Jesus declares

Jesus declares, “Anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.” This is sacrifice: handing our imperfect self over to the One who responds by handing back our true self through the gift of himself on the cross. The lord sets before us life and death, and asks us to “choose life” by obediently taking up Christ’s cross of death.”Without a ‘dying’, without the demise of what is simply our own, there is no communion with God and no redemption”
Pope Benedict XV1