This gospel passage is always challenging. Is this the same guy from other gospels? The one who assures us: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I am reminded of a dinner table discussion between two fictional race car drivers in a comedy movie (Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton, Jr.) who are talking about which form of Jesus is their favorite (baby Jesus versus rock star). At first, it sounds so ridiculous, but then you realize that it is also, unfortunately, something we all do.

My “favorite” Jesus is the one who tells us the way is easy. But that Jesus and the one in today’s gospel are one and the same (or, perhaps, with due respect to the Trinity, three in the same). How so? Jesus commands us to take up our cross, practice self-denial, and lose our lives for his sake and for others. One must look closer at the cross Jesus carves, the life he asks us to lose, and the self we are called to deny: our daily life of self-directed, control-based pursuit of success and the attendant disappointment when we either fail to excel or at times, worse, the unfulfilling feeling of “success.”

Christ is asking us to surrender. We think we are in control of our little slice of the universe, but sometimes God lets us know that we are not. In other words, stop paddling upstream and just let go into the flow of what God has destined for our lives. In the flow, we encounter others, many outside of our world and the ND Family.

There, one can find yourself collaborating with folks like my colleague, April McCarthy, a 2001 University of Florida graduate and special education teacher, with whom I am working with others to help meet the educational needs of the poorest, educationally challenged children of Haiti, Jamaica, and America. As promised, the yoke is easy, the burden, light!

Come, Holy Spirit, bring me my cross!