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Gospel Reflection 20070909

The Holy Spirit changes you, gives you strength and courage and faith.
The Holy Spirit is like air or electricity. You can't see those things, but you can see and feel what they do. The Holy Spirit is a living presence in our lives—just like our heartbeat and pulse—that helps us in whatever we do. It gives us a "reality check," a wake-up call, a boost of creativity or insight or energy or patience or inspiration—whatever we need, whether we know we need it or not.
God's plans for you go beyond your own plans.
Despite your ideas of what you want to do with your life, the Holy Spirit might take you where you least expect to go. An inspiration might come along when you're not looking or asking for it. It may even come when you don't want it! God has something more for you in mind. The Holy Spirit opens your eyes to this "something more" and may take you where you think you do not want to go. But you will be surprised. The Holy Spirit will encourage and strengthen you. It will take the gifts you were given and help you use them to share with others and build a better world.

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The Spiritual Struggle to follow Jesus 100%
September 9, 2007


Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time



Gospel
Lk 14:25-33

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Otherwise, after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
In the same way,
anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple.”


Jesus tells me that the greatest commandments are to love God above all else and to love my neighbor as myself. Why then does he ask me to “hate” so many lovable people and things? Perhaps the better expression is to “renounce”. Jesus asks me to love only one thing -- rather, one person -- absolutely. Only God should be the absolute center of my life. All other loves come after and are at the service of this supreme love.

We know the old commandment, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). We know the new commandment of Jesus, “Love one another; even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). And we come here today and we hear these words of Jesus: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). How can we reconcile these seemingly contradictory demands? How can we “hate” those we are supposed to love? And, more importantly, why?
The paradox of hating those we love was dramatized in a most fascinating way on Saturday, September 8, 2001 in the women’s finals of the US Open tennis tournament in Flushing, New York. For the first time in the history of the tournament, the world watched a sportive and emotional roller coaster as two sisters who love themselves so much that they live in the same house and share the same hotel room fought each other. Could you imagine what was going on in the minds of Venus and Serena Williams as they battled and slugged it out against each other, suspending their love for each other and at least temporarily “hating” each other? They had to “hate” each other because the one was standing in the way of the other becoming the world champion. The one was an obstacle to the realization of the other’s dream to wear the world crown. And so they had to hate and fight each other.
Venus won. But she did not do her usual victory leap and celebratory display. Instead she ran to the net, put an arm around her defeated junior sister’s shoulder and said, “I love you.” Why did she say that? Because the game is over now and her sister is no longer an obstacle in the way of her victory. She said, in other words, “I am sorry, but I had to do it: I had to fight you so hard, I had to “hate” you because you were standing in my way. But I still love you.” That was a rare example of hating those we love, and from it we can learn much about the injunction to “hate” our loved ones.
Ordinarily Venus loves Serena, except when Serena becomes an obstacle that could prevent her from realizing her ambition to win the crown. Similarly we are to love our parents and siblings and spouses, and indeed everyone else, except when they become obstacles in our bid to win the crown of eternal life. The crown of heavenly glory that the Father gives us is worth much more than the ephemeral crown that Venus won on that day. So we should be prepared to wage an uncompromising war to see that no person or thing stands in our way to make us lose the crown. Possessions constitute a formidable obstacle in many people’s bid for the crown of salvation. That is why Jesus concludes today’s gospel with these words: “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (v. 33).
Jesus implies that to be his disciple is to relativize every other thing in life: family or wealth, prosperity or health, pleasure or fame. He means that on the list of our goals and priorities in life, attaining the kingdom of God must come first and then everything else will follow. It is a matter of life and death. And the examples he gives to illustrate the seriousness of his teaching come from the field of war.
The first illustration in the Gospel reading is that of the man who intends to build a tower. The tower in the ancient world was basically a strategic structure for the defense of the city in time of war. The second illustration in the Gospel reading is that of the king marching out to war. Notice that the king has only 10,000 troops whereas the enemy has 20,000. Identifying ourselves with the king in the parable, we can see that the enemy outnumbers us two to one. “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We are bound to fail unless we appeal to a stronger king to come to our assistance. And that powerful king, the King of kings, is none other than God Himself.
Today’s gospel, therefore, shows us how absolute and how radical are the demands of discipleship. Following Jesus is much harder than winning the US Open. The good news is that Jesus recognizes our human weaknesses: we are 10,000 strong and the enemy is 20,000. It is, therefore, an invitation for us to have recourse to God, for without God we can do nothing.


Part of the American Dream is the ability to "strike it rich." In our not too distant past such strikes were made by hard work, prudent spending, and the will power to save. For the more adventurous, the work ethic is replaced by the fever of speculation on the stock market.
However, many have found that the market also obeys the law of gravity — what goes up must come down. Today's entrepreneurial urges lead in another direction, namely, write a best seller and appear on the talk shows. Subjects abound: how to lose weight; get a promotion; survive the corporate jungle; and above all, how to workout so as to look tall, tan, and terrific.
But there is a subject that is a sure fire success, namely, a how-to book which helps one manage one's interpersonal life. Interpersonal technique books abound. We don't seem to get enough of them. Maybe part of the reason is that we Americans are more comfortable with our work than with our fellows. Whatever the reason, 'one on one' is big business.
The Gospel reading speaks about some very delicate forms of human relationships. And I am not that sure there would be much of a market for such biblical wisdom. For example: Jesus says to the crowd, "If anyone comes to me without turning his back on his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, indeed his very self, he cannot be my follower."
For the modern mind these words might seem like some kind of Freudian quest for self-development and independence. Maybe Jesus is laying the groundwork for some of our present day notions of family life: superficial encounter of the briefest kind. Family members have to assert their rights and claim their space. Naturally this can cause conflict. However, if we are to be healthy individuals we must stake our claims. Of course Jesus is advocating no such thing. Jesus is much more radical than today's so-called radical approaches to family and interpersonal relationships. Jesus is saying that it is important to be friends with ourselves and love our parents, children, and spouse. However, and this however is crucial, human relationships, no matter how intense, long lasting, loving, or meaningful, are not of ultimate importance.
There is only one who is worthy of our total concern. And that One is Jesus the Christ. In fact, it is only by being ultimately concerned in Him that our concern about self, others, and world takes on significance. For without Jesus our concern often becomes a form of domination, control, and manipulation. Jesus never spoke in 'how-to' terms or advocated techniques in order to pull strings and win friends. Our loving and caring are human, and reflect the divine, to the extent that we 'care and not care. ' Only Jesus is ultimate. Only Jesus saves.
In an age which wants to pull its own strings, look out for number one, and protect individual rights, Jesus seems awfully strange. The words of Wisdom seem appropriate: "When things are in heaven who can search them out?" But the wisdom of Jesus is not only in heaven. His counsel touches our very lives.



For more than 10 weeks now we have been walking with Jesus as He makes His way to Jerusalem. It is there, in the holy city, that He will lay down His life for the salvation of the world. Each Sunday, as we hear the continuous proclamation of the Gospel of St. Luke, we are invited to join Jesus and His disciples in their pilgrimage. In the course of the journey Jesus tells His disciples – and us – the meaning of authentic discipleship. By means of parables and direct teachings we come to see the qualities and expectations of a disciple of Christ.
Let’s recall some of those teachings:
The disciple of Christ must make a firm and irrevocable decision to be with Jesus. (No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.)
The disciple must rely completely on God. (Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals…)
The disciple must practice charity toward his neighbor. (Parable of the Good Samaritan)
The disciple is one who listens attentively to the voice of God. (Mary has chosen the better part…)
The disciple is a person of faithful and persevering prayer. (Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find…)
The list could easily continue, but now we should listen carefully to what the Master has to say in today’s Gospel passage. St. Luke tells us that Jesus and His disciples have been joined by great crowds. To them Jesus now reveals the cost of true discipleship:
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
“…anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
If we are at all tempted to romanticize the gift of discipleship, these words of the Lord ought to dispel any such notions. Living the Gospel means total and absolute surrender to God, valuing nothing or no one more than sharing by grace in the very life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
How are we to understand these teachings? How is it possible to be so completely devoted to another that this devotion surpasses all loves and relationships of this world? All of this is so contrary to the logic and inclinations that we as human beings have. How to explain all this?
Jesus calls forth from His disciples the same love, the same obedience, the same single-hearted dedication that He has for His Father. In other words, the authentic disciple must imitate Christ Himself. Our experience shows us that we are capable of the kind of total sacrifice that Jesus demands of us. Think for a moment of the self-sacrificing love of spouses for each other, of parents for their children. This gives us an idea of the kind of complete gift of self that is demanded of the disciple. One cannot be a part-time or sometimes disciple. We cannot follow Jesus only when it is convenient and does not demand too very much from us.
If this is what true Christian discipleship demands, who can possibly answer the call? Which of us has it within himself to value God and the things of God above even our own families? Ahead of power, success, money – even life itself? None of us does. We can respond to this call to discipleship only by the grace of the same God who calls us. It is when we rely on our own resources that we quickly discover just how incapable we are. It is when we open ourselves to the grace of God in our lives that we discover just how powerful we are. This is what St. Paul reveals to us when he says: “Power is made perfect in weakness.”
Jesus’ parables of the farmer building his tower and the king setting out to do battle illustrate the foolishness of setting about accomplishing a task that is doomed to failure. We simply cannot be the kind of disciple that Jesus demands unless we rely completely on divine grace. With God nothing is impossible, not even the renunciation of everything that this world has to offer so that we might follow Christ perfectly.



I think this is the harshest Gospel passage there is! “Unless you hate you father, your mother, your wife, your children, your property, and even your own life, you cannot be my disciple!” I would much rather meditate on that gentle passage from Matthew, chapter 11, where Jesus says, “Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” But this! Is this Gospel, if “Gospel” means “Good News”?
Are you ready to give up your job? Your boyfriend? Your wife? To follow Jesus!? But just how far can one go? And how far is God going to push me? Do I have the strength to do what is humanly impossible? No, I do not have it.
However, I remember the story of a little girl who did not have it, but when she needed it, she got it. Perhaps you are familiar with the story of Cory Ten Boom, a little girl living in the Netherlands during the Second World War. The Nazis had overrun Holland. There were a lot of Jews in Holland at that time. Some, knowing what it means to be disciples of Jesus, undertook to hide Jews who were being rounded up by the Nazis and shipped of to prison. And, as we now know, to more than prison; it meant death for most of them. These Christians heard the call to protect those who were being persecuted. Cory’s father heard the call. He explained to Cory what it meant – how they were taking a risk, and that they it was very possible that they would get caught, and they themselves could well be thrown into prison. Or executed. And little Cory, who was about 10 or 11 years old, said to her father, “I don’t think I have the strength or the courage to go through with this.”
Cory’s father sat her down and told her the truth: “You do not have the strength now. But do you remember when I used to put you on the train to go visit your grandparents? You traveled all alone. I put you on the train, and you didn’t have a ticket. But just before the train pulled out, and just before I left your side, I would always give you the ticket. When the time came, Then you had what you needed. Well, that’s the way it is here. When the time comes, God will give us whatever is we need. And so Cory was encouraged.
As a matter of fact, they were caught. And they did get hauled off to prison. The family was split up in the process. Her daddy and all the rest of her family disappeared. We assume that each of them was given the strength they needed for the situation they were in. But as a matter of fact, the only one to survive the ordeal, and to live to the end of the war, was Cory. All they others disappeared forever. We do have the testimony of Cory, who wrote a book about it, that she did get from God the strength she needed to carry her through her ordeal. And to do a lot of spiritual growth in the process.
“…. Father, and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even one’s own life….” Yes. Jesus was obviously not talking about hate, but, in typical Hebraic fashion, He was talking about the ability to prefer something else over and above the things that we naturally hold very dear to ourselves.
Frankly, it is not humanly possible to do these things. But God is beyond what is humanly possible.



In our times it is said that some two billion people carry the name of Christian.
The motives for Jesus’ great following are, however, far from clear. Some did and do indeed follow Him in faith; they are really prepared to surrender themselves to Him for His own sake. But many sought and seek Him for their own sake. In the past, but also today, He is sought out for His miraculous powers, especially to heal bodies and psyches. Today, He is sought out to justify consciences and world-views, to supply nice feelings and soothing words, to fulfill the psycho-social need for a credible hero figure. People can follow Jesus to manipulate Him.
But Jesus sees right through our would-be manipulations; nor does He, in the words of the pop psychology book, indulge in the “games people play.” He is not impressed by numbers, applause or wealth. When it comes to relating with us, Jesus has one simple rule: prefer absolutely nothing and no-one to Me. This rule is not at all reasonable or fair, it violates every code of human rights you can think of, it defies negotiation and compromise; it goes against the grain of almost every instinct of our humanity. It is total and absolute, without exception, without excuse, radical and subversive; it makes no separation between one dimension of life and another; it does not accommodate at all our notions of privacy or publicity; it is neither apologetic nor subject to appeal; it respects neither the claims of reason, nor the seductions of culture nor the vicissitudes of history; it holds true for every human being, be they Pope or pauper, friend or foe; death itself cannot exempt the human person from that rule. This claim of Jesus Christ thus appears as madness in the eyes of the pseudo-sophisticated. Yet, it is a dramatic, almost desperate, statement of the wisdom of God who knows that the human heart can find fulfillment only in the person of Jesus Christ. The desperation and drama are couched in deliberately outrageous terms: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. … Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” No matter how much we want to soften these words, they remain scandalous, they shock, they raise profound feelings of resistance and resentment, they outrage.
Do we realize what Jesus is asking? It is not difficult to imagine how that great crowd of people following Him reacted. As they said of Him when He once spoke of eating His flesh, “this is intolerable language: who can accept it?” Today we might be tempted to rationalize what He asks of us by describing His words as mere “rhetoric” or symbolism. Yet, to do so could signal a rejection of the real demand of Jesus. If Jesus puts Himself before mother and father, whom we are told in the fourth commandment to obey, or before wife and children, to whom we must be faithful in obedience to at least the sixth commandment, or our own life, which we must protect in fulfillment of the fifth commandment, what on earth can He be claiming? Is He not abrogating those commandments? Is He not exalting hatred? Surely the only answer can be the first commandment: I am the Lord your God, you must have no other god before me. The answer is also the second commandment: take not my name in vain, that is, do not invoke me as God and then abuse my Name to back up your own lies. The answer is also the third commandment: keep holy the Sabbath day, that is worship me faithfully before you give your time and love and reverence to anyone else. Put simply, in turning to the crowds with such outrageous and radical language, Jesus is saying to them: do not follow me as men follow one another, even in their families; follow me as God, for that is Who I Am. Jesus is proclaiming His divinity. He demands, for He deserves, our first, last and greatest love. For the disciple of Jesus, the Son of God made man is the hub of the wheel around which all our other relationships must rotate, the great sea into which all the rivers of our loves must flow.
We should never let either family or friends separate us from Christ, from following Him and doing His will. For in the day that we do, we have put human ties before God. Parents or offspring who impede one another’s fidelity to Christ are, to that degree, failing in their vocation as family. No human relationship can claim honor or loyalty if it deliberately dishonors loyalty to Jesus. Indeed, says Jesus, we must, in this sense, hate it lest it destroy us. Without Jesus we don’t know how to love anyway, beyond a merely human affection. In the power and in the logic of His love will we alone be able to love our family members with the deepest and truest love of which we are capable. To believe in Jesus costs us not less than everything, but all that is renounced for His sake will be repaid a hundred times over; if, however, we prefer absolutely anyone or anything to Him, then that too will cost us everything, but with nothing in return.
Clearly, we must all grow into this total self-surrender, and Jesus Himself is the first to see that. We all experience the spiritual struggle to follow Him one hundred percent. What is important is that we rouse ourselves daily to aim for that one hundred percent; there will be frustration and tension, failure and a sense of distance from Jesus. But, if we do not try to justify our evil, and rise from every fall in confession and hope, we will be winning the battle. The longest journey begins with a small step, and most often all our effort is needed just to do that. An army is made up of individual troops; a tower is built with single stones. Perfect love for Christ grows with every little act of love done with a sincere heart. The words of Jesus are not intended to discourage us, and even less to break up our relationships. They are intended to set out the horizon, the hope, the goal to which we are called and at which, some fine day, we will arrive in persevering freedom and in merciful grace.
In the meantime, however, we cannot dilute who Christ is to suit our own agendas or comfort zones; we cannot emasculate the Gospel in a policy of appeasement to a culture which does not realize how close it is to losing its soul. It is by our faithful, daily witness to Christ that we can best serve our culture, by recognizing the power of Christ’s supremacy in the most humble and in the most grandiose of circumstances. Our institutions and strategies as Church keep their Gospel meaning only insofar as they remain faithful to Christ. Otherwise we pride ourselves on mere social achievements and as just one more player in the social arena. For example, what use is a Christian school, university or hospital if its Christian identity and inspiration are compromised beyond recognition? It might well be a prestigious educational or welfare institution in the eyes of some public evaluation system; it might even do a great deal of good from the health, employment or educational point of view. But if it is not a living example of the absolute supremacy of Christ; if it does not exalt the power of Christ to transform hearts and minds in the freedom of His truth; if the religious and moral living, at least of those who direct it, do not foster a radical preference for Christ, or if its mission statement and norms of functioning are not embedded in the teaching of Christ’s Church: then the word Christian is at best nostalgic, and at worst might be a cynical abuse of the name as a front to draw in numbers and make money. It is a half finished tower, derelict in its witness and, if we are intellectually honest, deserving of scorn for its failure to live up to its mission.
Prefer absolutely nothing to the love of Christ, then all will go well with you. Be at least spiritually detached from all your possessions and then the One who gave you them will Himself be your portion. Plant all the loves of your heart in the Heart of Christ; and if Christ’s Heart rejects them, do not cling to them, lest you find yourself uprooted from His Heart. Jesus summons all that is in each of us to love Him and to worship Him above all things. Do not miss your rendezvous with the “great crowds” who follow Jesus into eternity. Do not ignore the call to the passionate generosity of the communion of saints.

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St. Thomas of Villanova


(1488-1555)



St. Thomas was from Castile in Spain and received his surname from the town where he was raised. He received a superior education at the University of Alcala and became a popular professor of philosophy there.
After joining the Augustinian friars at Salamanca he was ordained and resumed his teaching, despite a continuing absentmindedness and poor memory. He became prior and then provincial of the friars, sending the first Augustinians to the New World. He was nominated by the emperor to the archbishopric of Granada, but refused. When the see again became vacant he was pressured to accept. The money his cathedral chapter gave him to furnish his house was given to a hospital instead. His explanation to them was that "our Lord will be better served by your money being spent on the poor in the hospital. What does a poor friar like myself want with furniture?"

He wore the same habit that he had received in the novitiate, mending it himself. The canons and domestics were ashamed of him, but they could not convince him to change. Several hundred poor came to Thomas's door each morning and received a meal, wine and money. When criticized because he was at times being taken advantage of, he replied, "If there are people who refuse to work, that is for the governor and the police to deal with. My duty is to assist and relieve those who come to my door." He took in orphans and paid his servants for every deserted child they brought to him. He encouraged the wealthy to imitate his example and be richer in mercy and charity than they were in earthly possessions.

Criticized because he refused to be harsh or swift in correcting sinners, he said, "Let him (the complainer) inquire whether St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom used anathemas and excommunication to stop the drunkenness and blasphemy which were so common among the people under their care."

As he lay dying, Thomas commanded that all the money he possessed be distributed to the poor. His material goods were to be given to the rector of his college. Mass was being said in his presence when after Communion he breathed his last, reciting the words: "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."

Thomas of Villanova was already called in his lifetime "the almsgiver" and "the father of the poor." He was canonized in 1658.

Comment:

The absent-minded professor is a stock comic figure. This absent-minded professor earned even more derisive laughs with his determined shabbiness and his willingness to let the poor who flocked to his door take advantage of him. He embarrassed his peers, but Jesus was enormously pleased with him. We are often tempted to tend our image in others' eyes without paying sufficient attention about how we look to Christ. Thomas still urges us to rethink our priorities.

posted by Mike Young @ 9:56 AM