Thursday after Ash Wednesday
"Lk 9:22-25"
"The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised…If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?"
There is just one way to follow Jesus: with the Cross. Trying to follow You, Lord, while avoiding sacrifice would be like a bird trying to fly without wings. It's not that Christians like pain or suffering in itself; but that they recognise it as a means to improve.
Bosco Gutierrez was an architect who was kidnapped for 257 days. He underwent all kinds of suffering locked in a tiny room without windows and with no verbal contact with anyone for months. One day his captors saw that he had given up on himself and offered him a whiskey. He loved whiskey! Slowly, in order to enjoy it to the full, he smelt it and ran the glass along his unshaven dirty face. Then he heard an internal prompt: "Give up the whiskey! Give me something that is under your control." He hesitated for a moment. That was his only pleasure for months. He told himself: "I have offered enough already…" But then he understood the difference. All the hardships and sufferings he had offered before had been 'inflicted' on him. This was the first time 'he' could choose to offer up something. And so, he poured it on the floor. That day everything changed for him: "That day I won my first battle."
We have many battles to win this Lent. Let's be practical and choose useful mortifications: let's wake up straightaway, eat more of what we do not like, and less of what we like; do the dishes, smile at someone we may find annoying, avoid complaining (about anything, to anyone); tidy our room, do the jobs we don't like before the ones we find easier, rather than putting them off; accept what we have been told without answering back, and many others... Mary, Mother of God and my Mother, help me to take up my cross to the bitter end, no matter how bitter it is. I will try to make a list of sacrifices that I intend to fulfil so as to be close to your Son throughout Lent.
