April 10, 2009

Take Up Your Cross

Statue Jesus meets His mother while carrying His Cross The stations of the cross at St Elizabeth of Hungary Church Eureka Springs AR

Take Up Your Cross

I could only manage
One step at a time
I did not see
the Grand Design
I could only summon my strength
to take the next step
to carry the cross piece
on my shoulders
until I could carry it
no longer
and they made Simon help me

I was obedient to those
who led me to Calvary
and I did nothing to protest
against their injustice and cruelty
Who recognized their Lord and their God in me?
What God would allow Himself to be treated
on such a humiliating and agonizing way?

Do you not see?
Anyone can bow down
before a God of power and majesty;
the gods of all the peoples of the world
do god-like things,
either behaving with power
to crush all opposition
and to reward their friends
with goods and honors
or behaving with great and obvious holiness,
fasting and praying without ceasing.
Satan himself behaves in a way
that many think is truly god-like

But I allowed myself to be treated
like a common criminal
despised and rejected by men,
and nailed to a cross to die.
And I ask you to follow my example
out of love for me

Every other god
is a creation of you imaginations,
yourselves written large in fantasy,
bigger better holier than you are.
But I am not interested
in your following me
for what you can get
by putting yourselves under
my lordship and protection
I want to know your hearts
do you love Me
in whatever disguise I appear to you?
And so I walk the world
in the poor, the rejected
the sick and the oppressed
Do you love me
and recognize me in them?
Take up your cross and follow me,
for only those who lose their lives for my sake
will find them...

Richard Hobbs- 2002
from"Fifteen Mysteries in the Life of Jesus"
Brother of St Paul press

Labels: Catholic, Faith, Poem, Scenic Arkansas