Good Friday and the Cross

This year I am trying to write about my Triduum experience in comparison from  when I wrote about it five years ago.
Each year the Triduum is the same but we experience it differently.
I have started the habit of  slowly meditated the stations of the cross using ‘A Walk of Mercy – The Divine Mercy Stations of the Cross.’  Saying the stations slowly has become a yearly tradition for me since discovering this version a few years ago. Each year, it seems a different station affects me. Initially it was the station where Jesus meets the women, this year it is the second station where Jesus takes up His cross.  The meditation that accompanies this station is from St. Ignatius.

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty,
my memory, my understanding and my whole will.
All that I am and all that I possess you have given me:
I surrender it all to you
to be disposed of according to your will.
Give me only your love and your grace;
with these I will be rich enough,
And will desire nothing more.

I can’t seem to pray that prayer and really mean it.  Take my memory and my whole will?  Yikes!  Nope,  I can't really mean that one.  How does taking up my cross mean I need to surrender.  I am Minnesota tough and I thought I need to tough things out to carry my cross.  I thought to “offer it up” meant to  be quiet and quit complaining.
This year as I celebrated the Passion Service I was struck by the immensity of the cross that was carried in for veneration. Five big adult men (and one was a retired professional football player) struggled to carry the huge cross into the church. Not one of these men could have handled the cross alone.
I watched as people I knew came forward to venerate the cross. Families who had lost their children at too young of an age, cancer survivors,  a couple struggling with infertility, a widower, a divorcee, a woman who placed her child for adoption, those struggling with aging parents and those with outward frailties with walkers and canes, each stepped up to embrace this huge cross.  Not a one of them could have budged the huge thing alone, yet alone carry it. I thought about my own crosses I have had to carry in my life; the loss of a son and sister as well as parents and in-laws, various work difficulties and financial setbacks, betrayals and deep misunderstandings as well healing in parts of myself that I continue to struggle with.
As I reflected on these struggles I realized that I was only able to truly heal when I quit carrying my cross alone.  It was when I allowed others to help me and ultimately when I surrendered the cross to Christ that I experienced healing.

I surrender it all to you...

I still have a long way to go in surrendering but Jesus, I trust in you may need to be my mantra for a very long time.