September 6
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.—LUKE ix. 23.
There lies thy cross; beneath it meekly bow;
It fits thy stature now;
Who scornful pass it with averted eye,
’Twill crush them by and by.
J. KEBLE.
To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.
J. H. Newman
On one occasion an intimate friend of his was fretting somewhat at not being able to put a cross on the grave of a relation, because the rest of the family disliked it. “Don’t you see,” he said to her, “that by giving up your own way, you will be virtually putting a cross on the grave? You ’ll have it in its effect. The one is but a stone cross, the other is a true spiritual cross.”
Life of James Hinton
I would have you, one by one, ask yourselves, Wherein do I take up the cross daily?
E. B. Pusey
Every morning, receive thine own special cross from the hands of thy heavenly Father.