This morning I received a text message that a member of my extended family will likely die of cancer within the next few hours. His name is Luke. He is a 45-year-old husband and father of six. Though I am not as close to him as my sister (she is his sister-in-law and knows him well), I wonder: how can we, including Luke himself, manage such a terribly awful and unfair situation?
The words of this Sunday’s Gospel offer a powerful and challenging path. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Today I see with new freshness the starkness and strangeness of the words take up. The cross stands for suffering which is unjust, absurd, seemingly hopeless, and humiliating. Jesus doesn’t say “accept” or “endure” or “tolerate,” but “take up.”
Embrace it, actively. Choose it and lift it up for others to see what terrifies and sickens us. But somehow, for Jesus, this is the path to “saving one's life.” A new world is breaking in, one in which love is everything, when no relationship can be wounded or die. I trust that in the embraced suffering of Luke and his loved ones, Jesus is taking up his cross and saving us all.
By the time you read this, barring a miracle, Luke will have died. He will be carrying his cross no longer. But we all still face suffering. This week let’s not just endure, but take up our crosses, big and small. That’s our only hope for saving our lives. — Father John Muir ©LPi
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Este domingo, Jesús nos invita a tomar nuestra cruz y a seguirlo, e inicia su mensaje con la pregunta a sus discípulos: ¿Quién dice la gente que soy yo? Por supuesto que obtuvo varias respuestas. Pero, lo importante ahora, es lo que cada uno de nosotros respondamos a esa pregunta. Muchas personas se hacen un Jesús a su medida y hasta piensan que lo manipulan y lo compran a sus caprichos. Sin embargo, Jesús no está atado a nuestros gustos ni medida. Jesús se mostró siempre sincero proclamando la justicia y la verdad, y es en la Sagrada Escritura y en la Tradición de la Iglesia cimentada por él, que podemos conocerlo y amarlo cada día más.
Después, llamó a toda la gente y les dijo: “El que quiera seguirme, que renuncie a sí mismo, tome su cruz y me siga. Pues el que quiera asegurar su vida la perderá, y el que sacrifique su vida (por mí y) por el Evangelio, la salvará” (Marcos 8:34-35). Aquí está el compromiso de querer salvar la vida, se refiere a evitar la cruz que nos toca llevar junto con Jesús. Entonces, no podemos evadirla, hay que poner todo de nuestra parte para que sea llevadera y con alegría. Seguir a Jesús es un camino seguro que nos llevará aquí en la tierra a buen puerto y en un futuro a la felicidad eterna. No perdamos el tiempo, vayamos presurosos hacia su misericordia con nuestras suplicas para nuestra salvación y la de nuestros hermanos y hermanas. ©LPi
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