Posted by Cathy Taggart By the way, Kevin, I really love your song, "For Love of Me Dad", which so perfectly expresses the idea of taking up your cross in response to overwhelming love. It is of course particularly inspiring at this time of year. I hope that you, Kevin, and Jo, and all visitors to this web-site, experience the abundant blessings and joys and hope which Jesus' death and resurrection have made possible for us. CATHY. --Previous Message--
on April 13, 2006, 10:44 am, in reply to "Whose Cross are we Carrying?"
I would like to thank you both, Kevin and Jo, for your reflections which have helped me to further think through this matter of what it really means to "carry our cross". I think the main point for me is something that Jo also touched on: that "carrying our cross" in the authentic Gospel sense should be life-giving not just for those around us, but for ourselves as well. What I am especially thinking of here is family life, which, as you know, is my particular "hobby horse"! A person might be in a family situation which looks as if they are living a life of self-giving love (e.g., caring for a child or other family member who has a serious disability), but if this leaves them just being a doormat, or some-one else's life-support system, I think we have to question whether they are really "carrying the cross" in the Gospel sense, or whether they are a victim of social injustice!
: Now that we are in Holy Week, it might be a
: good time to bring up something which has
: long bothered me and which I’m hoping you,
: Kevin, or some-one else “out there” might be
: able to help me sort out. As we are
: particularly conscious of at this time of
: year, a very central part of being a
: disciple of Jesus is our willingness to take
: up our cross and follow him. Over the
: centuries, it seems this has come to mean
: that we accept whatever suffering comes our
: way – we even have the well-worn expression,
: “one’s cross”, meaning one’s particular
: bundle of troubles or difficulties. Yet,
: if you read the Gospels, this doesn’t seem
: to be what Jesus was talking about at all!
: Of course, in the early Church, following
: Jesus could literally mean facing death, as
: Jesus himself did. But even apart from
: this, taking up one’s cross in the Gospel
: sense seems to imply that it is something
: which we take up willingly; it seems to mean
: embracing the difficulties and disadvantages
: that come from living according to the
: values of God’s kingdom, not those of this
: world. I strongly suspect that once
: Christianity became an “official” religion,
: it was used as a tool for keeping people in
: their place, rather than challenging the
: mainstream values which put them in that
: place! In the past, people were encouraged
: to accept a grossly inequitable society on
: the basis that God had supposedly ordered it
: that way and put everyone in their proper
: place. As children, we were taught to
: “offer up” our sufferings (certainly not to
: question them!), and I think there is still
: some of that attitude around.
:
: However, what particularly concerns me
: nowadays is what all this implies for us as
: we grapple with thorny moral issues such as
: euthanasia, abortion, foetal stem cell
: research, etc. The Catholic Church, and some
: other religious bodies, tend to staunchly
: oppose these new developments, although many
: people take issue with the Church’s
: position, since “surely a compassionate God
: doesn’t want people to suffer”. I don’t
: want to go into the rights and wrongs of
: these difficult issues, but I, too, would
: have thought that God doesn’t want people to
: suffer. Does being a Christian – taking up
: one’s cross – mean that we should be more
: willing than other people to embrace
: suffering of any kind? Or should we only
: embrace the sort of suffering that comes
: from devoting our lives to God’s kingdom, to
: opposing whatever dehumanizes people and
: causes suffering? I would have thought the
: latter! If that is what Church leaders are
: intending to convey to us, they need to make
: their position clearer.
:
:
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