"The Cross every day. Nulla dies sine cruce, no day without the Cross: no day in which we do not carry the cross of the Lord, in which we do not accept his yoke (...).
"The path of our personal sanctification passes daily through the Cross: this path is not an unhappy one, because God himself helps us and with him there is no room for sadness. In laetitia, nulla die sine cruce, I like to repeat; with a soul pierced with joy, no day without the Cross".
The Cross of the Lord, with which we have to carry every day, is certainly not the one that produces our selfishness, envy, laziness, etc., it is not the conflicts that produce our old man and our disordered love. This is not of the Lord, it does not sanctify.
On some occasion, we will encounter the Cross in a great difficulty, in a serious and painful illness, in an economic disaster, in the death of a loved one: "(...) do not forget that to be with Jesus is surely to encounter his Cross. When we abandon ourselves into God's hands, he often allows us to taste pain, loneliness, contradictions, slander, defamation and mockery, inside and out: because he wants to conform us to his image and likeness, and he also tolerates being called crazy and taken for fools.
"It is the hour to love passive mortification, which comes - hidden or shameless and insolent - when we do not expect it ". The Lord will give us the necessary strength to carry that Cross with panache and will fill us with graces and unimaginable fruits. We understand that God blesses his friends in many ways, and frequently, making us sharers in his Cross and co-redeemers with him.
However, the normal thing will be that we find the Cross of every day in small setbacks that cross in the work, in the coexistence: it can be an unforeseen event that we did not count on, the difficult character of a person with whom we necessarily have to live, plans that we must change at the last minute, work instruments that break down when they were more necessary, annoyances produced by the cold or the heat or the noise, misunderstandings, a slight illness that diminishes the capacity of work in that day....
We must receive these daily annoyances with great courage, offering them to the Lord in a spirit of reparation: without complaining, because this complaint often signals the rejection of the Cross. These mortifications, which come without our expecting them, can help us, if we receive them well, to grow in the spirit of penance which we need so much, and to improve in the virtue of patience, in charity, in understanding: that is to say, in holiness. If we receive them in a bad spirit, they can be a cause of rebellion, impatience or discouragement. Many Christians have lost their joy at the end of the day, not because of great setbacks, but because they have not known how to sanctify the weariness of their work, nor the small difficulties that have arisen during the day. The Cross - small or large - when accepted, produces peace and joy in the midst of pain and is loaded with merits for eternal life; when the Cross is not accepted, the soul remains disillusioned or with an intimate rebelliousness, which immediately comes out in the form of sadness and bad humor. "To carry the Cross is a great, great thing..... It means facing life with courage, without softness or vileness; it means transforming into moral energy the difficulties that will never be lacking in our existence; it means understanding human pain, and, finally, knowing how to love truly". The Christian who goes through life systematically refusing sacrifice will not find God, will not find happiness. He also shuns his own holiness.