By Kathryn O’Callaghan ‘17, ‘19M.A.

Last week as part of my work in parish ministry, I was asked to lead a brief session for seventh and eighth grade students on the Litany of the Saints.

I tried to drive home for them the gift that we have in the Saints—the way we can both ask for their intercession and look at their lives for diverse examples of following Christ. As I left hoping they might take the lesson to heart, my thoughts turned to a figure whose example has been on my mind and heart recently.

Unlike many of the people that the Church remembers, we know almost nothing about Simon of Cyrene. The account of his carrying the cross with Christ is found in three of the four Gospels, but the sum of information found in these accounts is only that his name is Simon, he is from Cyrene, and he is the father of “Alexander and Rufus.”

Simon’s feelings about helping Christ to carry the cross on the way to Calvary are not known, although all three Gospels say that he was “forced” or “made” to carry the cross. This implies some kind of reluctance on his part, at least initially, but we do not know what his feelings may have been at the end of his time with Christ.

Personally, I cannot imagine that he remained unchanged after being with Christ in such a moment. But we are left to wonder about the rest of his story. We would not know him at all if not for the brief moment he comes into contact with the Lord. He fades out of the story as quickly as he enters it.

My Catholic home and years of Catholic education familiarized me with Christ’s command to “take up [your] cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). Although such a command is obviously daunting, I thought I would be ready to do it. I could imagine myself taking up whatever cross came my way, my head held high with the same noble piety I saw on the faces of the Saints.

As I grew older, however, I found that I had very few crosses of the sort I had imagined I would take up. I am lucky to have good health, family, friends, education, and opportunities. In truth, the deepest suffering I have experienced has been to watch the more intense suffering of those around me.

I find myself called not to take up a particularly heavy cross of my own, but to help those around me carry their crosses. Like Simon, I sometimes feel forced into the situation. It is easy to resent that I am only a bit player in a story, consigned to have my peaceful life story play second fiddle to the drama of a friend or family member’s suffering. Then I am struck by the absurdity of such feelings, that I am actually in some way envious of the attention given to those with such heavy crosses. Like I believe Simon must have been, I am changed and challenged and humbled by encountering suffering.

Perhaps in the years to come the crosses I carry will grow heavier. Perhaps I will be called to forge a bold new path like so many of the Saints did. Or perhaps I will continue to be called to slip quietly in and out of the stories of others in the manner of Simon of Cyrene, with my own story never in the spotlight.

And yet even those Saints who appeared in the eyes of the world to be blazing new trails were in fact only following in the footsteps of Christ in more radical ways than the world was used to. This is all any of us are called to: to walk alongside each other on the way of Christ and allow the journey, remembered or unremembered, to form us in his likeness.