Wednesday of 31st Week, uneven numbered year
“Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned to speak to them : ’Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple.”
The religious leaders are constantly trying to undermine the credibility of Jesus. But in this situation they are not served, for everyone guessed where Jesus was going to get to, Jesus didn’t encourgae people to abandon their family responsabilities. It si a question of loving God above all else to the point that others or other things are second choice. Love for God must be so great, that we prefer no one to Him and so the natural affection in families is taken over by the link that links us to God. If we want to build the Kingdom of God with Christ, we can only do so in Jesus’ Passion and through the Compassion of Mary’s heart. They manifested this new Love to us and we enter it only through grace. According to the grace that is given to us, with the gifts of God that unite us, we carry on in this world Christ’s combat for the salvation of the world. Cetainly, in this world there are natural laws, but Jesus takes us to live in something that goes beyond us, beyond something greater and much more vast : the ’you shall love’ of God. God is Love. Mary carried Jesus in her womb and this Love walked on our paths. The same Love works within the Church. The Good News is that all our realtionships are new : the love with our family, the love with our work companions are completely transfigured. God’s Infinite Love has to burn everything in our lives.
“And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying ’Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish.”
How embarassing for this man who hadn’t known how to calculate what he was up to. He should have nevertheless known that you don’t undertake to build something without making sure you have the means to complete it. The same goes for us : before we profess being one of Jesus’ disciples we have to know whether we have the means to entirely give over our life to Jesus. If not,
unfortunately, life as a disciple will come to an end. Jesus has us welcome a fundamentally new life from him. We ask for the grace to enter into the Word of God which places us before the genuiness of our Christian vocation, on the level of the Incarnation, of the coming of Jesus in human flesh. He wants to take us further, He who is the Son of Mary is true God and true man. We have been baptised in Him, plunged into His Passion and Ressurection to go as far as the Infinite Love of God. We have become new creatures. We need first and foremost to believe this, then we need to take the means to make this New Love come about. Our heart that now lives at a divine rythym takes on the human rythym in this Love! The Holy Spirit comes to our aid for we are unable to build Christian community without Christ.
“Or again, what king,marching to war against another king, would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who was advancing against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoyers to sue for peace. So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple without giving up all he owns.”
What is more important is that this king must decide whether he has to go to war with another king! His army is not as strong as that of his opponent, in fact he only has half of what he has. ’Ten thousand against twenty thousand.’ So he must evaluate conscientously whether he has any chance of winning the battle. if it is clear that he couldn’t win, it would be better that he remain in a state of peace rather than exposing himself to a shameful massacre. The same goes for those who want to follow Jesus, he must look at this illustration and understand his decision to follow Jesus mustn’t be taken lightly. He needs to sit down, think about it, for Jesus invites us to examine ourselves. Then we can see if we are ready or not to follow him on this way of total self giving in Love. In fact, the combat is out of proportion. The Holy Spirit alone, in the heart of the faithful person,can accomplish the work of Jesus, who does not want any of his disciples to have a divided heart. The one who says ’yes’ to Jesus must take into account the hardships of such a step. I need to build the Body of Chrsit which is the Church by putting everything into place so as to allow more Love to enter my life. To prefer Chrsit also means to prefer his brothers in Chrsit. ’ See how they love one another’, This is always the witness we want to bear.