Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn but the world will rejoice. You will have sorrow but your sorrow will turn into joy." Like you, I've heard that scripture countless times in my life but it was just a few weeks ago that I saw something in it for the first time. "Your sorrow will turn in to joy." It's not that we have to suffer first or that we carry our cross with Christ and then we have joy but that our suffering and our sorrow is itself the stuff of joy. In others words, you can't get there another way. The cross is not an option on our road to salvation but the cross is the only way to the road of salvation. We celebrate this feast of the Triumph of the Cross, now it's called the Exultation of the Holy Cross but it includes us. We're not just looking back 2,000 years ago at Christ and his suffering; we're adding our suffering and our crosses to his today. We do so without complaint.

We saw in the first reading as the Israelites grumbled about the bad food that God punished them for their complaining and whining. We must not complain about the crosses that we carry because those crosses are the stuff of everlasting peace and joy. We know that suffering is inevitable and the older you are the more you know that. It's part of life, a real part of life. Pain, loss, sickness, sorrow, death, we do our best to avoid these things. We're not masochists. Ultimately, these conditions must be faced and from the Christian perspective, they must be accepted. Indeed, they should be embraced. We learn how to do this not only from Christ but from other Christians. Christ most perfectly but other Christians as well.

Most of you know Father Anthony Romero and if you don't, Father Anthony's a friend of our parish. He's a good friend of mine. Father Anthony was born with cerebral palsy and he was not expected to live. A few days after birth his mom took him to the Carmelite Sisters in Santa Fe and they're cloistered. You can't see them. They have a "Lazy Susan" there. Beatrice, his mother put Anthony on the "Lazy Susan" and spun him into the cloister and the nuns all took the baby and blessed him and passed him around. They put him back on the "Lazy Susan" and spun him back to mom. His mother said they kept him so long she thought she lost her son. Anthony can hardly walk. When he walks he throws one leg out and pulls the other behind him. He could never sneak up on you. It's a real effort for him to do anything. Recently, in the last couple of years I said, "Anthony, why don't you get one of those motorized little carts? Because you only have so many steps left and you can save those steps for when you really need them if you use this cart." He's a Romero and that means he's very hard-headed as the Luceros are too. He said, "No. I'm doing a lot of good now with this problem of mine, this cross I'm carrying, it's helping a lot of other people. When they see me, they seem to be inspired." One of his tricks is he likes to run in front of you to open the door for you. He sort of crashes, then he opens the door and looks at you.

He rejected that cross for many years. He got into drugs and made a mess of his life and woke up one day and realized that he better accept it or die. From the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, "You better get busy living or get busy dying." So he said, "I'm going to get busy living." He's carried that cross with such great dignity. He had surgery a few weeks ago to try to fix his spine up a little bit and so he's "down" for a few months. I called him yesterday morning and asked him how he was doing and he was feeling sorry for himself. I called him Saturday morning and he said, "Friday, I went to confession with Father Juan Mendez in Alameda and Father heard my confession and said, 'I have to anoint a young boy who is dying. He's six years old and he's dying of cancer. His name is Irwin Hernandez. He lives a few blocks from Our Lady of Nativity in Alameda. Tony, would you go and anoint the boy?'" Tony did and spent time with the family and he told me, "I'm going back today. I've got my spirit back. I'm doing something again. He inspires people. He's inspired you, hasn't he? He's a blessing. Sometimes we're feeling sorry for ourselves then we see this young man with all this energy, his enthusiasm, his love of life. I asked him one time, "If you had a choice, would you want to be reborn again whole, without this infirmity." He said, "No. It is who I am and I'll use it as best I can for God's glory." He understands.

Fathers Joshua and Andrew, if you're visiting, they are two priests from Zimbabwe that we've come to know and love in our parish. I speak to Father Joshua every several weeks. Now, Zimbabwe is in a complete mess, incredible millions percent inflation, there's no drugs, there's no medicines, food is scarce, they have no liberty or freedom. Joshua just lost his sister because there was no medicine for her, she died; she lost a child in childbirth for the same reason. I said "Joshua, How are you?" He said, "I am fine, my brother. I am well, thanks be to God. God is good." Look what he puts up with and here I'm complaining about the Yankees losing. It's crazy. By the way, it looks like Father Joshua will be able to visit us in December. I had to send him a letter so he could get his visa, a letter saying that we would be responsible for him, any medical whatever just so he could get his visa. It cost $109 to send the letter to Zimbabwe. We had to FedEx it but he did get it. He got it last week.

Father Andrew is the same. Father Andrew, three of his nine siblings have died because of lack of medical care. His father was killed in a revolution and his mother was shot and left for dead. If you know Andrew, he's so happy. He's so optimistic. "How's it going, Andrew?" "I am fine, fine. I want to play golf." That's his mission in life

Look what they have been through and look how happy they are. Are we happier than they are? Probably not. They have something. They have the experience of carrying their crosses with dignity and with courage as Jesus Christ wants us to, all of us. Not just carry them, embrace them. I love that scene in The Passion of the Christ where the cross is given to Jesus and he embraces it. He loves the cross because it is the means of our salvation and because he loves us and that's why he loves the cross.

I looked up embrace. It means to clasp or hold close with the arms usually as an expression of affection; to take up willingly or eagerly. Jesus tells us, "As I have done so must you do." We all have crosses, sickness, relationships, work, and relatives, whatever. Today we need to consider those crosses, not curses but blessings. This is the year of St. Paul. Paul is a great teacher. Paul had his crosses. Now, he's not complaining but listen to him in second Corinthians, "Five times I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned." This was for following Christ. "Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, in danger from Paul's brothers. I have labored and toiled and have I've gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst and have gone without food. I have been cold and naked." "Paul, you realize you did a lot of good as you spread the Gospel." When he looked behind him and he didn't see that. These were the places that he had ministered. Thessalonians had become negligent, the Corinthians were vain and sensual, and the Galatians unstable in the faith, the Ephesians and Colossians had let themselves become contaminated with heresy. In Rome his disciples and friends had abandoned him. What's his reaction to this, this suffering and what he thought was failure in his ministry? He said, "We are not discouraged, rather although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal way to glory beyond all comparison as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen. For what is seen is transitory, what is unseen is eternal."

People who accept the crosses in their lives are closer to God than they were before the crosses came. Suffering and rejection well born, strips away all that is false, trivial, unnecessary, petty and of little value, and leaves us with what is of great value God. St. John said, "Embrace your cross and it will carry you to heaven."

So let's try this week, just one week not to complain, to be positive, especially positive in the face of the trials that come our way. That's what Christ wants of us. That's what it means to carry his cross.