Scripture Readings: Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 20:7-9; Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans 12:1-2; Gospel According to Saint Matthew 16:21-27
In the Gospel passage for this Sunday, Jesus states clearly that those who wish to come after him must deny their very self, take up their cross and follow in the footsteps of the Lord.
The words of Jesus are straight forward enough, and at the same time challenging, perhaps frightening, and yet a real possibility. How so? Because God only asks of us what is possible for us to achieve.
Every follower of Jesus must be ready and willing to partake in the way which Jesus lived, namely, a life of self-oblation and sacrifice, which may appear as defeat, when in fact it is victory.
We are being called to a life of forgetting self and being of service, inspired by God’s merciful dealing with us. “I came to serve not to be served,” Jesus himself declared (Gospels of Saint Matthew 20:28 and Saint Mark 10:45).
As Jesus promises, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). What this means is that even in this life we can partake of “living in peace,” something that comes about by totally belonging to Christ, and at the same time, not being discouraged or giving up when things get tough, which they inevitably will.
At the heart of following Jesus is the personal love and devotion to the Lord, whom we believe, is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Nothing can destroy that reality and it is freely, at every moment, being offered to us by God. Expressed another way: if we place the Lord at the center of our existence, then we “dethrone” ourselves and “enthrone” the true source of goodness and life, to be found by life in Christ.
To follow Jesus means to joyfully participate in the “human adventure,” as it is sometimes called. It entails attaching oneself to Christ with total dedication, without counting the cost, knowing that we have first been called by God, from the moment of our conception, and really from all eternity, in God’s infinite plan.
What we are invited to in this life is a profoundly humble attitude by which we accept and receive our life as coming from God, thereby abandoning self-sufficiency and the temptation to dominate and placing ourselves in the center of the universe.
The promise of Jesus is that a life of discipleship is fruitful in the present life and will extend to the moment when we exchange time for eternity at the moment our death.
Jesus teaches that the path to fulfillment and to eternal life is not found in riches, nor greatness, power, or anything else. Rather, our fulfillment is found in obedience and service, humble surrender to the ways of the Lord, day in and day out. At the same time, understanding that the path of life and the grace of discipleship is itself a gift from the hand of God.
By personal attachment to Jesus Christ we can find our true self and acquire the enrichment God intends for us, which finally becomes a share in eternal life, what we call heaven.
With this in mind the exhortation of Saint Paul in the second reading at Mass today is important and worth repeating in its entirety.
“Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God . . . Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect” (Letter to the Romans 12:1-2).
Finally, a prayer from the late Biblical scholar, Father Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P., of the Congregation of the Passion:
“Lord, your love which created us is an eternal love. Life, which is not our own, is leading us far beyond our understanding. Do not forsake us, the work of your hands, for only your can complete this work as we struggle with our temptations and hopes” (from “Biblical Meditations For Ordinary Time – Weeks 10-22,” Paulist Press, 1984, p. 391).
Abbot Christian Leisy, OSB