The Way of the Cross - Who am I?

In meditating on the Way of the Cross today, I thought about all the people who were there and who am I in that crowd.  You have the crowd itself, noisy, enjoying the spectacle, yelling and not thinking.  When am I these people?  I am them when I go along with the crowd, when I don't really think about what is going on I don't think about what I am doing to those who are effected.  When I am racist or prejudice, I am part of the crowd jeering at Christ.  I am not thinking, just going along with everyone else.  I am not loving at that moment and I dont even realize it.  I am enjoying myself, feeling smug and happy I am not the person being whipped.  I am part of the crowd when I gossip.  I don't know why the person I see is being whipped but I am glad it isn't me and I encourage those around me to focus on the one whipped so they don't turn and see me.  When I am part of the crowd no one can pick me out, I can act and no one can point to me and say it her, she did it, I am invisible.

When am I a Roman Soldier?  When I don't care about anyone but myself.  I have a job to do and it has to be done, I don't care how it effects you.  I can hide behind following orders.  At work this is when I say I am just following policy.  I could listen to you and have sympathy for you but I am tired and I just want to get my job done.  I am a Roman Soldier when I lash out at someone, especially physically.  I just want to get this done, I don't want to listen to you!  I want to get home so I cut you off in traffic.  I want you to go to bed so I don't spank you for asking questions.

When am I Simon?  When I do what I know I should do, but only reluctantly.  When I don't ask if I can help but wait until you can't do without me.  I am one of the women of Jerusalem when I cry over the death of some one killed but don't do look at the reasons behind it.  I can cry over those killed by the death penalty but I don't see the racism behind it and work to Ed that then I am a woman of Jerusalem.

I am Joseph and Nicodemus when I hide my faith around those who do not believe.  When I don't speak up and I do give witness.  I am the Pharasees when care more about the rules than I do for people.  When I pride myself on my observances and forget to do good works.

When I walk the way of the cross, I see myself everywhere except in the person of Christ and his mother.  I am all of them at times.  I am the reason He carries the Cross and because I continue to be those people, He continues to carry that Cross for me.  He continues to love me and I continue to add weight to his cross.  He keeps saving me and I keep killing Him.

Suffering

When I look at how Christ suffered and how some of the Saints suffered, I realize I don't take suffering very well.  When I suffer I get mad or feel sorry for myself, it's all about me.  Many of the Saints rejoiced at suffering, it was something they shared with Christ.  Christ suffered for the people who were causing his suffering.  He loved the people who hurt Him.  When he saw Peter on the shore did Christ act all angry?  Did he give Peter the silent treatment?  No, He forgave Peter.

I wish I could think of the people hurting me while they are hurting me.  I could ask them if they are okay, are they hurting?  I find that is usually the case.  They are tired or upset over something and just take it out on me.  If they weren't they would say what they have to say in better way.  I doubt they know the impact of their words and really they don't know my life so usually their judgements reflect their own lives more than mine.

If only Christ would grant me the gift of remembering this when I am tired, or hungry, or scared so I wouldn't judge others, or at least give me gift of keeping my mouth shut.  If I think someone isn't giving enough time I usually find out they are taking care of a sick parent, or helpingin other ways I don't see.  If I think they should give more money I usually find they have financial constraints I know nothing about.

Debra Lord, grant me the grace to think of others while I am hurting and only of myself while I am judging.

Temptation

A couple of nights ago I was tempted in a dream.  The dream was hyper-real, I thought I was really there and not dreaming.  I was tempted to a great sin but at the end I was able to lean on God and just resist.  I woke up from that dream with a lot of shame for being so tempted.  I felt like I had already committed the sin and I worried what it meant if I hadn't resisted.

Now, from the reading this Sunday, I see that being tempted isn't a sin, giving in to sin is.  I often have dreams like this, it's like God is teaching me a lesson.  In this case I was tempted but I turned to Him and was able to resist the sin that was attracting me.

As we move toward following Christ we will be tempted.  The devil will tempted us and if we resist he will tell us just being tempted is as good as sinning so we might as well give in.  Now I am for warned.  I know I can resist with Gods help.  I think the nature of sin isn't so much the sin itself but that it distracts us from God and our purpose in life.  It draws us into ourselves and takes our eye of loving God and His creation.  Sometimes the devil does this through negative emotions, hate, anger, jealousy, sometimes through pleasure.  The devil tries to trap us in ourselves, making us ineffective for building up the kingdom.

We building up the Kingdom of God through community.  Community insulates us from the working of the devil.  Eve is tempted by herself, and Jesus goes out to the desert by himself to draw the devil to temp him.  Community can be a source of sin for us too if we are not in the right frame of mind.  If we not in a loving frame of mind all the people in the world around us can not draw us into community, we have separated ourselves from that community.  The funny thing is that when we worry about what other people are doing in our community and not what we are doing is when we separate ourselves from that community.    When we worry only about our own behavior is when we can be open to living in community with others.

Like a grain of wheat we must die to bear fruit

When I say die,I don't mean in the way that extremist do.  When I say die I mean to ourselves.  We have to let who we are die and let God transform us into what he wants us to be.  This is scary, we want to be who we are, but so does God, but God wants us to be who we really are, who he created us to be.

Dying to ourselves and our scared, selfish, lonely desires is hard.  It's like letting God strip us of our skin, our outer shell that has grown hard.  He knows that under all that hard is the real free self that is all pink and new, but we know our old hard self and are afraid of the new self.  If I know that the self I am is a failure because I don't try, am too afraid to try, I can tell myself that if I only tried I would be someone great.  I am comfortable in that feeling that I fail only because I won't try.  God wants me to strip off that old self of not trying, not doing His word only believing in it.  If I try, I may still fail.

If I truly believe in God I have to believe that even in my failure something good will come from it.  If I am not called to reach a lot of people maybe by doing what he asks I will reach one  person and if that person is saved then I have born fruit, but also maybe by trying I will inspire others to try and they will say I can at least do better than that.  The thing is that God calls us to try and until the day we die we will never really know the results of what we do but still I have to believe that by trying we benefit.

By trying we get to know ourselves better.  We learn to be more compassionate because we know how hard it is to push out past who we thought we were and we know how hard that will be for others.  We may lose our fear, or at least some of it, but we have to pray for that.  We can't do this alone, we have to lean on God or we will fail and we will grow in fear.  Pray, often.