Your cross and self denial

[spencer2]

What did Jesus mean by denying yourself and carrying your cross daily? Please give examples and maybe personal experiences to help me better understand if I am carrying my cross.

 

[lil_flower_luv]

Hi, perhaps this thread will help a bit?

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=10710

God bless

 

[White_Peony]

My cross is living with Protestants. I must receive persecution daily lovingly and not retaliate or seek revenge. I should be silent to it as Jesus was silent during his persecution.

 

[fisherman_carl]

The cross is what Jesus was crucified on. What are our crosses? What sufferings do we endure for the sake of Christ and His Church? I think sometimes the cross can be that thing that we dont want to do but Christ is calling us to do anyway. Our nature is to resist. Jesus call us to deny ourselves and do it anyway.

We are called to love our neighbor, even our enemies. We are called to forgive those who have wronged us. We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless. We are called to give up comforts and attachments to things and even people for the sake of the kingdom. Our will must die unless it is to do God’s will. We must lay everything at Jesus’ feet and look to him as our provider and our reward.

 

[spencer2]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[fred_conty]

What did Jesus mean by denying yourself and carrying your cross daily? Please give examples and maybe personal experiences to help me better understand if I am carrying my cross.

Here is a message to the three children delivered from Mary when she appeared to them
at Fatima.

“Pray, pray a great deal, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have noone to make sacrifices and pray for them.”

A lot of things can go under the heading of carrying the cross.
This is symbolic for all the inconvienices and problems you face every day.
The sickness, headaches, tiredness, work, boredom, monontony, family difficulties,
dissatisfaction, loneliness, bill collectors, disagreements, hostilities, temptations,
bitterness, misunderstandings, mechanical, wheather, bugs, leaks, housework,
auto, and above all, the infamous “honey do” list. And to this could be added so much
more.

Now we might want to add from time to time fasting, and abstinenance, whether
part of the day or all day long. Then also last but not least, prayer, which can
take on several forms.

Many have the practise of starting off first thing after rising from bed, to make an
act of contrition followed by the morning offering. The morning offering is the intention of giving all of the above to our dear Lord Jesus thru the hands and heart of his mother.
So we would say that “I offer you all my works, sufferings, prayers, and thoughts, to you
Jesus out of Love, thru the hands and heart of your most holy Mother Mary. to please you
in all that I do this day.” Thus we fulfill the words of Jesus, “pray always.” For now all that we do becomes something pleasing because we offered everything to Him.
And we should also keep in mind what Our Lady said at Fatima,"…to make sacrificies for
sinners."

Just a thought.

 

[bogeydogg]

To be part of the Church is to take up the Body of Christ in mystical union. To be in the Body of Christ and to receive it in mass is to take also its sufferings. That is why Paul says he fills up Christ’s sufferings and Peter rejoiced to suffer for the Lord. To be in Christ is to be as Christ was in his body, acquainted with suffering and peoples of sorrow. But blessed are we when we suffer for righteousness sake. And we, like Christ, must bear it as our calling despising its shame for the joy set before us because we will inherit a crown of incorruption when we put off this life and take on the Life which is Life when the Lord returns.

So take up your cross and deny yourself. Live as though your right hand is ignorant of the complaints of your left. Walk a second mile and give your tunic when asked for your cloak. Love your enemy who hates you and uses you and pray for him when he does so. Go into the world and love Christ more than your life because by this love you will show the world you are his. When you have done all that you can remember that you are an unprofitable servant and that Christ on your behalf has given a greater and far more precious life than anything you have laid down for him so be poor in spirit but not wretched in expression because you have given up nothing when compared to what you have been given.

God Bless

 

[hazcompat]

ewtn.com/library/Montfort/lfcross.htm

A. Greatness of Your Title

1. You call yourselves “Friends of the Cross.” What a glorious title! I must confess that I am charmed and captivated by it. It is brighter than the sun, higher than the heavens, more magnificent and resplendent than all the titles given to kings and emperors. It is the glorious title of Jesus Christ, true God and true man. It is the genuine title of a Christian.
2. But, if I am captivated by its splendour, I am no less frightened by its responsibility, for it is a title that embraces difficult and inescapable obligations, summed up in the words of the Holy Spirit, “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people set apart.”

A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God, from among thousands who live only according to their reason and senses, to be wholly divine, raised above mere reason and completely opposed to material things, living in the light of pure faith, and inspired by a deep love of the Cross.

A Friend of the Cross is an all-powerful king, a champion who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh in their three-fold concupiscence. He crushes the pride of Satan by his love of humiliations; he overcomes the greed of the world by his love of poverty; he retrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love of suffering.

A Friend of the Cross is one who is holy and set apart from the things that are visible, for his heart is raised above all that is transient and perishable, and his homeland is in heaven; he travels through this world like a visitor and a pilgrim, and, far from setting his heart on it, he looks on it with indifference and tramples it underfoot with contempt.

peace