The Weight of Love

🌿When my words found a voice🌿

April 8, 1956,

Dear Diary

This morning it was only 26 degrees. The cold hung in the air like a hush, and the frost made the mailbox sparkle as Sister Mary Claire and I waited beside it for Robert to pick us up for morning Mass. Mini kept pawing at a patch of snow, trying to sniff something underneath. We waited and waited, but Robert never came. Later we found out he couldn’t get his pickup started—not broken this time, just too cold and stubborn to turn over.

So we bundled ourselves tighter and walked to church, the gravel crunching beneath our boots. Sister Mary Claire brought her meditation book along, pressed close to her chest like it was something living. We didn’t say much on the walk—just quiet prayers between breaths. When we reached the church and took our place in the pew, the windows were glowing soft with morning light, and everything felt still and sacred.

Father’s homily was about Jesus carrying His cross to Calvary. He said that it wasn’t just a wooden cross Jesus bore—it was the weight of every sin, every sorrow, every dark thing we hide away. He carried it not because He had to, but because He loved us. Sister Mary Claire leaned close and whispered that the meditation in her book for today was all about that very moment. It felt like everything lined up just for us to understand it deeper today. I imagined Jesus, stumbling and rising again, bloodied and torn, but never turning back. For me. For all of us.

Later, in the afternoon, we sat in front of the fireplace—our usual prayer place—and prayed the Rosary together with Mini curled up at our feet. The fire popped gently in the stove. When we got to the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery—Jesus Carries His Cross—I couldn’t take my eyes off the image of Him in Sister’s little book. There was so much pain in His eyes, but even more love. I felt it so strongly that it made my throat tight and my heart full.

O Lord Jesus, help me to carry my cross the way You carried Yours—without complaint, with love and humility. Let me remember that You carried mine first, so I would never carry it alone. Amen.

Meditation for Tuesday: Jesus Carries His Cross

“They took Jesus and led Him forth. And he bore His cross” (John 19, 16–17).

First Prelude: Behold Jesus, laden with the heavy cross, advancing wearily and sinking several times under the burden.

Second Prelude: Grant me grace, O my beloved Saviour, to walk perseveringly in the way of sufferings and humiliations.

Having clothed Jesus again in His purple robe, which they had cruelly torn from His bruised Body, the soldiers fetched the cross whereon He willed to die, and cast it at His feet. With infinite love and profound humility, He embraced the heavy load, and laid it on His sacred shoulders which were so torn and lacerated by the inhuman scourging that they seemed one great wound. The sacred Blood streamed from every pore and marked the way that He walked. Much heavier than the weight of the cross was the enormity of the sins of the whole world, which Jesus had taken upon Himself and which rendered the journey to Calvary exceedingly painful. St. Bonaventure said that our Saviour carried a two-fold cross, an interior and an exterior one. The exterior cross was that of sufferings and penance; the interior, that of mercy and compassion with sinners.

Let us consider that our sins were the real burden which so oppressed our Divine Saviour. We will, therefore, excite deep compunction and contrition for them and thank our Lord with all our heart for having taken upon Himself the heavy cross for love of us, to save us from eternal perdition. We will excite a lively desire to participate in His sufferings. This is what our Saviour expects of us. We should take the cross upon our shoulders and follow Him. Henceforth, like true children of God, we will carry it after the Saviour in resignation, in implicit trust and love, following in His footsteps, ever keeping our eternal destination in view. Love makes all things sweet and easy. With what sentiments do I carry my daily cross?