Today in our gospel we have two points to reflect on during the day. First, we hear Jesus tell us about the need for each one of us to “carry our own Cross”, and second, we hear him tell us that if anyone wants to save his or her life, he or she must be willing to “lose it.”
Kenya, where I went to school and worked for a while, is known the world over for its marathon runners. Kenyan marathoners have won almost every famous marathon I know of – Boston, Chicago, Tokyo, and so many others. Some of the runners mention that part of the challenge with such marathons is not so much the length of the race, or the harsh weather; rather, it is the small little challenges they find along the way, such as a small stone getting stuck in their shoes or under the sole of the shoe. Such a stone can be irritating and distracting to the runner, and if the runner is not careful, he or she can lose focus on the marathon.
Those kinds of small stones are like little crosses. We sometimes care so much about the big crosses in our life that we forget to pay attention to the small crosses that irritate and can be distracting to the race we are running. Lent is a good time to identify and pay attention to the small crosses that we carry. If we are not careful, they can cause a big problem to the spiritual race we are trying to run.
Today we can ask ourselves, what small crosses or irritations in my life do I need to pay attention to and learn to carefully carry? The good news is that we don’t have to carry the crosses by ourselves, because the Lord promises to help us.
Second, the Lord told us that if you want to save your life, be willing to lose it. The lesson here is that the life we have is a gift from Him. God asks us to spend our lives, our talents, our time in service of Him and our brothers and sisters. All the great people throughout history who we admire are people who had this particular quality of putting God and others ahead of themselves. On the surface it appeared a loss, but they gained their lives.
We pray that the Lord heightens our awareness of the “small crosses” in our daily lives and how to carry them; we also ask him to give us the grace to learn what it means to spend our lives for the good of others.
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