In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
René Descartes, the seventeenth-century French philosopher, is perhaps the father of the modern age. His maxim, “cogito, ergo sum,” “I think, therefore I am,” has had a profound impact on western thought. Put in other words, “I doubt everything else. The only thing I can be sure of is that I am a thinking being.” And coming out from his work, human beings have been thought of as “thinking beings” where the mind, the intellect, is our primary faculty, more important than all others, “I think, therefore I have existence; I think, therefore I have worth; I think, therefore I am.”
“If anyone wishes to come after me,” says the Lord, “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And I hear this saying, and I think to myself, “I wear a cross, I make the sign of the cross: I have done enough.” And the cross I wear as a piece of jewellery, the sign I make on myself as a mere habit, have become so far from the word of the Lord as to become an insult to God and a millstone around my neck (see Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2). Because if I am to come after Christ, if I am to be a true Christian, I must deny myself, take up my cross and follow the Lord.
And so I must change. The Lord says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” This does not glamourise the laying down of one’s life because it must be done for the sake of the Gospel. I must be willing to lay down all that which in my life draws me down to the earth that I might ascend to the Lord. And the Lord gives to each one of us a cross which we may bear as we follow him, along with each other, that we may rise to him: the cross of repenting, the cross of bearing ridicule, the cross of serving others, the cross of prayer. And should I do this, should I accept willingly the cross the Lord has prepared for me, I would learn to deny myself, learn to follow him, learn to be a Christian.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the world has as its motto, “I think, therefore I am,” but for Christians the supreme reality is not our ability to think: rather, the supreme reality is God himself; therefore, to be a Christian—which means, for us, to be truly alive, to be inheritors of eternal life, to be truly human—our maxim must be, “I carry my cross, therefore I am.” I carry my cross and my actions have eternal worth, I carry my cross and I am become the human being I was created to be, I carry my cross and,
it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I carry my cross, therefore I am.
To our crucified and risen God and Saviour Jesus Christ be all glory, honour and worship, together with his unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
— Galatians 2:16–20
The Lord said: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.
— Mark 8:34–38, 9:1