Reflection for the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

MT 10:37-42

In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes no bones about it: to follow Him is to live your life in a way that is a sign of contradiction to the world. Love God more than you love your family. If you don’t take up your cross and follow Him [while carrying that cross], you are not worthy of Him. If you try to find life you will lose it, but if you lose your life for His sake, you will find it. Does that sound easy, or reasonable, or exciting? Is this the invitation to a way of life that you’ve been waiting for all your life? Is this what you would say to a person who is thinking about becoming a Catholic? No, no and no, probably not.

I might be tempted to say that Jesus didn’t really mean what He said, that He liked to use exaggeration, that He was in the habit of talking in images and metaphors, that He didn’t expect us to take it literally…. But I can’t say that, because it’s just not true. Jesus meant exactly what He said, and He still says it and still means it. If we believe anything Jesus said, we have to believe everything He said.

So what to do with this passage of scripture? Maybe the best we can do is read it slowly, sit quietly with it, and let the Holy Spirit speak to us and in us, and in the end we are left with the realization that to be a follower of Jesus is to put God first, and to be brave enough to turn our lives over to Him. But that’s not really the end of it. When we read further in the Gospels, we discover that Jesus asks us to be countercultural so that we can be found in Him. Jesus doesn’t promise us complete happiness here on earth, but He does promise us the freedom to live the life to which we have been called in His love. He promises us peace by granting us freedom from all that can fill us with less than what is good and holy. In fact He is promising us that He will give us the grace to become fully human. That was the destiny He had in mind for us when He first thought of us from all eternity. Don’t let us give up because what He asks seems impossible.

St. Paul tells us that we can do all things in Christ who strengthens us. May we make those words our conviction.

Have a blessed day, and a safe and happy Fourth of July.