Our work in the world calls for many hands at the wheel. Planet earth is crying out in pain, and Christians have to pick up their crosses and follow Christ, his apostles and saints. These were all shining lights in a broken world ...

We must be so careful that we do not refuse the cross that the Lord has given us to carry. Let us remember that our present sufferings serve to prepare us for entering into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Catholics have more extreme sex lives because they're taught that pleasure is bad for you. Who thinks it's normal to kneel down to a naked man who's nailed to a cross? It's like a bad leather bar.

To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, I LOVE YOU. Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.

The word Christianity is already a misunderstanding; in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the cross.

My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative evolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacr

And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him the only life?

All crosses had their tops cut and became T's. There was also a thing called God.

Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts. The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, Me too.

Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).

There is joy at the end of every struggle we face. But you can never cross over and get there with the boats of complains. Complainer is only an explainer of pain! Take action!

Don't let the horrible nature of the waters prevent you from crossing the rivers of life. The more horrible the challenges we face, the sweeter the joy of conquering them.

A leader's cross is the temporal pain they go through and his crown is the permanent gain when at last victory is achieved.

Carry your cross and follow Christ.