Word to the Wise
Friday, August 7, 2020 - Friday in the 18th Week in Ordinary Time
[Nah 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7 and Matt 16:24-28]"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?"
The Gospel According to Matthew is strong stuff! Jesus tells his disciples that if they are going to follow him, they have to go with him to Jerusalem and to what will happen there. Jesus predicts his passion four times in this gospel, but it seems clear that the disciples simply didn't "get it." Writing about this some forty or fifty years later, the evangelist is warning others that following Jesus may entail the same fate that befell Jesus. Is the "Kingdom" worth your life? We can ask that question from heroes from our own time like Archbishop Romero, Fr. Stanley Rother, the Maryknoll sisters and other martyrs. They would say "Yes!" Our "cross" may not be as heroic or as public and lethal one but the Gospel According to Matthew does not leave room for negotiating this in advance!
Christianity is not simply a liturgical and devotional faith. Jesus did not spend the majority of his ministry in the synagogue or the temple in Jerusalem any more than any other ordinary Jew of his time! He was a public figure, to be sure, but he went to the homes of ordinary faithful people who lived out their lives without great notice. Those who came to him were carrying the crosses of grief and illness or burdens imposed by religious authorities!! [cf. Matt. 23}. We will carry our own crosses, but we will also help others to bear theirs. This is not to exalt suffering as something to be sought, but at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns that his way is not the easy one of convenient faith that demands only devotional and liturgical observance. AMEN