Speaker 1: Every religion in the world has a symbol, a sign at the center of worship that tells the world what they stand for.
Speaker 1: If you step into a Buddhist temple, you will see Buddha there seated in silence, a reminder that the path is about detachment and interior calm.
Speaker 1: If you enter a Jewish synagogue, you will see the place of honor given to the Torah scrolls kept in a sacred cabinet called the Aaron HaKodesh or the Holy Ark.
Speaker 1: That space proclaims to every visitor that the word of God at the heart of every Jewish man and woman is faith and life.
Speaker 1: And then, if you step into a Christian church anywhere in the world, you will see not a throne, not a crown of glory or even a book of the Bible enthroned.
Speaker 1: What you will see is a cross At the very center of our faith is not glory, not triumph, not comfort, but the cross, the place of sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Well for us?
Speaker 1: Because the resurrection means nothing unless we first pass through the cross.
Speaker 1: We are not about suffering for suffering's sake.
Speaker 1: But Christianity does not escape suffering, it transforms it.
Speaker 1: That's why Jesus speaks so starkly in today's gospel.
Speaker 1: Gospel he says if anyone comes to me without hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, or even his own life, cannot be my disciple.
Speaker 1: Whoever does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Speaker 1: Of course he's not telling us to despise our families.
Speaker 1: He's not telling us to hate anyone.
Speaker 1: He's saying nothing, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: Not even the most sacred bonds of family, not even wealth, not power, not even life itself can come before him, before a relationship with him.
Speaker 1: It's not vague spirituality, it's a breathtaking claim that one no other teacher in history has ever made.
Speaker 1: A guru might say listen, follow this path.
Speaker 1: If you follow this path, I will teach you some great things.
Speaker 1: Or a philosopher may say adopt my teachings.
Speaker 1: If you follow this path, I will teach you some great things.
Speaker 1: Or a philosopher may say adopt my teachings If you adopt them.
Speaker 1: But what does Jesus say?
Speaker 1: Love me.
Speaker 1: Love me more than anything else in the world.
Speaker 1: And if he is who he says he is, then there's no middle ground.
Speaker 1: The book of Revelation warns the church in Laodicea.
Speaker 1: He says you are neither hot or cold, because you are lukewarm.
Speaker 1: I will spit you out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: Lukewarm Christianity admires Jesus from afar but never really follows him to the cross.
Speaker 1: Lukewarm faith wants blessings without surrender.
Speaker 1: And yet surrender is exactly what he's asking for Carry your cross and follow me.
Speaker 1: So what does that look like for us?
Speaker 1: Well, for some it's persevering through great illness without losing one's faith.
Speaker 1: For others, it's forgiving when forgiveness seems impossible, resisting bitterness or praying when prayer feels dry or you're not in the mood to pray.
Speaker 1: For some, it means giving up everything.
Speaker 1: There's a new film that will be out soon.
Speaker 1: It's called Triumph of the Heart.
Speaker 1: It's about the life of St Maximilian Kolbe.
Speaker 1: It's going to be released, I think, september 12th.
Speaker 1: I'll be going on September 18th it's a Thursday night if you want to join me there.
Speaker 1: But with that film in mind, let me tell you what it means to carry your cross by using St Maximilian Colby as an example.
Speaker 1: St Maximilian Colby was a Franciscan priest who was imprisoned in Auschwitz during World War II.
Speaker 1: Life there, as you know, was a cross Hunger, forced labor, brutality.
Speaker 1: Yet Colby became a beacon of hope for everyone there, whispering confessions, sharing his meager food with others, reminding those that even in hell, god was present.
Speaker 1: One day, after a prisoner escaped, the guards chose ten men at random to die in a starvation bunker.
Speaker 1: One of them, a husband and father, collapsed in anguish, shouting out please know, I have a wife and I have children.
Speaker 1: And in that very moment Colby stepped forward, removed his cap and said to the commander I am a Catholic priest, I do not have a wife or children, I will take his place.
Speaker 1: The guards agreed.
Speaker 1: It was probably the very first time that anyone had volunteered to die In that underground bunker.
Speaker 1: Something miraculous happened, and all of this are firsthand testimonies.
Speaker 1: Where there's usually cursing and despair, there was around-the-clock prayers.
Speaker 1: Where there was wailing, there was song.
Speaker 1: Colby led the men in hymns and rosaries until they would die one by one.
Speaker 1: After two weeks, only Colby remained gaunt, but prayerful, unbroken.
Speaker 1: The guards became impatient and they ended his life with a lethal injection.
Speaker 1: Colby's cross was no metaphor.
Speaker 1: It was hunger, it was thirst, humiliation and ultimately death.
Speaker 1: Yet it did not destroy him.
Speaker 1: It transfigured him.
Speaker 1: His cross became Christ's cross and his death became love's triumph.
Speaker 1: The man he saved lived to see his wife and children again, and the church proclaimed Colby a saint, a martyr of charity, a witness that to carry the cross is not to be crushed but to become Christ for others.
Speaker 1: And here's the astonishing part the man whose life Colby saved, franciscus Jaschanoske, lived many more years.
Speaker 1: He returned home to his wife and children.
Speaker 1: He never stopped telling the story of how a priest had saved his life.
Speaker 1: And in 1982, when Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian Kolbe there in St Peter's Square, francescus, was there an old man standing among the crowd giving testimony simply by his presence.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine what it must have been like to look upon the altar that day and know that you were alive because another man had carried your cross for you?
Speaker 1: Colby's sacrifice was not just remembered, it bore fruit.
Speaker 1: Reminds us that when we embrace the cross, it does not end in death.
Speaker 1: It leads to resurrection, to hope, to life renewed, not only for us but for others.
Speaker 1: Now, most of us will not be asked to lay down our lives in some dramatic martyrdom, not be asked to lay down our lives in some dramatic martyrdom, but every single one of us has a cross to carry.
Speaker 1: Some of those crosses may be very heavy.
Speaker 1: Sometimes those crosses may be hidden or just ordinary.
Speaker 1: The daily burdens, the disappointments, the wounds that we carry in silence, those are real crosses.
Speaker 1: And I must tell you, as your pastor, my heart is never far from some of our parishioners who right now, in this very moment, are carrying extraordinary pain.
Speaker 1: Their crosses are immense pain.
Speaker 1: Their crosses are immense Sickness, loss, financial problems, heartbreak, personal life or death, struggles, struggles that would crush anyone.
Speaker 1: I think of them every day, I pray for them every day.
Speaker 1: It breaks my heart to see their suffering and yet their faith humbles me.
Speaker 1: Their courage reminds me, and it should remind all of us, that the cross is real and it is present here among us today.
Speaker 1: So the question comes to us today as urgent as it was when Jesus was giving this lesson back 2,000 years ago Will you follow him only when it's easy?
Speaker 1: Will you walk away and blame him when things get rough?
Speaker 1: Or will you follow only when it costs nothing?
Speaker 1: Or will you go in all in loving him above all else, carrying whatever cross he places on your shoulders?
Speaker 1: Do not misunderstand me.
Speaker 1: The cross is not about despising one's life or one's family.
Speaker 1: It's about loving Christ first and above everything and anyone, so that you may love your family, your friends, your world more fully in him.
Speaker 1: It's about ordering your loves in the only way that leads to life.
Speaker 1: The world doesn't need polite admirers of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We have enough secret service Catholics.
Speaker 1: We don't need any more.
Speaker 1: It does not need Catholics who are half in and half out lukewarm faith.
Speaker 1: The world is starving for witnesses, men and women who burn with the fire of Christ's love, that are able to say this is what Christ has done in my life, and I want to share it with you.
Speaker 1: The cross is not a symbol of defeat.
Speaker 1: It is a sign of victory.
Speaker 1: It is not despair but hope.
Speaker 1: It's the way that we embrace it, it's the way that we're able to carry it.
Speaker 1: It is the door to eternal life.
Speaker 1: So today, my brothers and sisters, stand before the cross, look at the cross with fresh eyes, look at the corpus of Jesus on that cross, hear his voice still echo and say whoever does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Speaker 1: Not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Speaker 1: And then let your heart answer him with everything it has to say yes, lord, I will follow you.
Speaker 1: Yes, lord, I will carry my cross.
Speaker 1: Yes, lord, I love you.
Speaker 1: I will not turn my back on you.
Speaker 1: My eyes are fixed on you because you are my Savior, the one I love above everything else.
Speaker 1: Amen.