The season of Lent is one of self-denial, a season we quickly come realize that asks us to deny those things we truly want, a season that asks us to deny our very selves. It is an interesting concept, to say the least, and an even more challenging practice to live out, because, essentially, it asks us to reassess our entire lives and to, in essence, die to that life.

It was something the saints would constantly speak about and something, even today, we try to live, if only sporadically or as associated with certain seasons. If you ever wondered why we are asked to fast of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and to abstain from meat on all Fridays of Lent, that is its purpose, to remind us of the importance of giving up something we like, to make our lives a little more difficult, to make even our dietary choices more plain and with less variety, in other words, to force us to examine our lives and to ask ourselves a fundamental question, who are we living for, ourselves or God?

Jesus speaks to this in our Gospel, He says: “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” We are all dealt a cross in our lives, some are larger and some are smaller, but to each one of us it is ours, and that cross tends to weigh us down and not only weigh us down but knock us down, so that like a grain of wheat we, too, fall to the ground. And, though we get up, there is only so much we can take, because there is only so much we can do by ourselves.

For, though we have our cross, it does not necessarily mean, like Jesus, we ask for help, because when we ask for help a little piece of us literally dies, and, yet, this is why elsewhere Jesus says that we cannot even embrace the cross, truly let it have meaning in our lives, unless we first deny ourselves, because, truly, the cross is not ours, it never was, it is only His, we only share what He owns, we partake in His same sufferings. That is why we meet Jesus there, that is how we learn to imitate His life, because by that cross, St. Paul’s words ring true: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.”

I know I have shared this before, but it was put so eloquently, so simply and so profoundly that it still haunts me to this day. I was in a class where a deacon was giving a talk and he spoke about the cross, its challenges and its weight, and he said there comes a point in our lives when the cross seems to get too hard to handle, so much so, that we are forced to cry out: “God Your killing me,” but that is not what has haunted me, it was the reply He said that God gives, when God says: “I know.”

It is by the cross that we do die to ourselves, it is by the cross that our lives become a perfect imitation of Jesus, because truly it is at the foot of the cross that our lives are no longer our own.

What Jesus is asking of us is not easy, but if His words were not enough, His actions made it all the more apparent, our lives demand sacrifice, and we cannot live solely for ourselves, we cannot live unless we die to ourselves. For, as one priest puts it: “Following Jesus is not about making the world a better place, although that can happen. Nor is it about improving one's life. No, following Jesus is a matter of life or death.”

That is the meaning of those other haunting words from Jesus: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” In other words, without denying ourselves we will run from the cross, we will run from difficulties, we will run from anything that God desires of us, because we will not see life we will only see death, we will see a cross whose shadow looms, we will see a life of fear because of the transformation God wants for all of us.

Yet, Jesus has shown us the way and though not easy, not even for Him, He shows us too the glory that we can revel in and the eternal life that, in the end, awaits all of us who are willing to endure.