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“Look!” my husband said proudly one evening. “I fixed it for you!”
He held up my favorite handheld kitchen tool, the stainless-steel pastry cutter, and pulled on it to illustrate that he had fixed its broken handle.
To his dismay, the handle pulled apart in his hand.
“Ug! The other side broke!” he exclaimed, bringing his broken handiwork back to his workspace downstairs to tinker with it again.
I have not laughed so hard in a long time. Fortunately, my extremely good-natured husband laughed along with me.
Still broken
But it got me thinking: how many times do we think we’ve fixed something in ourselves, only to find that it’s still broken? Or that it’s broken in a different way?
We can put forth our best efforts, offering God our very souls, our deepest hurts and crosses, only to find that they are still there, that we never really gave them to Him in the first place. Or maybe we’ve worked so hard to eliminate a certain vice, only to find it reappearing a few days after we thought we’d beaten it.
This can be a common reality, especially in this season of Lent.
When our best is not good enough
What do we do when our best is just not good enough?
Life is a constant battle between the good and evil choices inherent in our human nature. How exhausting it is to be human! That’s why we need God’s supernatural strength to buoy us up since we haven’t the real strength to do it ourselves.
Giving God my cross doesn’t mean it just magically disappears. It can. Miracles happen. But most times he wants us to learn from carrying it.
“Cross, toil, tribulation: such will be your lot as long as you live. That was the way Christ followed, and the disciple is not above his Master,” said St. Josemaria Escriva (The Way, #699).
This Lent take your family to spend some prayer time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament before going to confession. Focus on truly asking Him for the grace to carry that particular cross that makes you stumble time and again. Maybe it’s something known only to God, or maybe it’s something that is beyond your control.
Whatever it is, he can help you. He can give you the strength you lack. He can give you the grace you need to carry that cross, not just dragging it along but hoisting it upright with eyes fixed intently on Calvary — and heaven.
“He demands much of you, for you are the branch that bears fruit. And he must prune you . . . so that you’ll yield more fruit. Of course that cutting — that pruning — hurts. But afterwards, how luxuriant the growth, how fruitful your works!” said St. Josemaria Escriva (The Way, #701).
This Lent as you contemplate your crosses and how to offer them up, entrust them to Our Blessed Mother — ask her to place them on the altar in union with the sacrifice of Our Lord. And when you unite your cross to His sacrifice, He will use it for some good that you may never even see.
Pray for the grace Our Lord can give you to fix not the cross itself — but the way you carry it.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish, Waunakee.