Carrying My Cross

During this Holy Week there is much attention given to The Cross. Back in early December, I had the opportunity to venerate a relic of the True Cross. Once a month the Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulcher make this veneration possible at our cathedral, which is my parish. I wanted to sit and pray in front of this relic before my surgery so that I would be ready to face my fifth abdominal surgery in eight years. I’ve been contemplating The Cross, and my own cross.

“Anyone who wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” This is not easy to do. The three parts of Our Lord’s instructions are equally difficult. Each component challenges me to stretch and grow. In the past I had not had the luxury of preparation, but this time I had about three weeks. I know that these health issues have served as training ground for me. Like a soldier, I am practicing battle. Sometimes the practice becomes very real. I want to be ready for the life and death challenges that lie ahead. I’ve tried to live the past few months in this world but not entirely of it. Quite the juggling act of day to day living and the reality of my third occurrence of cancer.

Deny yourself. It’s about putting things in the right order. Illness provides the temptation to become selfish; it can throw one’s mindset off kilter. What should be first often becomes last. But JOY is Jesus, Others, then You. I get that. It’s become a life mantra for me. But it is also about delaying gratification. Purposefully putting off my own desires. This I struggle with in many ways. I see it in my vulnerability to sloth and gluttony. I do, eat, and consume what I want—like so many Americans. I don’t intentionally delay much. I need to do that more. Less indulgence; more penitential acts. More fasting. There is much to learn from this denyinof self. “JOY comes in the morning.” It isn’t instantaneous. Dawn needs to learn this more.

Pick up your cross. How do I pick up my cross? Some people hold theirs away from their body by two fingers, like it is a dirty diaper. Some drag it behind them like Linus’s blanket or a ball and chain. Others pick it up and throw it forward. Still others will try to change it—cut it up, whittle it down, or split it into more manageable sections. Some people try to hire others to carry it, foisting the weight of their cross on someone else.

How do I carry my cross? When I had a ruptured appendix during Covid I had a wound that would not heal. I contemplated this stubborn wound and the Wound in Christ’s Side. Jesus asked me, “What of my wound, Dawn?” when I asked Him to heal my wound and my cancer. I thought on this for many months. I still don’t have an answer for Jesus. Maybe, like St. Thomas, I am still putting my hand in His Wound to come to understand His Resurrection? I think it is good that I am still meditating on it. Delaying an answer continues my dialogue with Christ. Time spent on this question is time spent with Jesus. That is what He wants from me. So, it is good to not have an answer now or even tomorrow. I need to spend time with Christ and His Wounds.

Since my surgery in December and on into Lent this year, I am focused on my cross. What is my cross and how do I carry it? The second part first. Two friends of mine from Catholic Match taught me that marriage is a cross. I had never heard that before until their wedding day. It was completely foreign concept. The custom of the Croatian Marriage Crucifix seems fitting for my journey now. When my friends wed, they carried in together a Crucifix that was given to them when they got engaged by the priest who received their vows. They carried it in between them to the altar, and it now hangs in their home.

How is marriage their cross? First, we have to see what Christ’s Cross means for us. The Rood is our path to salvation. “Lord, by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.” How can marriage, a beautiful, desirous, and loving sacrament, be a cross to carry? As I watched this couple embrace their marriage and their cross, I marvel at this mystery. I was single when they wed and did not understand the true nature of marriage. But I came to better understand the marriage crucifix on my own wedding day. Just after the Mass, this couple sadly shared with me at the foot of the altar that they had very recently suffered a miscarriage of their first child. Still grieving, they did not feel up to attending our reception, but they wanted to celebrate our wedding day. Marriage is tough. It is sacrificial. It involves painful losses. It’s beautiful and loving and graceful, but it is hard work, gritty, painful, heartbreaking, and grueling. Now in my own marriage I see the marriage cross. Both Daniel and I have made sacrifices, have denied ourselves, in order to live a faithful, sacramental marriage. We pick up our cross of marriage when we are tired, angry, or hurt, frustrated and scared.

And how do I want to carry my cross—whether it be my health, my marriage, my whole self?  I think I want to carry it like St. Kateri Tekakwitha. She cradles the cross in this statue at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI. She lovingly holds this cross like it is the Christ Child Himself. A woman well acquainted with suffering and self-denial, she understood Christ’s command to deny one’s self, pick up one’s cross, and follow Him. That’s how I want to carry my cross, close to my heart so that I become one with it.