Carrying your crosses – wives, mothers, homeschool

I am struck by the wisdom and the order of the Liturgical calendar. Yesterday we celebrated the exaltation of the Cross! The cross where our Lord, Jesus Christ suffered and died for our sins, but even more importantly, the cross that was His special way to the resurrection.

Jesus tells us in the gospel “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life[1] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

So for us too, our sufferings and difficulties are our crosses and our way to the resurrection.

As a lay married woman, most of my crosses are small in comparison. Five children to raise, the special challenges of homeschooling, running a house, running a business, being a good partner to my husband, a good daughter, a good sister, a good mother, friend, having a deep prayer life. Some of them have been harder – poverty, stillbirth, estrangements, deaths of friends and family members. As difficult as it is Jesus tells me that to be a follower- to be a Christian, my way is to accept these crosses, to pick them up and take them with me, BEHIND CHRIST, and that is how I will find my life and my fulfillment.

As a Titus 2 woman I encourage you all in whatever your state of life, to pick up the crosses that God has given you. It may be loneliness, or it may be facing the fear of pregnancy or the fear middle and old age. It may be as a married couple accepting the beautiful teaching of the church on Human Life and rejecting the lie of contraception. Pick up your cross and keep your eye on Jesus in front of you.

And then, as if to hammer home the point, the Church gives us the Sorrowful Mother the next day as the perfect example to follow in how to exault the cross! Simple, humble, eloquent Mary, who had her own cross to bear in watching her only child suffer and die. By her example we can gain strength, resolution and wisdom.

This is the second year I have made a special effort to commemorate the day. I am fortunate that my church has a side altar to the Sorrowful Mother so I said the prayers below and offered a pot of Hardy Mums to the altar. I also planted two pots of mums in front of my own yard statue of the Blessed Mother.

If any of you have other special ways that you commemorate this day, please share them with me in my comments section.

I wish you all a prayerful and holy day.