Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
As of late, I haven’t had time to watch the Detroit Tigers play baseball much. And, after the All-Star Break, I haven’t missed much. But, one of the interesting things to see, especially if you have really good seats, or are watching Fox Sports Network, is to look at the Latino athletes. As they get up to bat, the first thing they do is to sign themselves, at least once, with the sign of the cross. While some may claim it’s superstitious, I prefer to hope that they realize that prayer is an important part of life and any job, including playing major league baseball, and that they are praying each time before they bat to do their best, and hopefully be successful.
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| A mosaic of the nailing of Christ to the Cross in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem |
It is interesting to think that the cross, in Roman times the most horrible way to die, and the sign that there was no dignity left in you, has become the sign of our faith. The cross was used for non-Roman citizens, and crucifixion had been perfected so as to induce the most pain for the longest period of time. The person who died by crucifixion actually asphyxiated. The nails were only to hold him in place, and to increase the agony when the person tried to push up so as to allow his lungs, which were filling with fluid, to operate. Add to this the ignominy of hanging there naked, and you get the idea of what a horrible death this was.
And yet, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says that we cannot be His disciples unless we carry our own cross and follow Him. We have become so used to this phrase that it does not strike us as it struck the Jews then. But this was no easy saying for the Jews and Greeks to accept then, and the reality of the saying even today does not made it any easier.
We see the cross from the resurrection side of things. Even with the crucifix, which reminds us of the horrible death that Jesus underwent, so much did He love us, and so obedient was He to the Father’s will, we know how it ends. It’s like reading the end of a book first, and then reading the rest afterwards. But often, when our own crosses come to us, we are not so hopefully and cheerful.
We don’t have to look far for suffering. It finds us. But Jesus reminds us that, if we are to be His disciple, then we must be sure that we are ready for that suffering, that it is a battle we can win and a price we can pay lest the enemy overwhelm us or others laugh at our inability to follow through and pay the price. Suffering is part of what it means to be a Catholic. If they mocked, scourged, and put to the death the Master, the servants, that is, we, should not be surprised to be treated any differently.
And yet, many of us are not scourged for believing in Jesus, nor are we asked to witness to our faith with the ultimate price of our blood. But, if we are faithful to the teachings of Christ, which are found in their fullness is the teachings of the Church, then we likely have been already, or will be mocked in the future.
But even if we are not mocked, we still have our crosses to carry. And the way we carry, or avoid them, tells a lot about who we are as disciples. It’s easy to say, “Yes, Lord, I’ll carry my cross with you.” But when our teacher or professor gives us a lot of homework, and we can’t have fun with friends as much as we want, we seem to avoid that cross. Or when the kids are on a sugar high, there was a bad day at work, and now we’re too exhausted to cook dinner, we don’t want to deal with that cross. Or when mom or dad are not doing so well, and we have to try and work around their schedule to visit them at the nursing home on a regular basis, when we barely have time for ourselves, we turn and walk away from that cross.
The life of a disciple sometimes involves the big crosses like suffering for our faith from verbal and sometimes even physical assaults. It sometimes means doing great things for Jesus in very visible ways. But more often than not, being a disciple means accepting the little crosses that present themselves daily to us, and uniting them to Christ. It means doing our homework rather than going to the party, because God has called us at this time in our lives to be students. It means giving to the kids even when we feel we have nothing left. It means caring for family members even when we are constantly giving for them and are receiving nothing in return. Because in those moments, when we have to die to our own wills and do the will of the Father, we are imitating Jesus, who had to allow Himself to be nailed to a cross, even though He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Some people do think that baseball players like Cabrera or Ordoñez are superstitious when they make the sign of the cross. But, as all our little crosses come our way and call us to make a sacrifice, it’s not a bad idea to make the sign of the cross over ourselves, reminding us that this is what Jesus meant when He said, “‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’” May we, by the little and big ways we suffer, fill up what is lacking in the Body of Christ, and, because we have suffered with Christ, be found worthy to share the same reward in heaven with Him.