DAILY CROSS

We can always hold on to God’s words and promise. We will never be disappointed if we hope in God who will surely prove that everything about His words are true. Amen. Hallelujah!

Sirach 36:1, 4-5, 10-17
...Give evidence of your deeds of old; fulfill the prophecies spoken in your name, 15 reward those who have hoped in you, and let your prophets be proved true. 16 Hear the prayer of your servants, for you are ever gracious to your people; 17 thus it will be known to the very ends of the earth that you are the eternal God.

There is no doubt that the Lord will show us the right path if we go to Him at all times. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalms 79:8, 9, 11, 13
R: Show us, O Lord, the light of your kindness.
...Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; through all generations we will declare your praise.

Today’s gospel is the 3rd time in Mark’s that Jesus mentioned about His prediction of His Cross. This one being the strongest as He said, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death, but after three days he will rise.” The whole point here is that Jesus saves the world through His passion, death and resurrection and the disciples are to share with Him in this Paschal Mystery. This is the point that we miss, James and John are no different for they did not understand. They wanted to be seated in the right and left or be in a position of authority and power. We recall in Luke 9:54, When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?" We can see from here that they want success and domination. Somehow we can not blame them for thinking this way. They have been obedient servants and had witnessed the transfiguration. They are especially close to Jesus that they had aspired for these great things. There was a misunderstanding of Jesus’ teachings. Pope Benedict XVI said in his book that we are to aspire for one thing that is the sharing in His Passion without expecting anything in return. We should not think of what we can get out of it and search for power and success. It is not about dominating and wielding authority like what most people look for in the world. The heart of Christianity is in giving of ourselves. When we do things in our life like providing for our children, sometimes the routine of it all becomes so tiring. We have to realize that it’s the path to holiness. Our service done in a disinterested way without expecting anything in return should be the mindset of Christians. We follow the example of Jesus who drunk the cup filled by our sins. As in Isaiah 53:4-5, “Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.” The way of the cross that we experience in our lives is determined by God. It is the Father’s will that we follow as we abandon ourselves to God. We conform ourselves to His will because our path is not something we engineered but something that we follow in accordance to God’s will. We can glory in our infirmities in bearing our daily cross in union with our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Hallelujah!


Mark 10:32-45
...whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; 44 whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”