Cedric Pisegna - Lay Your Burden Down (01/23/2026)
I’m Father Cedric Pisegna, welcome to the program. We are now in the fifth Sunday of Lent, and at Mass we have a second reading, and it’s from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. «Brothers and sisters, I consider everything as loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God. Depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death. If somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead, it is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity, but I continue my pursuit and hope that I may possess it since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I for my part to not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing, forgetting what lies behind, but straining forward to what lies ahead. I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus, the Word of the Lord».
We’re now in the fifth week of Lent. Most of Lent is behind us. We’ve only got a couple more weeks until Easter. And the church gives us this reading by Saint Paul where he says this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind. Let me stress that again, forgetting what lies behind, I press on toward the goal. And that’s exactly where we need to be in Lent, because perhaps some of you have made some mistakes in Lent, perhaps all of us, there’s failures and there’s sins, maybe we ate meat on Friday or missed Mass or whatever it is. Hopefully you’ll go to confession if that happened, but what happens is we all have our mistakes and our failures and our things that we need to turn away from, and Paul is telling us, forgetting all that, I press on.
That’s what the spiritual life really is. It has to do with pressing on, straining forward. Think of an Olympic runner crossing the finish line. We’re really in a contest, and we’re all Olympians, we’re spiritual people, we need to be moving and progressing and journeying. Lent is a season, and it’s not so much how your Lent began, as how it ends up. That’s what happens to a lot of people in life who have been abused, they get depressed, or they kind of give up, or they get negative, but what they don’t realize is it’s not how you begin in life, it’s how you end up in life, it’s how you finish life.
That’s why some people get this new strength from God to finish strong, and that’s what we’re about here this week, this fifth week of Lent. It’s about finishing strong. I’m a football fan, and I grew up in New England, so I really like Tom Brady, although he’s been traded to Tampa Bay, and he took them to the Super Bowl too. He’s got a great gift for being determined and pressing on, and sometimes it will be a very close game, and as I’m watching the teams, the opposition will score a touchdown, and it looks like they’re gonna win, and Tom Brady will get in there, and it’s like he has no bad memories, it’s like he forgets everything that just happened with that other team even though they marched all the way down the field and scored, and he brings his team down, then scores.
He forgets what lies behind and he presses on. And we are all in a contest. Sometimes it’s a contest with ourself, it’s a contest with the devil, it’s contest with life itself, and I love Paul’s attitude. He said forgetting what lies behind, this one thing that I do, I press on toward the goal. This is what Lent is. This is who we are as Christians, straining forward. The best is yet to come in Lent and in life, we got to believe that. Easter is on the horizon, holy week is right in front of us. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. Finish strong, be courageous, be determined. I was professed in 1985, and professed as a passionist religious, you see my habit here. I’ve been a religious now for over 35 years, and what happens is there was a group of eight of us, young men, and we all professed our vows to the passion, that’s our first vow, and also poverty, chastity, and obedience.
That happened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at our monastery there, and we could have chosen all kinds of different readings, but the reading that we chose was that one I just proclaimed to you from Saint Paul, forgetting what lies behind, I press on to what is ahead, this one thing I do. And it’s important to have as a goal one thing. Don’t complicate life, don’t complicate your spirituality. The reason why we chose that reading is because all eight of us were in our 20s and 30s when we were professed, we had all lived life to some degree, and we all had some failures, some mistakes, and we chose that reading because we didn’t want to concentrate on what lay behind us, but rather on the glorious destiny that God had for us, what lies ahead. And that’s exactly what Paul was saying. We did profess our vows, and the rest is history. We’ve let go of the past. The past can contain many good memories.
There are times of relationships, there are times of success, there are times of blessing. Don’t forget that, revel in those, but forget the mistakes and the sins and the failures. You learn from your mistakes, you learn from your failures, you learn from the past, but you don’t let it weigh you down. I like to say, lay your burdens down. What happened with Paul the Apostle is he had a history. You may not know this. You probably do know it. Let me refresh your memory, Paul was a murderer. He stood by as Stephen was stoned, holding the coats of those who were stoning Stephen. He watched the whole thing. Moses was a murderer. David was a murderer. Some of the greatest people in the Bible had done some pretty terrible things, but what I loved about Paul was even though he was a murderer, he didn’t stay stuck in the guilt and the shame, he didn’t let that separate him from God.
He said, forgetting what lies behind, learning from it, but forgetting what lies behind, I press on to the glorious future that God has. He had been persecuting the church. He was a participant in the murder of Saint Stephen. He has this big conversion, conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus, and because of the conversion, he becomes a Christian. And now he has to be accepted by the early church, because the same church he was persecuting, he’s now trying to be welcomed into, but people are really afraid. Well, this man named Barnabas… by the way, the name Barnabas means son of encouragement. Barnabas must have been quite a man, very positive, very encouraging, very supportive. He was willing to take St Paul and introduce him to the community. He must have been something, because nobody liked Paul, and here’s Barnabas, taking Paul under his wing, bringing him into the community.
Eventually it led to acceptance, and so Paul and Barnabas went together on a missionary journey, the first missionary journey of St. Paul. But something happened. They got into an argument. Only Paul could get into an argument with the son of encouragement. But, anyway, they got into an argument, and they had what’s called in the scriptures a sharp contention, and they split. Paul had relationship problems. He was very hardheaded and prideful, but yet had great humility. But he had some problems, and what did he do? Forgetting what he learned from it, but forgetting, he learned from it because he wrote that chapter on love, remember? 1 Corinthians 13, «Love is patient, love is kind».
And that probably came from some of his sharp contention, some of his relationship problems. He had people persecuting him, and he learned, and he grew. If you remember when he went to Athens, he preached in the areopagus, and he preached about the resurrection of Jesus. And here he is in the midst of all these ideas and philosophy. He comes with this new philosophy about the resurrection of Jesus, and they said, we’ll hear you again about this some time, and some mocked him. Well, the next thing you know, he goes to Corinth, and he starts preaching, and you know what he said in Corinth? Corinth’s not too far from Athens, he goes, «I wanted to know nothing among you, but Jesus in him crucified».
Wow, there’s a change. He went from preaching about the resurrection to preaching about the crucifixion, and he said the cross of Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God. So, he learned what works and what doesn’t work. We all have failures and abuse in the past, perhaps. Broken relationships, addictions, sins. You learn from it, and you lay your burdens down. You ever want to hear a good song, it’s by Chuck Girard, a Christian singer, and it’s simply called, «Lay Your Burden Down». I used to bring that song with me when I would preach in these large churches. Now, talk about the burdens that we have, the guilt, the failures, the sins, the shame, the wrongdoing, you know, the mistakes we’ve all made, and that can burden us, that can weigh us down. It’s like a sack we carry around all the time, and I used to play that song, it’s very melodic and very calming, and the whole church would hear it. «Lay Your Burden Down».
And I believe people were laying their burdens down, and I pray that for you right now as you watch this program. We’ve all got skeletons in the closet, but don’t dwell on that. Learn from it and go forward and lay your burdens down. People come to me to confession, because I’m a Catholic priest, all the time. And by the way, confession, we hear about it from James, this is the letter from James, and he says, «Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed». And I really liked that, because what happens is we all need inner healing. We need healing, certainly, from negativity, from some of the bad experiences we’ve had in the past that can cause fear and loss of courage.
Some traumatic experiences, yeah, we need healing of memories, but we also need healing from the guilt, from the shame, from the self recrimination, self condemnation, and that’s what happens in the confessional. People will come to me and want to do what’s called a general confession, and a general confession is when they confess their sins of the past from long ago, and why do they do that? Because it keeps getting dredged up in their own mind and it’s haunting them, and they have, some of them can’t sleep because of the things that they’ve done, and even though it’s forgiven at the cross and we’ve absolved you of your sins, sometimes it’s hard to forget, and you need a healing of memories. That may be you right now as you’re watching.
And what I tell people is that at the cross, by the blood of Jesus, there’s a cleansing of your conscience. There’s healing that can occur. We have a group, a community in the Catholic Church, they’re called the Precious Blood community. They’re dedicated to the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus. Just one drop of that blood, that precious blood, that we receive in communion at Mass, just one drop brings healing and cleansing, salvation. That’s exactly what David, King David prayed for, Psalm 51. He said, «Lord, cleanse me, wash me, make me whiter than snow».
And that’s exactly what has to happen. Lent is a period of purification. We need purification from our sinfulness, our pride, our negativity, but we also need purification from the guilt, from the shame, from the inner self recrimination, from the condemnation. I love what it says in Romans 8:1, Go to the stations of the cross, and the first cross you’ll see in the stations of the cross, a very Catholic piety, the first station we’ll talk about the condemnation before Pilate. Jesus stands before Pontius Pilate and is condemned to death. They used to take a stick, the one who was condemned to death on a cross, they would take a stick, snap it in two, and throw it at the feet of the condemned, and that’s what they did to Jesus.
Why did they snap the stick? Because crucifixion would break a person. The torture, the agony, the awful, the awful insidious hurt that that would cause to the body, and they would throw it at his feet and condemn that person to death. Of course, as you know, Jesus was condemned for you and for me, and that’s what I try to impress upon people in the confessional. Romans 8:1, «There is therefore now, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus». The other reading that we had for this fifth Sunday of Lent had to do with the woman caught in adultery. As you know, she was caught in the very act of adultery. I always wonder what happened to the man, why didn’t they bring the man there, too.
But anyway, the woman was thrown in front of Jesus, «Jesus, what do you say about this»? And he starts to write on the ground. Some scholars say that he was writing the sins of those who were standing around him because he had the gift of divination, which means he could understand, he knew the sins of other people. And what do you have to say about this? And, of course, he comes up with this beautiful saying, «Let the one who doesn’t have any sin be the first to cast the stone,» and they all walk away. And then he looks at the woman, he says, «Has nobody condemned you»? She says, «No one, sir». And he said, just as he says to you, «Neither do I condemn you. Go». There’s that word, «Go and sin no more».
That’s exactly what I tell people, that’s the formula in the confessional, that at the end of their confession, go in peace. Go forward, keep moving, lay your burden down, don’t hold onto the guilt, forget the past, don’t keep dredging it up, and that’s what I tell people who come with their general confession. You are forgiven. The blood of Jesus cleanses you. Believe in your salvation and go forward. That’s what we’re being given during this fifth week of Lent, because we’ve all had failures and mistakes, whether it be in Lent itself or in our past. Guilt separates us from God. There’s good guilt. Good guilt, what is that? That’s when you have guilt and it brings repentance.
You know that you’ve done something wrong, your conscience is speaking to you. I love what it says in the catechism that God speaks through our conscience. You make a move, you change because of the guilt. Guilt isn’t the best motivator, but it is a motivator, and it’s a good one. But there’s also bad guilt. Bad guilt is what I was just talking about. It’s guilt from the past that’s been forgiven that you keep dredging up. I have experienced a healing at the cross from the blood of Jesus from the sins that I have committed in my past, the mistakes that I’ve made in my past. I’m not justifying myself because of what I’ve done, but I realized the suffering, I meditate on the passion. I’m a passionist, I’m pointing to my sign, the vow that I take to meditate on the passion, proclaim the meaning of the passion to everybody. I meditate on that passion, and I know that he suffered for me, he went through that for me so that I could be free.
I don’t have to beat myself up. Beating yourself up isn’t going to merit you heaven, it’s not gonna earn you eternal life. Rather, let it go. «Wash me, cleanse me,» Psalm 51. «Make me whiter than snow». There was a woman in New Orleans, one time I was preaching there about laying your burdens down. I give parish retreats, and hundreds of people out there. I was talking about how we have to let the past go and lay our burdens down, and you’ll experience great joy and freedom and lightness. Jesus said, «Learn from me, I’m meek and humble of heart, you will find rest for your soul. My yoke is easy, my burden is light».
Well, I was trying to get people to lay their burdens down and apparently one woman did. She wrote me two weeks later, and I get this letter in the mail, and she said, «Father, I’m a woman who had committed an abortion in my past, and I beat myself up mercilessly about this. I kept condemning myself, how could I have done this»? And she said, «When you were preaching about laying your burdens down, all of a sudden I heard a voice, and the voice said, 'Enough already.' It was the voice of my conscience, but it was the voice of God. And I laid my burden down. And I feel so free now».
I’m not justifying abortion or adultery or lying or gossip or any other sin, but I am saying, go and sin no more. Move forward. Let it go. Maybe you haven’t had the best Lent, maybe you broke all your resolutions, perhaps you’ve sinned in some way. I’m not justifying that, I’m saying, what the church is saying, what Paul the Apostle is saying, what he learned about his life, what a good Catholic and Christian spirituality says, «This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, I press on toward the goal,» toward the good things that God has for me. Jesus once gave a three word sermon, it was real short, but very powerful, right from the Bible. He said, «Remember,» you want to remember something, «Remember Lot’s wife».
You know who Lot was. Lot was in Sodom, he had his family, his wife, his two daughters, and God sent some angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness. The angel comes to Lot and tells him and his family, «Flee Sodom, it’s about to be destroyed, and don’t look back». There we go again, Jesus preached about it. They took off. They did what the angel said, but Lot’s wife must have been a little curious. She hears some noise goin' on in the background, as you know, she turned around, she looked back. Turned into a pillar of salt. I always say, if you’re going to be looking back, you aren’t worth your salt.
That’s what Jesus said, he said, if you’ve got your hand to the plow, anyone who has their hand to the plow and keeps looking back isn’t fit for the kingdom of God. This isn’t just something that Paul taught, Jesus taught this. Very important, great spirituality of looking, you can’t drive a car by looking in the rearview mirrors all the time. You can’t focus on that. Notice that they put blinders on horses, know why that is? So that the horse, when it’s running the race, and we’re all running a race, the horse, when it’s running a race, won’t be distracted by the side and certainly won’t be looking back, so they got the blinders there.
«This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, I press on to the goal of the upward call in Christ Jesus». Paul was able to let go of his past. He had mortal sin, he had relationship problems, not only that. He forged ahead, he made his mistakes, he forged ahead to a new future, and he bore fruit. He didn’t stay stuck. Lay your burdens down. If you’re Catholic, go to confession, make a move. If you’re not Catholic, surrender your life to Christ. Don’t be afraid of moving forward, be afraid of staying stuck. In the name of Jesus, lay your burden down. Let go, and let’s go. Almighty God bless you. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.