Pick up your cross and follow me. How hard can that be, right?! The Christian journey can be a difficult road because if we do it right, we plow head-long into a culture that defies the truths of Christianity at its core, even though most profess Christianity as their primary belief system. This weekends Gospel reading found Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration. Jesus was being affirmed by the Father and we experience a slight bit of the glory to come. However, Jesus was sent back down the mountain without the brilliance and radiance accompanying Him and He was sent on His journey to Jerusalem...to be led up a different hill, Golgotha.

Lent is about following Jesus to Golgotha in many ways for us. It is to experience what it truly means to be a Christian. Jesus doesn't ask us yet to be martyrs in this country as of today, but Jesus does not want us making bee-lines around Jerusalem and coming out the other side of glory with Him without us making the same trip to Jerusalem He did. Making a trip to Jerusalem can mean so many different things for so many different people. Deep in all of our hearts, is a knowledge about our wrongs that we justify to ourselves as being o.k. so often. The TV we watch, our sexuality, our spending habits, the time we spend on entertainment, any of our vices, etc. can lead us off the road to Jerusalem.

Lent is the time of year where we must come face to face with our interior and spiritual lives. We can at any time, but as a Church, we focus on it these six weeks to do it as a people. The road to Jerusalem is a personal journey, but it is nice to have fellow travelers on that road with you. We pray for the grace to discover those crosses Jesus wants us to consider partaking of in our own particular lives.