23 February 2023 – Luke 9:22-25
Like today’s first reading, this Gospel passage also speaks of death and life. Jesus, in fact, predicts what will happen to him: his tremendous physical, mental and spiritual suffering due to the total rejection by the leaders and his own people and his brutal execution. But all will lead to resurrection and a new life that can never be taken away.
Jesus goes on to say that anyone who wants to be his follower must be prepared to walk the same path, carrying his own cross behind him, a cross of our own, different from the cross of Jesus and that of other people. And Luke emphasises that we must be prepared to carry it every day of our lives.
Renouncing oneself means renouncing one’s own project, often limited and petty, to welcome God’s: this is the path of conversion, indispensable for Christian existence, a path that led the Apostle Paul to affirm: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
Jesus does not ask us to give up living, but to welcome a newness and fullness of life that only He can give. Man has ingrained in the depths of his being the tendency to “think of himself”, to put his own person at the centre of interests and to place himself as the measure of everything. Those who follow Christ, on the other hand, reject this withdrawal into themselves and do not evaluate things on the basis of their own advantage, but consider life lived in terms of gift and gratuitousness, not of conquest and possession. True life, in fact, is expressed in the gift of self, fruit of Christ’s grace: a free existence, in communion with God and with one’s brothers and sisters (Gaudium et spes, 24).
If living following the Lord becomes the supreme value, then all other values receive their rightful place and importance from this. Those who focus solely on earthly goods will be losers, despite their apparent success: death will catch them with a heap of things, but with a missed life (Lk 12:13 21). The choice is therefore between being and having, between a full life and an empty existence, between truth and lies.
Just as the cross can be reduced to an ornamental object, so “carrying the cross” can become a figure of speech. In Jesus’ teaching, however, this expression does not foreground mortification and renunciation. It does not refer primarily to the duty of bearing small or great daily tribulations with patience; nor, still less, is it intended to be an exaltation of pain as a means of pleasing God.
For good workers…
– Jesus teaches us that to accept one’s cross means to join him in offering the ultimate proof of love and self-giving.
– One cannot speak of the cross without considering God’s love for us, a love that wants to fill us only with his goods.
– Jesus invites his disciples and us too not only to follow him, but above all to take him as a model to share his life, his choices for the love of God and his brothers and sisters.
P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ