Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
APRIL 3<br />
CARRYING ANOTHER’S CROSS<br />
“As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on<br />
his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry<br />
it behind Jesus.” (Lk 23: 26)<br />
One of the most painful and humbling sides of cross-carrying is that we<br />
might find ourselves carrying someone else’s. Or somebody else might<br />
have to carry ours. This situation, as humbling or even humiliating as it<br />
can be, is graced by the precedent of our Lord’s own life-giving passion.<br />
He was so weak by this point, having been beaten and tortured in various<br />
other ways, that the Roman soldiers “made” Simon from Cyrene carry His<br />
cross. The soldiers had that kind of authority.<br />
Why? Because He willed it so. Both His “weakness,” on the one hand, and<br />
the “power” of the Roman soldiers, on the other, are willed by Him. Let<br />
me accept His will on my own cross-carrying journey today, part of which<br />
might be utter weakness – my own or someone else’s.<br />
98
Change language