Third Sunday of Lent (Heb. 4:14–5:6; Mk. 8:34–9:1)

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mk. 8:34).

One cannot follow the Lord who bore the Cross without bearing a cross oneself; and all who follow Him must certainly do so with a cross. What, then, is this cross? It is every manner of inconvenience, burden, and affliction—pressing from without and within—along the path of conscientiously fulfilling the Lord’s commandments in a life ordered according to His instructions and demands. Such a cross is so inseparably joined to the Christian that wherever there is a Christian, that cross is there too; and where this cross is absent, there is no Christian either. All-encompassing ease and a life of pleasures does not befit a true Christian. His task is to purify and correct himself. He is like a patient who must undergo cauterization and amputation—and how can that be done without pain? He wants to break free from captivity to a powerful enemy—and how can that happen without struggle and wounds? He must go against the grain of everything around him—and how can that be endured without inconvenience and hardship? Rejoice, then, when you feel the cross upon yourself, for it is a sign that you are following the Lord on the path of salvation toward paradise. Bear it a little longer. The end and the crowns are close at hand!