When Burden Becomes Joy

Mark 8:34-35 (NABRE): The Sacrifice of Discipleship

[Jesus] summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it."

She was 85 and wheelchair bound, gnarled hands rolling a paper napkin into a tight ball at the pit of her palm. He was her elder by three years; they shared the same birthday, just different years.

He patiently pushed her wheelchair down the aisles of the supermarket.

“Pick me up; put me down,” she repeated with a cadence that kept time with the clock. Her face expressed vacancy.

He recalled a time ten years ago. Lying in a hospital bed, his body forty pounds lighter, he looked at her holding his hand and thought, This is love; in the throws of cancer, she stays by my side with the same devoted commitment that I remember on the night of our engagement. She was his strength, praying with him each day through the pain, wiping his mouth after feedings, holding his hand each night as he drifted off to sleep.

They approached the produce aisle. She always loved the smell of fresh greens and the pungent sweetness of ripening, in-season fruit. “Pick me up; put me down,” she repeated in predictable cadence.

The dementia had taken over her mind, robbing her of any faculties, memories, or recognition. But that didn’t matter to him. Their lives were one, and he promised her on that day 60 years ago to be at her side, in sickness and in health.

Love is a painful sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice of beauty and infinite reward. When we learn to let ourselves go for the love of the other, to give all that we have in body, mind, and spirit, we will feel pain. But the outcome of that pain is the most beautiful rebirth. We are born into creatures of love. Our lives given for the other transform us into a beauteous new being. Giving our lives away in love, exemplifies what Jesus says in this week’s gospel: “Whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” The “saving,” in this sense, is not out of the fear of hell. It is, instead, a saving of the other, a saving of life, a saving of the world. Lives transformed by love are contagious. People see and desire it. Let us, then, be reborn in love.

Jesus reminds us to look deeply into our own lives for the sacrifices we are called to give, the grace self-giving of love. Is it within our families, our careers, or our friendships? The crosses we take up are not as they may initially appear, burdens. But through our struggles, these crosses bloom into the sweet rewards of deep, self-giving love.

Heavenly Father, we offer our lives to you. Use us as instruments of love to those people close in our lives, no matter the personal cost. Kindly grant us the grace of transformative love so that we can give life to those who suffer. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan