“Are Your Burdens Heavy?”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
July 4 – 5, 2020
Scripture: Matthew 11: 25-30
Our Lord says unless you take up your cross every day, you cannot follow Me. “Cross” means all those trials He has given us. Now, crosses can come from a lot of places. Some come from heredity…from our families. My family gave me, and many of its members, an incredibly heavy cross. Each day, I have to deal with it, and each day, I cry about it. It’s a curse. The good Lord gave my family incredible good looks and no money. It’s a heavy cross to carry and one that has greatly troubled me for the past 67 years. What a horrible curse! But, we all have crosses, and some of them are of our own making like overindulging and smoking. And, even though we stop those bad habits, remnants of them remain. We all have fallen short. We get crosses from our families through genetics. We also get crosses from our family’s dysfunction, and some are more dysfunctional than others. The word “dysfunction” means not perfect. By definition you are a fallen human being if you are not in the Garden of Eden. We have all fallen short of the glory of God, so we are all a bit dysfunctional. Some families seem to be over-achievers in this area for one reason or another. However, it may not be our parents’ fault, but their parents’ fault as they were growing up. We just don’t know. Unfortunately, that dysfunction gets passed down to their children. I was blessed with great parents, and the only crosses they gave me were my two idiot brothers. Some crosses are imposed on us by others. These are the crosses we carry. Our Lord allows the crosses we get from the living, but some of our crosses come from our own sin and excesses in life. Our crosses can be physical, internal, or external. External ones are those you can see. As you get older, you will probably get more external crosses. They affect us all. Our Lord allows us to carry these crosses, but He also gives us the means to bear them by offering us Himself.
We can effectively whine to our good lord. We are men not angels, and our crosses may really feel too heavy for us. Saint Teresa of Avila said, “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few.” Saint Paul whined, cried, and complained. The Lord said, “My grace and my power will never leave you. The purpose of this cross is so that you can unite your suffering with Christ.” We make this our prayer; to unite our suffering with His. We bear in our body our own crosses and the crosses of others. In doing so, we are imitating Him. But, He also gives us the means to carry those crosses. Ask anyone who has been successful in a 12-step program. They say it’s an easy 12 steps. Complete the 12 steps, and you won’t need the drugs anymore. “No! Anything but that!” They aren’t ready to surrender. After they’ve been in the program for a while they say, “Why did I wait so long!” Life is much better, because they are not plagued with temptations.
God holds out His palms to us; He says come to Me; lay down all your sins; give them to Me. He also offers His most precious body, blood, soul, and divinity to give us the strength to carry our crosses and those of others. Some people are ambitious for holiness, and they take on the crosses of others because of their great love for God. However, that can become irritating after a while, because we feel put upon. Or, we may be a good parent and willing to take on the crosses of our children by giving them bail money. We take care of our relatives, but sometimes it may be a friend or somebody we don’t even know. Be very careful when taking on someone’s cross. One of my friends had the flu. Hey, I’m a soldier, I can handle this…I wear a 101st patch. So, my friend’s cross was transferred to me. The next day I was sick as a dog! So, be careful when asking to carry someone else’s cross, because you don’t know what you’re going to get. Our good Lord says that is our love being purified.
We cry and moan about our crosses; I cry about mine but, in reality, they are just right. In life, our crosses come and go, and we get other ones. Hopefully, the drama of the teenage years has passed for you. But, you will get new crosses tomorrow. Saint Teresa of Avila, a doctor of the Church, complained to the Lord about her cross; and she was quite adamant about it. “Please, anything but this cross! I know better than you, Lord.” Okay, fine. You want it? You got it. So, He took that cross away from her and gave her another one. Real bad move. She told the Lord; “Yeah, you were right.” You know better than God? Okay! We have to be humble with our crosses. These are the ones that will get us to heaven.
Yes, most people’s crosses are painful. Mine are also painful, and I’ve spent a lot of time crying about them. Everybody’s crosses are painful; so let’s just end that argument. “Father, you don’t know the trouble I’ve seen.” I’ve got my own troubles, okay? But, the question is, do we use the means available to us to carry them and to strengthen our souls? The Lord says of our crosses, “I will help you.” He never gives us a task or offers us an opportunity without giving us the means to accomplish it. We come to Him, weak, weary, and burdened. We all are, otherwise you wouldn’t be here – you don’t have to be here – on a Sunday during COVID. You don’t have to be at Mass, but you come for Christ’s love. You get the strength to carry your crosses through the Sacrament of Penance. We say a prayer, and we open our hearts to the good Lord. By the way…it’s okay to complain about your crosses. You know why? Because when you do, you are practicing the three theological virtues…faith, hope, and charity. Because you know that someone is listening and that you aren’t just talking to the wall…that’s an act of faith. Because you believe in God and that He will give you a good hearing…that’s hope. Because of His nature which is love, He will grant what you ask from Him….that’s charity. You believe He will help you, not because of your merits, but because of your love (prayer). I could never ask for anything based on my merit; that’s not a good negotiating tool for me. Instead, He does it out of charity. “I love you so much that I sent my only son so that you could have eternal life. I will help you, because I love you.”
How will you apply this message to your life? If your burdens heavy are heavy, ask for God’s help. He is waiting….