“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me

cannot be my disciple.

Which of you wishing to construct a tower

does not first sit down and calculate the cost

to see if there is enough for its completion?

Otherwise, after laying the foundation

and finding himself unable to finish the work

the onlookers should laugh at him and say,

‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’

Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down

and decide whether with ten thousand troops

he can successfully oppose another king

advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?

But if not, while he is still far away,

he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.

In the same way, anyone of you who does not renounce 

all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

It’s not easy to hear that we need to carry our own cross. In essence, Jesus is asking us for everything, not just a little bit of our time on Sunday or when it fits our schedule. He doesn’t say this to scare us! He says it because he loves us so much not to let us settle for less than the real thing. Following him will always cost us something, everything, but it’s a cost that leads to freedom, joy, life, and love. Everything real. 

Think about his image of the builder. No one starts stacking bricks without designing a structure or planning how to finish. Our faith is just like that. If we’re serious about following Jesus, discipleship, we can’t just wing it. We need to make the choice, day by day, to keep Christ at the center. Carrying our cross looks different for each of us. For some, it’s tending for an elderly parent or a child with special needs. For others, it’s the quiet cross of loneliness, financial strain, or the daily work of holding a marriage together. For young people, it may be the courage to stand apart from peers in order to stay true to our faith. None of our crosses are easy! Jesus, however, doesn’t ask us to carry them alone. He says, “Come after me.” That means we’re walking with him and he’s walking with us every step of the journey.

Then, at the end, comes the line about our possessions. Jesus isn’t saying we can’t enjoy the truly good things in life: our homes, our families, what we have earned. He reminds us not to let those things own us. The more we cling to our possessions, the more our identity and worth are tied up in them, the harder it is to open our hearts fully to Jesus. That’s especially important for us at St. Pat’s. We are blessed with growth, energy, and opportunities, but we also face the temptation to value busyness, success, or comfort more than him. Jesus always calls us back to himself!

I’m not inspired most by those who “have it all together,” but by those who keep saying “yes” through the struggle: the mom who gathers her children for Mass even when it’s chaos, the retiree who prays faithfully for others every morning, the teen who lives their faith even when friends don’t understand. That’s what real discipleship looks like: not perfection, but perseverance.

We should not fear the cost of discipleship. It is real and it is hard. But the cross doesn’t crush us. No, it transforms us. It draws us closer to Christ, and through him, closer to one another. May we always carry our crosses together and through our perseverance, not our perfection, we are a beacon of Christ’s love.