Taking The Cross

Tollat, inquit, crucem suam, et sequatur me. Quia non satis est tollere crucem, nisi sequaris Christum. Nam et philosophi hujus saeculi sua omnia reliquerunt, etiam interdum et vitia, sectantes mores bonos, et multa passi sunt, sed quia fidem non habuerunt, neque Christum sunt secuti: Putantes se esse sapientes, stulti remanserunt, quia non glorificaverunt Deum, sed evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis, et oberraverunt a vero. Propterea unusquisque qui vult sequi Christum, tollt crucem suam, quia nisi in cruce Christ gloriatus fuerit, et in ae crediderit, crucemque Christi suam esse fecerit, et portaverit post Christum cum Simone, in angaria, eum sequi non potest, quia nemo vacuus Christum sequitur. Idcirco quicunque moritur peccato, non alio modo moriatur, quam secundum carnem, ut dicere possit cum Apostolo, Absit mihi gloriari, nisi in cruce Domini, per quam mihi mundus crucifixus est, et ego mundo. Sanctus Paschasius Radbertus Corbeiensis, Expositio In Evangelium Matthaei, Liber VIII, Caput XVI Source: Migne PL 120.570c-d

Let him take up his own cross and follow me. 1 Because unless you follow Christ it is not enough to take up the cross. For even philosophers of this world have forsaken everything, even vices, and sought after good ways, and suffered much, but because they did not have faith, they did not follow Christ. 'Thinking themselves wise, they remained fools, because they did not glory in God, but they were empty in their own thoughts,' 2 and they wandered from the truth. Because of which everyone who wishes to follow Christ should take up his own cross, because unless He glories in the cross of Christ and believes in it, and he makes Christ's cross his own, and carries it after Christ with Simon in trials, he cannot follow Him, because no one empty follows Christ. Therefore, whoever is dead to sin, in no other way dies but according to the flesh, so that it it possible to say with the Apostle, 'May it not be for me to glory unless in the cross of the Lord through which I the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.' 3 Saint Paschasius Radbertus, Commentary On The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Book 8, Chapter 16 1 Mt 16.24 2 Rom 1.21 3 Galat 6.14