Many of the early Saints literally carried an actual cross to their deaths.
I enjoy reading about the earliest Saints of the Church.
Those Saints are incredibly interesting to me because what they actually did – when you stop and think about it – was so much more revolutionary than anything that I could possibly have imagined in my entire life.
During a time when people were being tortured and killed for their religious beliefs in Christ as God made Man, these people actively sought Him out.
And that meant that they met in secret so as not be discovered by the authorities. It meant that their businesses and work suffered because they had to restrict their activities and go into hiding so that they would not be sought out and tortured and killed. They could not go out to meet with their friends openly and many of them would have lost friends because of the decisions they were making. People would have ridiculed them and called them crazy. In fact, the word “Christians” was a word devised by the Roman authorities to mock the followers of Christ because they used the term to indicate a sort of insanity and zealotism that only a TRUE Christian could seem to possess…
Let me contrast this experience with my own life. In my own life I have to do barely anything to be a Christian and practice my faith. If I wish to worship my God in His Holy Church, I can walk down the road to my local parish Church and sit in airconditioned comfort while the world goes by outside. If I wish to attend Holy Mass, I can chose from any number of Parish Churches in any number of locations at any number of times of the day or night. If I wish to receive the Sacraments, I can use the telephone or internet to make contact with any number of priests who have devoted their lives to the administration of such sacraments.
In fact, it takes very very little effort at all on my part to Follow Christ. When He told the early Church Saints to take up their Cross and follow Him, He was not joking. Many of them literally carried an actual cross to their deaths.
And when I compare their dedication to God Himself and mine, I am very humbly reminded that I do very little indeed to follow my Beloved. Everything is handed to me on a silver plate and still I make excuses about why it is a problem to attend Holy Mass and why the sacraments are just a little too inconvenient for me.
And in this I can see my own weakness as clearly as I can see the sun in the sky. I can see the actions of a petulant child and I hang my head in shame because I cannot possibly ever hold myself to the same standard as those early Saints…
And today, I am so terribly sorry about that!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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