The Fourth Sorrowful Mystery:

The Carrying of the Cross

The following is the second of twenty monthly reflections about the Mysteries of the Rosary as they relate to family life.  The mysteries will not be necessarily chronological but presented as they interact with the liturgical year.

            A few weeks ago, my wife went on a well-deserved trip to visit a friend in Florida.  We had planned this for months, and a central component of that plan was that I would take time off work to stay home with our three young boys.  This seemed like a reasonable idea at the time we were discussing it, but as the reality of five straight days of being alone with my little men approached, I began to experience some self-doubt.  The day of my wife’s departure arrived, and we all drove to the airport to say goodbye.  They boys were so excited about watching the planes that we ended up parking on the outskirts of the airport to watch Mommy’s plane take off.  As the plane diminished on the horizon, I turned around to see my companions for the next five days.  I had the distinct feeling of being an abandoned animal tied to some train tracks, staring at an oncoming train, and my three sons were driving it!  Thankfully, the days passed without any major catastrophe, and it afforded me the chance to understand better the cross that my wife carries each day in caring for our children at home, and I think of those lessons now with this month’s rosary mystery.

            In the fourth Sorrowful Mystery, we meditate on Jesus as he carries his cross to Calvary.  He has finally taken up the physical representation of something he has been doing figuratively for several years now.  After all, during his public ministry, he has already endured the questions, doubts, jealousy, and rejection by some who encountered his works and his message.  Part of that message was to ask his followers to take up their crosses and follow him.  I doubt anyone who heard it at the time could have realized how real the cross would become for Jesus in a few short years.  Part of the sorrow of this mystery is that Jesus carries the weight not of his own sins but of ours.  Yet, being the merciful Savior he is, he takes up this instrument of his death willingly.

            Inspired by Christ’s example, we his followers try to carry our crosses as well.  Relatively few have been called to accept the cross of true martyrdom, but we all carry burdens in life, some of them quite heavy.  Most of these crosses seem ordinary as they come with the daily struggles of life.  However, a curious thing happens along the way.  Faithful carrying of ordinary burdens sometimes serves as preparation for extraordinary virtue.  When we read the stories of the saints, we often hear about these extraordinary moments in the summary of their lives, but undergirding each one of them is the ordinary and daily submission to the mundane and the unglamorous.

            This gives me much hope for carrying our crosses as a part of families because so much of what we do in family life is ordinary and unremarkable.  My five days with my boys consisted in such glorious activities as changing a multitude of diapers, frustrated searching for a myriad of sippy cup components as my youngest cried for his drink, and placing clothes on my boys that were lucky to last four hours at a time before being covered in something that required a change.  Now, my wife is admittedly more used to and better at these things, but my assertion is that her daily labors in such things increase her holiness as she devotes herself to the call of motherhood.  Let me simply say it was a very joyful reunion for all of us once she returned home!

            The crosses we carry in family life change through the years, but they all have a sanctifying element if we do them with great faith and fidelity.  It could be comforting each other during unexpected tragedy, protecting family worship and prayer time against encroaching busyness, caring for a sick parent or family member, or staying true to our faith while suffering to see loved ones drift for a time.  Whatever the crosses we bear in the various stages of our lives, we can take them up with the hope that, with each of them, we follow our Lord.

            Through our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we are performing ordinary sacrifices in anticipation of the extraordinary moments of the Paschal Mystery.  We keep our eyes on Calvary as we follow Jesus daily, knowing that a tomb waits nearby.  Rather than being a place of defeat and despair, that tomb will be the site of the most impactful event in human history, Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  Indeed, the road upon which we often stumble, fall, and buckle under the load of our cross will also be the road that leads to our salvation.