The Weight You Were Never Meant to Carry

A monk once described his first year of centering prayer as learning to set down a suitcase he did not know he was holding. For decades he had carried it — ambitions, opinions, the relentless narration of self — gripping it so tightly his knuckles had gone white. Only in sustained silence did he notice the weight at all. This is what Jesus means when He says, "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me."…