Today's Gospel February 27 with commentary by Saint Francis of Sales

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke 9,22-25.
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: "The Son of man, he said, must suffer greatly, be reproved by the elders, high priests and scribes, be put to death and rise again on the third day."
Then, to everyone, he said: «If anyone wants to come after me, deny himself, take up his cross every day and follow me.
Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. "
What good is it for man to gain the whole world if he loses himself or ruins himself? "
Liturgical translation of the Bible

St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
bishop of Geneva, doctor of the Church

Conversations
The renunciation of oneself
The love we have for ourselves (...) is affective and effective. Effective love is what the great, ambitious of honor and wealth possess, who procure an infinite number of goods and are never satisfied with buying them: these - I say - love each other very much of this effective love. But there are others who love each other more than emotional love: these are very tender with themselves and do nothing but pamper themselves, take care of themselves and seek comfort: they have such a fear of everything that could hurt them, that they make a great punishment. (...)

This attitude is all the more unbearable when it concerns spiritual things rather than corporal ones; especially if it is practiced or reiterated by the more spiritual people, who would like to be holy immediately, without costing them anything, not even the struggle provoked by the lower part of the soul for the repugnance towards what is against nature. (...)

To repel what makes us disgust, to silence our preferences, to mortify the affections, to mortify judgments and to renounce one's will is something that the actual and tender love that we have in us cannot afford without shouting: how much it costs! And so we do nothing. (...)

Better to carry a small straw cross on my shoulders without me choosing it, than to go and cut a much bigger one in the wood with a lot of work and then carry it with great pain. And I will be more pleasing to God with the straw cross than with what I would have made with more pain and sweat, and that I would bring with more satisfaction because of self-love that is so pleased with his inventions and very little to simply let himself be guided and lead.