Daily blessing

THE WORD to remember in today's gospel is "daily". It's basic. We wake up in the morning, work the whole day, go to sleep at night without knowing for certain if we'll wake up again the next day. Our salaries are measured by the day-whether we are a minimum daily wage earner or are a boss for life. In the prayer that Jesus taught us, we say "give us this day our daily bread", and now Jesus tells us that if we want to come after Him, we must take up our cross daily and follow Him. Daily-not weekly on Sundays only, not yearly during Holy Week, but daily-each and every day of our life.

Follow Jesus-how? And to where? To be a follower of Jesus implies identifying with Him, with the values and the principles of His Kingdom as He taught us and as His Church continues to teach us. In this Kingdom, power means service, and leadership means becoming a servant of others-just as His Kingship derives from the throne that is the cross. Can you imagine what our workplace, or this world, would be if all its leaders followed Jesus? And all the citizens followed their leaders? Politicians plan programs for six years, business moguls put their money in 25-year investments, but while they appear to achieve progress, they simply maintain the status quo-they cannot bridge the gap between persons or peoples. In fact, they even widen this gap, unless their schemes synchronize with the daily bearing of the cross that Jesus prescribes.

If people are afraid to carry their cross daily, it is because they only focus on the blood in it, the dark side, not the light that comes from the empty tomb of His resurrection. Our daily carrying of the cross, accompanying Jesus as He prays in solitude-is a blessing that makes us experience His presence, His closeness to us, which in time sweetens our act of following Him as He leads us to a new world where the differences that divide us-gender, race, wealth-become irrelevant because there we are all in Christ.