Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Life Faith Spirituality

Take up your cross and follow Christ, the Lenten season is a time to renew and grow our faith

byGuest Contributor
1 April 2019 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 5 mins read
AA

Following Christ: “This Lenten season let us all commit ourselves to a renewal of faith and trust in Christ.”

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Following Christ: “This Lenten season let us all commit ourselves to a renewal of faith and trust in Christ.”

ON Ash Wednesday, we began our journey into a season of grace when we are marked with ashes indicating that we are ready and willing to celebrate the season of Lent. 

It is a time when our Lord offers us the discipline of prayer and to become involved in Lenten programs.

It is also a time when we commit ourselves to repent for the areas in which we have failed, individually and together, seeking healing and renewal through the grace of Christ’s forgiveness.

The season of Lent should never be seen as boring period, it is a great opportunity for us all – to take up our cross and follow Christ, to renew our faith, and to refresh and strengthen our relationship with God, through prayer and actions of penance. 

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

He also said, “For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9: 23-24)

Do you remember the childhood saying, “Finders keepers, losers are weepers.”

Jesus has a different version for us to consider. 

He tells us that, “Losers are keepers.” 

It is indeed true, that it costs to follow Jesus – but it costs more not to. 

Related Stories

Clean of heart – turning back to God

Lenten fundraiser a chance to ‘show our compassion’

Flood swamps Ash Wednesday plans for Maryborough faithful

How many of us are really willing to bear a cross for Jesus?  

Are we prepared to lose our life for Him, only to find it? 

They are challenging questions to reflect upon.

Jesus calls us to die every day to our selfish plans, ambitions and self-fulfilment. 

In other words – it is a matter of letting His will be done and not ours.

To some people that may sound depressing, but what Jesus is really saying to us is, if we get our priorities right,  we will deny ourselves,  take up our cross,  follow Him, and then we will find the fulfilment we have desired in our lives.

As a long-serving Vincentian, I am of the opinion that the world today is suffering from a crisis of faith, a form of spiritual amnesia, in regard to knowing and understanding who God really is, and that God loves us all deeply and unconditionally.  

I now share with you some interesting soul food that I read some years ago in an story called, The danger of amnesia, which was published in an edition of The Word for Today.

“A spider dropped a single strand down from the rafter of an old shed and began to weave his web. Months went by and the web grew. Its elaborate maze caught flies, mosquitoes and other small insects, providing the spider with a rich diet. Eventually it became the envy of all the other spiders. Then one day the spider noticed a single strand stretching up into the rafters and thought,  ‘I wonder why it’s there? It doesn’t catch me any dinner’,

“Concluding it was unnecessary, he climbed as high as he could and severed it. In that moment the entire web began to fall upon itself, tumbling to the floor, taking the spider with it. Could we as Christians make that same mistake? Could we spin a great web, then sever it?  Could we grow so successful, so smug, so self-sufficient and adopt a secular culture and forget the strong strand that supports us? Could we look at our prosperity and respond not with gratitude, but with arrogance? Recent happenings in our country and across world make me wonder.”

In Australia today there is a tendency to remove God from all public life, and it is indeed gaining momentum. 

Could that portion of the population be looking at that strand of faith upon which our country hangs and asks: “Why is it there?”  

Could they be forgetting the hand that holds us up?

During Lent we are led by the Spirit into the wilderness so that we can be strengthened by prayer and penance. 

The wilderness times in our lives are necessary for it is there we come face to face with the obstacles that block the inflow of divine life and love into our hearts, such as our priorities, our possessions, cars, books, clothes, appearance, and so on. 

You know the kind of list we could each make, eating too much, buying too much, holding our tongue when justice and fairness demands that we speak out, speaking when we should be quiet.

Yes, these are human failings, but they are also traps. 

In this secular world, some people say, “Look away from God, He is outmoded anyway, be interested in yourself, watch out for yourself, no one else will.”

When the renowned British preacher C.H. Spurgeon was asked if he could put in a few short words what his Christian faith was all about. 

He replied, “I will put it into four words for you. ‘Christ died for me’.”  

“Apart from the Cross there is no other Ladder by which we can get to Heaven,” St Rose Lima said.

This Lenten season let us all commit ourselves to a renewal of faith and trust in Christ.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Uniting in stewardship – taking care of our common home with the wisdom of religion and tradition

Next Post

Devout Catholics takes up the role of a lifetime in world famous Oberammergau Passion Play

Guest Contributor

Related Posts

Present: Father Brian Barr presides at eucharistic adoration during a prayer service for vocations. Photo: CNS
Faith

Clean of heart – turning back to God

3 March 2022
Lenten fundraiser a chance to ‘show our compassion’
Australia

Lenten fundraiser a chance to ‘show our compassion’

2 March 2022
Flood swamps Ash Wednesday plans for Maryborough faithful

Flood swamps Ash Wednesday plans for Maryborough faithful

1 March 2022
Next Post

Devout Catholics takes up the role of a lifetime in world famous Oberammergau Passion Play

Laughter is key – talented musician’s past fuels her faith-driven future, helping people twice her age

A homeless man sleeps on a bench

Federal Budget continues to ignore the plight of the most disadvantaged Australians, Vinnies says

Popular News

  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI turned 95 on a ‘very happy’ day

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

by CNS
18 May 2022
0

HOLINESS is possible, and the Catholic Church provides the tools for attaining it. That was the theme...

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022
Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

17 May 2022
Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

17 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping