God saves

“Take Up Your Cross”: The Shared Burden and the Strength That Comes from It

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By: Mauro Russo

Editor’s Note: Articles originally published on Pane Vivo.

A Reflection on Matthew 16:21-27

Taking up one’s cross and following Christ: this phrase from Matthew 16:24 is one we all know. But there is something that comes before it in the text that we often skip past too quickly. Something that struck me differently this time.

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Mt 16:21).

Jesus admits his burden. Openly. In front of his own. He says it, does not hide it, does not pretend. He, the Messiah, the one on whom everyone has placed the hopes of a revolution, says: I will suffer. I will be arrested. I will die.

How hard it is to do something like that.

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“Jesus Left the House”: When God Feeds in Abundance

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By: Mauro Russo

Editor’s Note: Articles originally published on Pane Vivo.

A Reflection on Matthew 14:13-21

Jesus left the house, crossed the sea and withdrew to a deserted place. But the crowd followed him. And seeing them, he had compassion on them and healed the sick. This is the heart of Matthew 14:13-21, and every time I read it I stop on one word alone: compassion.

It is not the same as duty. It is not the same as giving alms. I can give alms without feeling anything for that person, for their poverty, for their pain. The gesture is concrete but remains cold, antiseptic. Compassion is something else: it is entering into another person’s pain, taking it on, feeling it as your own.

Jesus did not heal to build an audience. He had no need of recognition. He was the Almighty. Jesus healed because he loved. And those he healed felt it: they felt understood, not merely assisted.

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