Recently I read a meditation from Fr. Bonaventure Perquin, OP in my Magnificat, and I thought I’d share some of it with you along with the questions it brought up in my own heart. I’m still working through them and journaling with them, so I don’t have answers to everything (read: this post might be a little messy and unfinished), but I think that this is important enough that’s worth sharing in the here and now.

Here’s the first quote that stuck out to me:

“We must bend down and take it up, as our Lord did, not just accept it passively. And it has to be our own cross too, not someone else’s: carrying our own cross is how we work out the task planned for us by the Father.” -Fr. Bonaventure Perquin, OP⁠
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⁠Fr. Bonaventure points two things out here, both of which I have a tendency to fail at.
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“Not just accept it passively”

I don’t always actively pick up my cross. I have a tendency to be passively receptive toward crosses, but Fr. Bonaventure wants us to go further- he asks us to consent to them with our will.

My Questions

What would that look like? How would that change my experience of my cross? How would that give more space for the Lord to work within the situation?

“And it has to be our own cross”

Oh boy that second statement, the one about carrying other people’s crosses- as a naturally empathetic person, I have a tendency to try to do this. As a parent, I have a tendency to want to do this for my children. As a caregiver for Gram, I have a tendency to want to do this too. ⁠
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I don’t think Fr. Bonaventure is saying “don’t help people.” What he’s warning us against is that by depriving people of the cross God intends for them we are depriving them the opportunity for graces that go alongside it. I know in my own life, the struggle is where the growth happens. ⁠

My Questions

Where in my life do I need to step back and allow the people I love to carry their own crosses? Where am I trying to carry a load that isn’t mine and what is it doing to me?

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So today I’m going to work on actively assenting to the crosses that are coming my way today, and also on stepping back when my first instinct is to intervene and take someone else’s cross away. ⁠ And I’ll continue to journal with these questions that God is bringing up in my heart.

Happy 1st week of Lent all!