Monday Message, April 14, 2025

On Lent and Crosses

We are in difficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we see no answer to our problems, but never despair; we have been persecuted, but never deserted; knocked down, but never killed; always, wherever we may be, we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may always be seen in our body.
                                                            2 Corinthians, 4:8-10

The acting out of love to the extent of dying on a cross is a mystery I have never been fully able to understand. My limited ability to love stands embarrassed at such extravagance. My daily attempts falls short of my dreams. I carry my crosses carefully, trying to make sure they don’t take too much out of me.

I always leave a little pink around the edges of my crosses. I cannot bear unpleasant things. I honestly don’t know how Jesus did it! I can hardly accept WHY he did it. The why he did it always makes me feel guilty about the pink around the edges.

During Lent, at least, I’d like to let the pink go. I’d like to be content for forty days with a cross that is not pretty. But I am so young in my faith. It is hard not to cheat a little and search for soft, easy, pretty crosses.

O God of Lent, remember me. Help me to take all the clutter that I try to decorate my crosses with, all the ways I try to camouflage your death and dying because my faith has not grown enough and to look at death as it really is: an emptiness that brings me face to face with LIFE.

And yet, within my fragile, questioning heart I know that if I would ever dare get close enough to dying, to death, it would fall over into life.

O God of Lent, Your love has opened my eyes. It is my own pink edged crosses that have broken my heart.

But your cross has saved me.

Seasons of Your Heart
Macrina Wiederkehr