JESUS ACCEPTS HIS CROSS

            Matthew 10:38: “...and he who does not take his cross  and follow Me is not worthy of Me.”

Hours earlier Jesus had accepted the approach of His passion as He prayed in Gethsemane. 

In His prayer to the Father He had seen what awaited Him. 

The impact of that knowledge tore away His strength. 

He wept.  He bled.  He begged - take this away.

But even in the grief of body, mind and soul, He accepted.

To truly accept the Father’s will is to give one’s fiat.  The fiat given in Gethsemane was repeated in the act of accepting the wooden cross. 

He accepted His vocation as the Suffering Servant. 

He accepted the call, the responsibility, the cause and consequence represented by the Cross that was being presented to Him.  He had already left us instructions that we are to take up the burden of the cross of our lives.  Now He does what He asked us to do.

Genuine acceptance is an act of the will that is done with no reservation. 

With one’s whole mind and strength consent is freely and fully given. 

This free consent is the fiat. 

It is faith, fidelity and charity at work in us as it was in Jesus. 

Acceptance of suffering means receiving the pain without retaliation or bitterness of heart.

Jesus freely accepted the cross, the instrument of His death, with a heart filled with love. 

When He looked at the Cross did He see a wooden beam?

No, in the Cross He saw my face and loved me.

When He embraced the Cross He drew me to Himself.

When He felt the weight of the Cross on His shoulder and spine, it was me He carried.

With love He carried me on His back.

He has told me that my name is “cross”. 

He says:  I carry you, all that you are – your birth, your life, your soul, your eternity.

And now He says - Take up your cross and follow Me.

He would have me do as He does:

to accept  (faith),

to embrace  (fidelity),

and to love  (charity)  without reservation or expectation.

When I hurt, when the pain of life pierces my heart, shatters my mind, crushes my emotions, I must know in the very depths of my own being that my cross is named “Jesus”.

He is hidden within the fiber of my daily cross. 

So very simply He says - if you accept your cross, you accept Me.  In this total acceptance I find myself welcomed into His presence. 

It is the same for every soul who is willing.

Although we are not worthy, He declares us worthy. 

He has given His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity to us to be accepted in the Holy Eucharist that we might be able to participate with Him in the work of the Holy Cross.  +j