At first the words Our Lord speaks to us
seem like very hard words:

we must pick up our cross for His sake,
and follow after Him.

If we are at all normal human beings,
our first objection would be this:

no one wants a cross;
none of us wants to suffer;
none of us wants to carry burdens;
none of us wants to struggle.

And yet the strange truth of our lives is this:

all of us in this life have a cross.

At times in our lives these crosses may vary:

for some it may mean living with a drunken spouse;
for others it may mean living with a broken marriage;
for others it may mean living with some kind of handicap;
for still others it may mean personal problems,
or money problems,
or vocational problems.

The truth is that none of us wants a cross,
but all of us have a cross.

And all Our Lord…