It is interesting to look at advertisements for charities, especially those that feed or provide medical treatment to the poor. When it comes to international charities, they often feature many pictures of those in need. These charities may even offer symbolic adoptions, where you receive photos and biographical details about a specific person. However, with local charities, this is rarely the case. Local organizations tend to avoid using photos of individuals altogether, relying instead on facts and figures. There is a simple reason for this: when we give money to distant causes in places we will likely never visit, we crave a personal connection. We want to see the faces of those we help because it makes us feel good—and it feels safe. But when it comes to giving locally, we often do not want to see the faces of those in need, because there is a chance we might run into them. We shy away from confronting suffering in our own community, fearing that if we truly grasp the depth of the need, we will be forced to share in their pain. As long as the poor remain a faceless mass, hidden behind statistics and dollar signs, we can carry on with our lives undisturbed.
When Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me,” he calls us to bear one another’s burdens. He is not inviting us to senseless suffering for its own sake. No one is meant to be flagellating themselves or sleeping on glass. Rather, we are called to seek out those who are already weighed down by oppressive burdens and help them. We are to pick up their burdens and suffer with them. Our task is not to “fix” people—more often than not, we cannot solve other people’s problems. Attempting to do so usually leads to poorly thought-out solutions or, worse, making the situation harder. What we can do, and what we should do, is sit with them, listen to them, and share in their suffering. The call to carry the cross is fundamentally a call to love as God loves. It is a call to renounce our privileges and self-concern, and instead embrace the needs of others. The cross is an invitation to love another person so deeply that we give ourselves in sacrifice. Love does not stop when it encounters pain or difficulty; it continues until the other knows consolation, until the other knows they are loved.
This is how God loves us. He does not abandon us because we are difficult, or even seemingly impossible cases—hell-bent, in the truest sense. God continues to love us. No matter how far we stray or how greatly we suffer, he stands beside us and endures with us. This is not a metaphor or a nice story we tell ourselves. Through baptism, we have become the Body of Christ. Whatever any of us suffers, God also suffers. He does not look away from our pain, nor does he flee when it becomes too great. He remains with us, enduring it to the very end.
In turn, he calls us to do the same for others. We cannot stand idly by, absorbed in the endless distractions and entertainments of the world, while people suffer or feel abandoned. As Christians, we are called to love them. We must face the suffering in our communities head-on. We must sit with them, endure with them, and let them know they are loved.
“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”