Friday of Week 18 – Nahum 2:1.3; 3,1-3.6-7; Deuteronomy 32:35-36,39,41; Matthew 16:24-28

In the Gospel today is: “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me”. 

Renounce himself? Not everything. I reckon it’s just saying “no” to the part my of selfish “I”. Take up the cross? It’s not necessarily about suffering but about faithful obedience to God wholeheartedly. To follow Jesus? It’s this fidelity to God to the end of life. Despite all the hardships on this road. Because this is the only way I keep my life for eternal life.

In Christianity, it’s not about how many hours I spend in prayer or in pious reading or how loudly or ecstatically I worship. It’s more about what kind of person I am. Whether I follow Jesus carrying the cross, or abandoning it . . .

Someone once said that at the end of the human road there is an abyss. And our cross will be the footbridge with which we will be able to overcome it and enter eternity.