“You can take the cross out of your room, but you can’t take the cross out of your life.” Fr. Mike Schmitz
For all of those who have relegated religion and faith to the sidelines or trash cans of their lives, here is something that is true. Yes, there actually is objective truth.
We will all bear crossed in our lives. Suffering is part of being human. Whether we choose to call them crosses or just difficulties, injustices, or tragedies, we will all experience them.
Why are so many of us, especially young people, desperately unhappy? First, they don’t know that to suffer, to bear the cross, is normal. Not easy, normal.
More importantly, though, if we don’t know about the ubiquity of life’s crosses, we won’t know how to carry them. We won’t know how to sit at their feet, acknowledge our hardship, and with open hearts and minds, reorder ourselves to goodness and hope.
Darkness without hope is despair. Pain without transcendence leads to perpetual misery. It is in acknowledging the cross that we discover meaning and can begin to move through pain and toward the good. Even towards happiness and joy.
No, we can’t remove crosses from our lives. But actually, we wouldn’t really want to. For it is on the cross that our fears are vanquished and our hopes are resurrected. It is there that we actually experience a rebirth.
The cross isn’t the end. It’s actually just the beginning.
Doesn’t that change everything?
To Live Gladly 