{"id":163526,"date":"2025-03-23T01:00:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T05:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/?p=163526"},"modified":"2025-03-20T22:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T02:27:06","slug":"lent-2025-day-19-taking-up-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/lent-2025-day-19-taking-up-the-cross\/","title":{"rendered":"Lent 2025 &#8211; Day 19 &#8211; Taking up the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"163526\" class=\"elementor elementor-163526\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div data-particle_enable=\"false\" data-particle-mobile-disabled=\"false\" class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-cbf6437 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"cbf6437\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b5dd204 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"b5dd204\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<iframe class=\"lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/4Oee8us6ztE85IJm5AKT7f?utm_source=generator\" style=\"border-radius:12px\"  width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameBorder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-bee7262 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"bee7262\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><b>Day 19<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Taking Up the Cross\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For if, in fact, the Cross was to human eyes Christ\u2019s emptying of himself, at the same time it was in the eyes of God his being lifted up. On the Cross, Christ attained and fully accomplished his mission: by fulfilling the will of the Father, he at the same time fully realized himself. . . . Suffering is also an invitation to manifest the moral greatness of man, his spiritual maturity. Proof of this has been given, down through the generations, by the martyrs and confessors of Christ, faithful to the words; \u201cAnd do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul\u201d (Matthew 10:28).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 St. John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, 22<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seeking and fulfilling God\u2019s indicative will in our lives \u2014 his commandments, his inspirations, and the normal responsibilities that we have simply because we are members of a family, a workplace, a community, and a society \u2014 is our sure path to spiritual growth. It unites us to Christ, who made his Father\u2019s will the overarching rule of his life, and thereby deepens more and more our intimate union and communion with God. And that is the source of our happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>God\u2019s Permissive Will<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the phrase God\u2019s will also touches another category of life-experience: suffering. Suffering, of one type or another, is our constant companion as we journey through this fallen world. God has revealed that suffering was not part of his original plan, but rather the offspring of original sin, which shattered the harmony of God\u2019s creation. His indicative will to our first parents in the Garden of Eden was for them not to eat the fruit of \u201cthe tree of the knowledge of good and evil\u201d (Genesis 2:17). They disobeyed. Human nature fell; creation fell; evil attained a certain predominance in the human condition, giving rise to \u201cthe overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death\u201d (CCC, 403).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here is where the distinction between God\u2019s indicative and permissive will comes in. God did not desire or command Adam and Eve to rebel against his plan, but he did permit them to do so; he gave them a certain degree of freedom that made disobedience to his indicative will (moral evil) possible. Likewise, throughout human history, God does not will evil to happen, but he does permit it. He certainly didn\u2019t explicitly will the Holocaust, for example, but, on the other hand, he certainly did permit it. His indicative will doesn\u2019t lead to the abuse of innocent children, but his permissive will sometimes allows his free creatures to disobey his indicative will and commit such evils.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The question of why God permits some evil and the suffering that comes from it, even the suffering of innocents, is an extremely hard question to answer. Only the Christian faith as a whole gives a satisfactory response to it, a response that can gradually penetrate our hearts and minds through prayer, study, and the help of God\u2019s grace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">St. Augustine\u2019s short answer is worth mentioning, however. He wrote that if God permits evil, it is only because he knows he can bring out of that evil a greater good. We may not see that greater good right away; we may not see it at all during our earthly journey, in fact. But Christ\u2019s resurrection (Easter Sunday) is the unbreakable and undying promise that God\u2019s omnipotence and wisdom are never trumped by the apparent triumphs of evil and suffering (Good Friday).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thus, only by faith can we begin to understand why obedience to God\u2019s will also includes accepting the painful things that he permits, trusting that in our Christ-centered response to them (which often involves resisting and correcting evils) we will be contributing to building up his eternal kingdom in our hearts and in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Take Up Your Cross<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this context we can brave a brief comment on the one condition that Jesus lays down for anyone who wants to follow him:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then [Jesus] said to all, \u201cIf anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.\u201d (Luke 9:23\u201324)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Growing in love requires self-denial, self-forgetfulness, self-giving. And in this fallen world, self-giving is often painful (in heaven it won\u2019t be). It involves taking up the cross, just as Jesus took up his own cross in order to show the extent of his love for the Father and for us. The cross symbolizes the painful self-sacrifice that growing in love requires in this fallen world. If we truly desire to grow in loving God, to learn to love him with all our all, we will have to carry crosses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cross is suffering made fruitful through faith and love. When God\u2019s indicative or permissive will in our life contradicts our natural preference (our self-centered, human will), we experience the cross. His will is like the vertical beam, and our natural preference is like the horizontal beam. When they are opposed, we are faced with a grace-filled opportunity. By choosing to accept God\u2019s will when we would prefer something else, we exercise our faith, hope, and love more intensely than in any other possible situation. We show that we trust him, not because he fits into our limited, human calculations, but precisely because we believe and hope in his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness. That\u2019s the supernatural virtue that unites us more fully to God, deepening our trust in him, the trust which is found at the heart of all interpersonal relationships. And when we exercise that virtue more intensely, it grows more quickly and surely, and our communion with God expands and deepens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The High Road to Holiness<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lord sends and permits crosses in our lives because he knows they are the high road to holiness when we live them in union with him, saturating them with faith, hope, and love. As Jesus explained to his twelve apostles, almost all of whom ended up dying martyrs\u2019 deaths, he prunes the branches of his vine only so that those branches will bear more fruit:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.\u201d (John 15:1\u20132)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we feel the pruning shears purifying our still-imperfect hearts, when we feel the weight of the cross pressing down on our limited minds and souls and strength, we know God is hard at work, and we can abandon ourselves to his care. It is then, above all, when we recognize that growth in love, holiness, and lasting happiness is only 1 percent up to us and 99 percent up to the Lord. And \u201ctherefore,\u201d as St. Paul explained, \u201cI am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong\u201d (2 Corinthians 12:10).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is through bearing our crosses with Christ that we enter into the indescribable experience of joy that comes with the Resurrection. For Jesus, the darkness and suffering of Good Friday blossomed into the brilliant light of Easter Sunday \u2014 as a medieval phrase put it: per crucem ad lucem (through the cross to the light). If we are in him, the same will be true for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What idea in this reflection struck you most and why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do you usually respond to suffering in your own life, and why? How do you usually respond to suffering in the lives of those around you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are your most common daily crosses right now, and how are you responding to them? How would the Lord like you to respond to them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When St. Joan of Arc was being burned at the stake as a martyr, she asked for one thing. While the flames began to climb up toward her and burn her, she cried out for \u201ca cross, hold up a cross!\u201d One of the soldiers nearby had compassion on her and made a makeshift cross out of pieces of wood, attaching it to the tip of his pike. He then held it up high, above the flames so St. Joan could see it. As soon as she caught sight of the cross, while the flames were burning into her own flesh, she smiled. She died gazing on Christ\u2019s cross and drawing all her strength from it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What will you do today to remind yourself that the cross is really the high road to the lasting happiness that you yearn for?<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I will watch the movie The Passion of The Christ from the following perspective: \u201cJesus suffered all of this in order to prove that absolutely nothing, not even my most horrible sins, can diminish his love for me.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I find myself complaining about something, I will turn that complaint into a silent prayer to God, just as Jesus did on the eve of his crucifixion when he was sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When some suffering is happening in my life, either to me or to a loved one, and I can\u2019t do anything to alleviate it, I will say a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary and use my imagination to picture her standing at the foot of the cross, helplessly watching her innocent son suffer his horrible crucifixion.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Write your own resolution) I will<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Concluding Prayer<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pierce, most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost heart with the most dear and penetrating wound of your love. . . . May my heart ever draw near to you, seek you, glimpse you, be drawn to you and find you, think of you, speak of you, and do all that it does for the glory of your name, humbly and carefully and delightedly, eagerly and passionately and persevering to the end.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thus may you alone always be my hope, all my confidence, my joy, my rest and my peace, all that charms me, my fragrance, my sweetness, my food, my nourishment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure. In you may my mind and my heart be fixed and secure and rooted forever without any change. Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 St. Bonaventure<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Day 19 Taking Up the Cross\u00a0 For if, in fact, the Cross was to human eyes Christ\u2019s emptying of himself, at the same time it was in the eyes of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":163108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6893],"tags":[2965],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-163526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lent-2025","tag-lent"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - 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John Bartunek, LC\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/622fd36594e05daecbf3cb6f50d7151c3066ae3991815fa200dc7c1865bc6a7e?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/622fd36594e05daecbf3cb6f50d7151c3066ae3991815fa200dc7c1865bc6a7e?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/622fd36594e05daecbf3cb6f50d7151c3066ae3991815fa200dc7c1865bc6a7e?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. John Bartunek, LC\"},\"description\":\"Fr. John Bartunek, LC, S.Th.D, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college, he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and baseball coach. He then spent a year as a professional actor in Chicago before entering the religious Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ in 1993. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 2003 and earned his doctorate in moral theology in 2010. He provided spiritual support on the set of Mel Gibson\u2019s\u00a0The Passion of the Christ\u00a0while researching the 2005 Catholic best seller,\u00a0Inside the Passion, the only authorized, behind-the-scenes explanation of the film. Fr. John has contributed news commentary regarding religious issues on NBC, CNN, Fox, and the BBC. He also served as the English-language press liaison for the Vatican\u2019s 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. His most widely known books are The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer and 60 Days to Becoming a Missionary Disciple. His most recent book is\u00a0Spiritual But Not Religious: The Search for Meaning in a Material World. Fr. John resides in Atlanta and serves as Territorial Vicar for the Legionaries of Christ. See all books, Regnum Christi Essays, Retreat Guides, posts, and online classes from Fr. 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