Mark 8:34-35
34 And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
35 "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's shall save it.
The Good News about Our Lord Jesus Christ is that He is the Savior of the world, the Son of the living God who has come down from Heaven. He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world and offered himself as a living sacrifice to the Heavenly Father so that we could have eternal life.
The call of Christ starts in our childhood as we learn from our parents, our teachers and as we come to know Jesus in the Sacraments. There comes a time in our lives when we have to make a decision about Christ. For some it is a great privilege to be called to serve as disciples and apostles of Christ.
The Holy Father John Paul II felt this call in his heart and despite all the difficulties and persecutions he experienced while living in a Communist regime, he followed the call of his vocation and became a priest in 1948. But the call of Christ took him all the way to the Vatican where he became the Vicar of His Church.
Once he found Christ, he became a very zealous apostle, he began to preach everyone the gospel of Christ: "Follow me"
+ + + + + +
Excerpts
APOSTOLIC LETTER SALVIFICI DOLORIS The answer which comes through this sharing, by way of the interior encounter with the Master, is in itself something more than the mere abstract answer to the question about the meaning of suffering. For it is above all a call. It is a vocation. Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else he says: "Follow me!". Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my Cross. Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him. He does not discover this meaning at his own human level, but at the level of the suffering of Christ. At the same time, however, from this level of Christ the salvific meaning of suffering descends to man's leveland becomes, in a sense, the individual's personal response. It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual joy. |
