I regularly take up a cross. As an altar server, as often as not I carry the cross in procession. I stand at the end of the main aisle, holding a cross that is taller than I am by half and weighty enough to feel it in my shoulders as I raise it up so that it can be seen above the heads of the assembly. And as I lead the procession down the aisle I cannot help but think about the less literal crosses that I will have to lift in my life. Will they make my shoulders ache, will I be able to balance them as I walk, where must I take them?
My eyes go to the enormous painting of Christ crucified that hangs above the century-old marble altar in my parish church. Each time I hold the cross aloft I am brought face-to-face with Christ’s suffering, face-to-face with Christ in the tabernacle, face-to-face with Christ in the People of God assembled here. I walk without a hymnal, so the only words I have to take along for this journey are what are already in my heart and head. I will surely falter on the second verse. Clothed in white, a reminder of my baptismal garment, hands and face raised up, I walk. I walk toward God made flesh, toward boundless mercy. Will this be what my last walk be like, from this life into the next? Stripped of words and pretenses, face-to-face with God and surrounded by those who have gone before me — praying not to falter?
Take up your cross, says Christ, and follow me, for this is the road to eternal life and I will not let you fall.
— Excerpted from Not By Bread Alone (2020), Michelle M. Francl-Donnay
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