Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Simon of Cyrene by Malcolm Guite
In desperation on this road of tears Bystanders and bypassers turn away In other’s pain we face our own worst fears And turn our backs to keep those fears at bay Unless we are compelled as this man was By force of arms or force of circumstance To face and feel and carry someone’s cross In Love’s full glare and not his backward glance. So Simon, no disciple, still fulfilled The calling: ‘take the cross and follow me’. By accident his life was stalled and stilled Becoming all he was compelled to be. Make me, like him, your pressed man and your priest, Your alter Christus, burdened and released.
