Hug Your Cross and Follow Me
Juan and Sofia were born into Catholic families in Colombia, South America. They met on Juan’s Patron Saint Feast Day, Saint John Bosco, January 31st and recently got married on the 31st of July. Both have encountered Jesus in their lives and decided to follow him with great commitment.
Juan is a Political Scientist and also a great golfer. He works in the Wine and Spirits Industry.
Sofia is a commercial real estate lawyer and works at her family-owned business. They currently live in Cali, Colombia.
Juan and Sofia are increasingly passionate about the apostolic mission with the youth and young professionals. They are committed to showing the love of God and his mysteries through the beauty of the sacrament of marriage and friendship. Both have lived their conversion through different spiritualities within the Church, such as the charismatic renewal, parish groups (Emaus and Effeta), Mana (a self-founded apostolic group) and Opus Dei. This last one is currently where both congregate and receive all their spiritual formation and guidance. Although they have much to learn, they are eager to share their testimony with all the readers.
Jesus came to transform our lives in all aspects, and among the most revolutionary ones was his invitation to hug our pain, to take up our cross to follow him, to come closer to him, become stronger, repair his heart and purify ourselves. I consider this to be one of the themes in which our Catholic spirituality finds its greater richness and where the most profound fruits in our path to faith are born.
It is difficult to love our pain in the midst of a hedonist society that day by day motivates us to build idyllic lives full of pleasure and free from pain. Because of this, it’s worth reflecting on the mode in which we are called to live the contradictions of our daily lives.
Many of the experiences and teachings from Jesus show us the diverse forms in which we are called to accept pain in our lives. One of the clearest and most concise ones is the invitation that he gave to his Apostles narrated by Matthew (Mt 16: 24), “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
With these words Jesus invites us to deny ourselves to our passions and pleasures in order to do God’s will. This is the fruit of a process of spiritual maturation that allows us to open our hearts in grace to God to love his will above ours.
Then, full of grace and love for the will of God, we will stop living for ourselves and, in this way, find the strength to take the next step: pick up our cross and follow Jesus. But we should not limit ourselves to suffer or be simply resigned to carry the cross, but we are called to select our cross and love it too.
Our best decision is to valiantly take our daily cross and go out to follow Christ; this way our sufferings will be transformed into great sweetness and our soul will find great riches, because God is always capable of extracting something good from everything that happens to us, as much from the positive as from the negative. It is not us to try to understand why and how this all happens, but it’s enough to simply believe it, to have faith in the words of St. Paul who tells us, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
When we accept pain in the valiant and positive way in which Jesus invites us, we can count on the divine grace of having the strength to assume it, to grow, educate and purify ourselves, to love unconditionally, and be humble, peaceful and forgiving with our neighbor.
Because of this, every time in our lives when we confront this transformative invitation from Jesus, we must remember the words of our beloved saint, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Pain and suffering have entered your life, but remember that pain, sadness and suffering are nothing more than the kiss of Jesus, a signal that you have come so close to him that he can kiss you.”
