Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.

So years ago I came across this quote and it is attributed to C.S. Lewis but I went online

and it's attributed to like a thousand other people as well but here's the quote, I'm

going to say it was C.S. Lewis, here it is.

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.

I thought about every test I ever took, I thought about every sports sporting competition

that I was in, the pressure that I was experiencing.

I think about me even these videos or the podcast I do of my Sunday homilies is I think

like how often times I will stress, I'll worry, I'll fret and I'll carry this burden

and I'm thinking wait, I have to do the work, right?

I have to do the task.

That's not a problem.

That's not difficult.

Just making a video is not difficult.

Preaching is not difficult, teaching is not difficult.

It's the way I carry it.

Like it's what I'm looking for.

It's what you might call the work behind the work.

Most of us, we are not, we're not simply preoccupied with the burden itself, right?

The task we have to do, the state and life that we find ourselves in, even the pain,

the sickness, the tragedy we might be experiencing because that can be hard enough, right?

And it's the burden beneath the burden.

...