Jesus Foretells His Death

Carrying the Cross has become a sign of discipleship. One who offers his cross i.e suffering, challenges, difficulties, state of life to the Lord and follows him, is a true disciple of Jesus. To say the same in other words, ‘someone who with the things that make him happy and unhappy, comes before God, and seeks a relationship with Him, and still opens his heart to bear the weight of the unsatisfactory things in his life’, is a disciple. ‘Carry your own cross daily and follow Me’, is the invitation Jesus is giving to us all, but we are lost in this world and our daily worldly affairs. We try to remedy these by our worldly abilities trying to remove the weight of our crosses, trying to straighten it and be winners in front of everyone (world). Jesus is present with us in the open invitation He gives us, to follow Him with our crosses.

In the Gospels Jesus is speaking to us about his own sufferings, rejection and death. How the elders, chief priests, and scribes treated Him. He finally speaks of his Resurrection. The Resurrection is the Blessing, courage and strength given for his disciples. We have an opportunity to discern and make the choice to save ourselves; doing so without Him, in our own worldly understanding, we will gain /win the world, but not life and not Jesus. To approach Jesus, and let Him take control of our lives, is like dying, because, we give up everything we think is right and wrong, what we think, why we think, and how we think. We become devoid of what we know to be ‘me’. Then is the time Jesus gives us His understanding of things, this is the NEW ‘me’ – because this is the proper way to be in a relationship with God – thus we have gain our life.

Holy Spirit help us in our discernment, strengthen us in our sufferings, be with us in our losing and in our victories.