we ought to love it." (Ibid)

Rev. Michael S. Murray, OSFS, is Executive Director of the
De Sales Spirituality Center in Washington, DC