Jesus has a path for all of us to follow, and bearing our cross with Him is essential to following that path.

Not only is there a path for us, but Jesus had to follow a path as well, Fr. Dan McBride of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Chandler said.

"Jesus made it clear the path that God had for Him,"  McBride said in the church's Aug. 30 bulletin. "Suffering and death on a cross was the only path He could take to follow the Father’s will."

When St. Peter questioned the path Jesus had laid out for him, he was criticized. 

All of us have a cross to bear— suffering to endure— throughout life. McBride recalled that his mother often had to deal with suffering on a daily basis.

"My mother taught me an important lesson on suffering and God’s will," McBride said in the bulletin. "For most of her adult life she suffered from Multiple Sclerosis. She was, at times, in a wheel chair, and almost always tired from the effects of the disease. Yet she got up, got ready and almost every day went to daily Mass. Her presence at Mass was a profound witness to the conquering love of God."

After his mother's death, he came across a "water-stained, set of prayer cards" that "were so well-used that I could tell she had 'loved' so many people with her prayers," which was in a sense her suffering, McBride said. His mother used her suffering to attend daily Mass and to pray for people throughout her life.

"It is easy to imagine that God could have spared her from the suffering and pain of MS," McBride said. "I can’t imagine her any other way. That was God’s will for her life, and I am grateful for that witness to me and to those who saw it. Seek out God’s will for your life, don’t try to avoid it."