28 June 2026

28 June 2026 - Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Transcript

Reading:  

Matthew 10:38

Write:  

…whoever does not take up his cross 
 and follow after me is not worthy of me.

Reflect:   

What is the image of the cross? How was the cross looked at in Jesus’ day? How is it looked at today? I think these three questions need to be answered by every heart that seeks to follow Jesus.

Let me start with the middle question first. In Jesus’ day, the cross was an instrument of death. The disciples would have heard Jesus speak about taking up the cross as a way of being willing to die for him. This would have become very real for them after the Passion. They would have recalled Jesus telling them to take up the cross, but they would have also remembered that he had endured the cross. The cross was an instrument of a humiliation and painful death. Roman citizens were not executed on a cross. They were typically executed by the sword – as St. Paul was. But tradition tells us that half of the twelve apostles were crucified. And only one of them died of “natural causes.”

So, are we willing to face … … death for Jesus? I have used this way of describing all of this in the past: instead of “taking up the cross,” maybe as Christians we should carry a single-shot pistol; if anyone asks us if we are Christians and we say yes and they ask us for our pistol because they are going to shoot us because we are Christians, we need to hand it to them. How is that for a challenge? I think this is one way to look at the cross the way the disciples would have seen it. That is not a very comfortable way to look at things, is it?

But let’s look at the third question now. How do people look at the cross today? Or, better yet, let us back it up to… say… the fourth century when Christianity became an accepted way of life. There were no longer very many immediate deaths of Christians – just because they were Christian. But the early church held onto… oh, let’s call it an idealized image of martyrdom. These early post-Roman empire Christians felt a call to give their lives for Jesus. But the government no longer wanted to kill them. So, the idea of the white martyrdom instead of the red martyrdom came into our Christian heritage. Some historians suggest that this is how we ended up with hermits and then the monastic form of living a Christian life. You gave up everything that was yours “for the sake of the gospel.” Some stories of the early monastic period tell of the need to stop some people from going into the monastery because society was becoming too much oriented toward this white martyrdom. This even spawned some heresies that said marriage and the things of this world were somehow bad.

In one sense, this was a response to wanting to follow Jesus to and through the cross. Personally, I could never be a hermit or a monk. I know these are valid forms of following Jesus, but they are not for me. Thank God there are multiple ways of living out the truth of the gospel. But every life has its own crosses to bear.

This reminds me of my dad’s story. It was shortly after his dad died and my dad was left taking care of his grandmother and her house, his mother and her house, his wife with five kids and our house and he had three jobs. He was in church at St. Mary’s and he asked God why he had given him all of this. My dad said he looked up at the crucifix above the Tabernacle and he saw the body of Jesus change. The arms came loose from the cross, Jesus’ head came up from death, Jesus looked at him with his arms stretched out toward him, then returned to the normal look of the crucifix. My dad understood this to mean that all that he was enduring was the way that Jesus was calling him to his own cross. That changed the way my dad lived. Was it imagination or a spiritual vision? I know what my dad believed and, and I believe the same. Was my dad some sort of a mystic? He was just an ordinary Catholic firefighter. 

I think events like this are far more common than we are led to believe. If you looked through your life, I am sure – I am sure – you have had some sort of experience like this, or you will have if you are serious about following Jesus. Jesus wants us all to have this kind of an experience. He longs to share his cross with us; that does not necessarily mean pain and suffering, but it does mean giving our lives in service to him. This is what taking up the cross – today – would mean. That answers the third question.

What is the image of the cross? I doubt it means wearing some twelve-inch, twenty-pound cross around your neck. I doubt it means going out and trying to get yourself killed in the name of Christ. I do believe it means offering our daily lives into the service of the King. 

Will that mean giving up goals and ambitions? Will it mean facing some things we would rather not? The answer to those two questions is emphatically: yes! Following Christ has a price.

As St. Paul asks the Romans today, “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

As Jesus said in Mark’s gospel: “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.” 

This is both a promise and a warning. “Take up your cross” should be expected to include some form of persecution. It may be as limited as attacks from the devil to try to discourage us from following Jesus. It may be much more. But it could come in as simple a way as a father providing for his family – like my dad did. Or it could come in the extreme of red martyrdom – like it did for eleven of the apostles.

What will your cross be? What has it been? What are you willing to carry?

And again, I return to something I have asked many times: what is your story? How has Jesus asked you to carry a cross? If you know your story, it makes it easier to carry that cross. And if you know it is the cross Jesus has asked of you, knowing and telling the story will not be an issue of pride. Knowing your story – knowing your cross – means knowing Jesus and where you fit in his kingdom.

Another way to put this is: this is the freedom of the cross.

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