Becoming Chris Kamalski

(via sacredspace.ie)

Wednesday is the start of Lent, the season that leads to our commemoration of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. He said, ‘Take up your cross.’ (Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23) It is not something you go looking for in faraway places. Sooner or later the Lord hands us a cross, and our job is to recognise it. For each of us there are events that made a difference. Our sorrowful mysteries will be different for each of us. Maybe it was a meeting with a friend, a lover or an enemy. Maybe it was a sickness, or a triumph. We try to see our life through the eyes of faith, with a confidence that God in his Providence can draw good out of the most awful and unwelcome happenings.

These are powerful words to consider as we approach the start of Lent this Wednesday.

• Where is your cross to bear?
• What in your life seems like an unending struggle? There may be a deep invitation to abide in Christ through a regular death (Romans 12 calls it the wonderfully paradoxical term of a ‘living sacrifice’) to this struggle, especially if it isn’t naturally something that can change with normal adjustments.
• Do you believe–in your heart of hearts–that God can draw good out of the most awful of deaths? I know this is something I often do not buy. The Resurrection is incredible–but I want resurrection in my own life. Yet in some sense, I must claim this reality, and there I am at fault–for I often enjoy complaining about the non-resurrection in my life as opposed to living in God’s empowerment with Him into a new life (C.S. Lewis carries the idea in many of his writings of ‘leading with the body to train the mind and heart to respond to God in willing obedience,’ which I think is the idea at play here).