Catholic Life Section:

The Cross / Crosses

"[W]hoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me." (Our Lord Jesus Christ, Mt. 10:38)

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.'" (Mt 16:24)

"[Jesus] summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, 'Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." (Mk. 8:34)

"Then [Jesus] said to all, 'If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Lk. 9:23) 

"Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." (Our Lord Jesus Christ, Lk. 14:27)

"Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses." (St. John Vianney)

"God calls his friends to bear his Cross after him." (St. John Vianney)

"What does he gain who refuses the cross? He increases its weight." (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church)

"Jesus, Mary, The Cross: I want no other friends but these." (St. Bernadette Soubirous)

"You must accept your cross; if you bear it courageously it will carry you to Heaven." (St. John Vianney)

"Oh Jesus! Jesus! No longer do I feel my cross, when now I think of yours!" (St. Bernadette Soubirous)

"Come, come, my dear, don't be frightened at your burden; our Lord will help you to carry it." (St. John Vianney)

"Whoever doesn't seek the cross of Christ doesn't seek the glory of Christ." (St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church)

"The Cross will not crush you; if its weight makes you stagger, its power will also sustain you." (St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina)

"Alas! O my God, if they are so few to bear the cross, there will only be few to adore thee in eternity." (St. John Vianney)

"I tell you that you have less to suffer in following the Cross than in serving the world and its pleasures." (St. John Vianney)

"I have had crosses in plenty - more than I could carry almost! I set myself to ask for the love of crosses - then I was happy." (St. John Vianney)

"And in truth it was more by love than by the violence of the executioners that our divine Redeemer was fixed to the Cross." (Pope Pius XII, "Haurietis Aquas", 1956 A.D.)

"One must be humble, little, self-disciplined, spiritual and despised by the world to learn the mystery of the Cross." (St. Louis de Montfort)

"The cross is brought before our minds; who will not crucify himself [that is, mystically]? The true worshipper of the sacred Wood is he who carries out his worship in his deeds." (St. Sophronius)

"As in Heaven, nothing will be sweeter than to resemble Him in His glory, so here on earth, nothing is more to our advantage than to be like Him in His Passion." (St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church)

"He sends us crosses, not because he wishes evil to us, but because he desires our welfare, and because he knows that they are conducive to our salvation." (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church)

"All those who are willing to be saved through the cross will find salvation there. But those who desire to be saved without it will perish miserably. There is no salvation except in this cross." (St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church)

"All men are anxious to stand on Mount Tabor and witness Christ's transfiguration, but few are willing to go up with Him to Jerusalem and accompany Him to Calvary." (St. Robert Southwell)

"And how can a person who seeks to please God, enjoy greater happiness than that which arises from cheerfully embracing the cross which God sends him, and from the conviction that, in embracing it, he pleases God in the highest degree?" (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church)

"The prototype, the example on which one should reflect and model one's self is Jesus Christ. But Jesus chose the cross as his standard, so he wants all his followers to tread the path to Calvary, carrying the cross and then dying stretched out on it. Only this way do we reach salvation." (St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina)

"The cross signifies that a truly detached person should always be disposed, both outwardly and inwardly, to self-surrender in everything that God wants him to endure, no matter where it comes from; that he be inclined, dying to self, to accept it all for the praise of his heavenly Father." (Bl. Henry Suso)

"And as that blessed Savior, in His infinite wisdom, made spontaneous choice of sorrows, of sufferings, and of death on a cross, as the best means of our redemption, so has He always allotted to His best loved friends, the king of life which He had deliberately chosen for Himself, that is, the way of the cross." (Liturgical Year)

"[Jesus] did not announce for a future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of perfect happiness in Heaven: the royal way of the Cross." (Pope St. Pius X, "Our Apostolic Mandate")

"Follow the Divine Master up the steep slope of Calvary, loaded with the cross and when it pleases Him to place us on the cross by confining us to a bed of pain, let us thank Him and consider ourselves lucky to be honored in this way, aware that to be on the cross with Jesus is infinitely more perfect than merely contemplating Him on the cross." [St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)]

"[T]he more penitent we are, the less anxious we are to escape our cross. The more we see ourselves as we are, the more we say with the good thief: 'I deserved this cross.' He did not want to be excused; he did not want to have his sin explained away; he did not want to be let off; he did not ask to be taken down. He wanted only to be forgiven." (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

"Having thus called upon His disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross, the hearers were filled with great terror, therefore these severe tidings are followed by more joyful; For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy Angels. Do you fear death? Hear the glory of the triumph. Do you dread the cross? Hear the attendance of the Angels." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church and "greatest theologian in the history of the Church")

"Surely nothing is too much for Him when there is a question of sanctifying a soul. He hands over the body and soul to weakness in order to purify them in contempt of earthly things and in the love of His Majesty. He wounds and He heals them; He crucifies them on His cross in order to glorify them in His glory; in short, He gives them death in order to have them live in eternity. Let us accept these appearances of evil in order to have the real goods they produce, and we will be happy both in this life and in the next." (St. Vincent de Paul)

"But, how great is the folly of those who resist the divine will, and instead of receiving tribulations with patience, get into a rage, and accuse God of treating them with injustice and cruelty! Perhaps they expect that, in consequence of their opposition, what God wills shall not happen? 'Who resists his will?' (Rom. 9:19). Miserable men! Instead of lightening the cross which God sends them, they make it more heavy and painful. 'Who hath resisted him, and hath peace?' (Job 9:4). Let us be resigned to the divine will, and we shall thus render our crosses light, and shall gain great treasures of merits for eternal life. In sending us tribulations, God intends to make us saints." (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church)

"Now the exhortation of the Apostle, 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,' requires that all Christians should possess, as far as is humanly possible, the same dispositions as those which the divine Redeemer had when He offered Himself in sacrifice: that is to say, they should, in a humble attitude of mind, pay adoration, honor, praise and thanksgiving to the supreme majesty of God. Moreover, it means that they must assume to some extent the character of a victim, that they deny themselves as the Gospel commands, that freely and of their own accord they do penance and that each detests and satisfies for his sins. It means, in a word, that we must all undergo with Christ a mystical death on the cross so that we can apply to ourselves the words of St. Paul, 'With Christ I am nailed to the cross.'" (Pope Pius XII, "Menti Nostrae", 1950)

"If we are true Christians, we must desire to be ever with Jesus Christ. Now, where are we to find this loving Savior of our souls? In what place may we embrace Him? He is found in two places: in His glory and in His sufferings: on His throne and on His cross. We must, then, in order to be with Him, either embrace Him on His throne, which death enables us to do; or else share in His cross, and this we do by suffering; hence we must either suffer or die, if we would never be separated from our Lord. Let us suffer then, O Christians; let us suffer what it pleases God to send us: afflictions, sicknesses, the miseries of poverty, injuries, calumnies; let us try to carry, with steadfast courage, that portion of His cross, with which He is pleased to honor us." (Bossuet)

"[I]n the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly understand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name." (Pope Leo XIII, "Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus", 1900) 

"Mary is already in the dust of human lives; she lives amidst terror, brain-washings, false accusations, libels, and all the other instruments of terror. The Immaculate is with the maculate, the sinless with the sinner, and she bears no rancor or bitterness toward them - only pity that they do not see or know how loving that Love is that they are sending to His death. In her purity, Mary is on the mountaintop; in her compassion she is amidst curses, death cells, hangmen, executioners, and blood. A man may despair in his consciousness of sin from crying to God for forgiveness, but he cannot shrink from invoking the intercession of God's Mother, who saw sinners do these things and yet prayed for their forgiveness. If the good Holy Mother, Mary, who deserved to be speared evil, could nevertheless, in the special providence of her Son, have a Cross, then how shall we, who deserve not to be ranked with her, expect to escape our meeting with a cross? 'What have I done to deserve this?' is a cry of pride. What did Jesus do? What did Mary do? Let their be no complaint against God for sending a cross; let there only be wisdom enough to see that Mary is there making it lighter, making it sweeter, making it hers!" (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

Also See: Suffering & Death | The Passion / The Cross (Catholic Basics Reflections) | Adversity | Affliction | Necessity of / Reasons for Suffering | Pain | Sickness / Illness | Sorrow / Sorrows | Suffering | Trials & Tribulations | Words of Advice (Suffering) | Words of Encouragement (Suffering) | Inspiration (Reflections) | Misc. (Suffering & Death) | The Trials & Sorrows of Jesus | Personal Stories of Inspiration Section

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