Pick up Your Cross: A Letter

Dear friend, 

Being a saint does not consist of great and marvelous deeds or being angelically perfect.  We are called, each and every one of us, to become saints by picking up our crosses daily and following the greatest teacher there ever was.  Even He stumbled and fell under the crushing weight of the cross.  We cannot do more than Him.   We will fall but we most certainly can get back up again.  Our Lord is always there to pick you back up as you know how impossible it is to get back up on your own.  And He gives you friends and family too to help you.  In marriage, that's the job of your spouse.  The couple denies themselves and helps the other carry their cross.  In religious life, these people are your sisters or brothers.

Your cross is not a physical piece of wood or even a martyrdom of blood.  Your cross is the everyday struggle you encounter.  Bear these struggles patiently, humbly, and resigned knowing that God will not let you suffer more than you and He can handle together.

The path to sainthood is the path to Heaven and this path is paved with roses.  But roses have thorns.  But imagine if we gave up altogether because of the thorns.  Then we wouldn't see the beautiful roses nor smell their lovely fragrance.  Greater still, we would not reach Heaven.  So we must continually embrace these roses and thorns looking to Our Lord and Our Lady for help.  They suffered so much at the hands of this world; how can we expect any less?

Moms are wonderful.  Just imagine how Our Lady is wanting to be your mother.  St. Thérèse said,

"She is more mother than queen."

Our mothers always want what's best for us and always want to help us.  Mary wants to do the same even more.  Imagine those hands which carried the child Jesus, mended His clothes, prepared His food, and held His lifeless body as it came off the cross.  Now, Mary extends her arms to you.  These hands are open to you with so many graces.  But most especially, they're just open; open to you so you may take her hands, no matter how low you feel.  Then when you do, she will draw you under her starry blue mantle.  There, she will teach you just how to follow her beloved Son.  She will give you the graces to carry your cross. 

All this is to say,  do not despair, do not lose heart, and do not sell yourself short.  My favorite heroine of literature says,

"Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it yet."

Let us begin each day anew to pick up our crosses no matter how tedious or troublesome they may be.  There are so many saints in Heaven who have not been canonized who did not do extraordinary deeds but just followed Our Lord simply and humbly, stumbling many times along the way.  But they fought their battles bravely and that is what we must do too.

So let us soldier on, bearing our crosses and enduring those thorns while helping each other with our prayers.  You may always be assured of my prayers.

In cordibus Jesu et Mariae,

Sarah