Today, the Gospel clearly confronts us with the world... It is absolutely radical in its approach, and it does not allow any half measures: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt 16:24). In many instances, when we are facing suffering generated by us or by others, we can hear: “We have to accept the sufferings God sends us... This is God's will..., or words to that effect”. And we keep on gathering sacrifices in very much the same way as those trading stamps we used to collect, with the hope of showing them at Heaven's audit department when our day to present our statements of accounts arrives.

But our suffering per se would be of little value. Christ was no stoic: He was thirsty, He was hungry, He was tired, He did not like to be forsaken. He let others help him... where He could, He soothed pain, whether physical or moral. So, what is happening, then?

Before loading with our “cross”, the first thing we must do is to follow Christ. It is not a matter of first suffering and then following Christ... Christ must be followed from our Love, and from there we can then understand the sacrifice, the personal negation: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25). Love and mercy may lead us to sacrifice. Any true love engenders, one way or other, some sort of sacrifice, but not all sacrifice engenders love. God is not sacrifice; God is love, and only from that perspective can pain, fatigue and the cross in our lives, have any meaning, following the model of man the Father reveals to us in Christ. St. Augustine said: “When one loves, one does not suffer; but if one does suffer, the very suffering is loved.”

In the ensuing events of our life, we are not to seek a divine origin to explain our sacrifices and shortcomings: “Why is God sending this to me?”, but we rather have to find a “divine usage” for them: “How can I transform this into an act of faith and love?” It is from this evaluation how we are to follow Christ and how —certainly— we may deserve the Father’s merciful glance. The same glance with which the Father looked at his Son in the Cross.