Liturgical day: Sunday 23rd (C) in Ordinary Time
Gospel text (Lk 14,25-33): One day, when large crowds were walking along with Jesus, He turned and said to them, «If you come to me, without being ready to give up your love for your father and mother, your spouse and children, your brothers and sisters, and indeed yourself, you cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not follow me carrying his own cross cannot be my disciple.
»Do you build a house without first sitting down to count the cost to see whether you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, if you have laid the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone will make fun of you: ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish’. And when a king wages war against another king, does he go to fight without first sitting down to consider whether his ten thousand can stand against the twenty thousand of his opponent? And if not, while the other is still a long way off he sends messengers for peace talks.
»In the same way, none of you may become my disciple if he doesn't give up everything he has».
«None of you may become my disciple if he doesn\'t give up everything he has»
Fr. Joaquim MESEGUER García
(Rubí, Barcelona, Spain)
Today, Jesus clearly tells us which is the place all others must take in our hierarchy of love while also explaining how to follow his person portrays our Christian life, a path going through different stages, where we must join Jesus with our Cross: «Whoever does not follow me carrying his own cross cannot be my disciple» (Lk 14:27).
When Jesus tells his disciples: «If you come to me, without being ready to give up your love for your father and mother, your spouse and children, your brothers and sisters, and indeed yourself, you cannot be my disciple» (Lk 14:26), is He entering into a conflict with the Law of God that orders us to honor our parents and to love our fellow men? Certainly not. Jesus Christ already said He had not come to abolish the Law but to completely fulfill it; accordingly, He is the one to render the correct interpretation. When He demands an unconditional love, distinctive of God, He is pleading that He is God, whom we have to love above everything else and for whose love everything else has to be subordinated. By entrusting God with our lives, we shall also be able to love all the others with a sincere and just love. St. Augustine says: «See, now, how you are dragging your yearning for God's truth and perceiving his own volition in the Holy Scriptures».
Christian life is a non-stop journey with Jesus. Now-a-days, theoretically, many claim to be Christians, but, in fact, they are not sharing their journey with Jesus: they stay put at the starting point and do not even begin their trip, or give it up as soon as they can, or just take a different trip with other fellow travelers. The luggage to carry to make the journey of our life along with Jesus is the Cross, each one with his own; but, all along, with our share of suffering for those following Christ, there is also included the consolation which God soothes his beholders with, in all their trials. God is our hope and the source of life is in him.