Hating People, Secularization, and Suicide

If any one does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

The Lord apparently put this another way, on a different occasion. In Matthew, we read that He said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me, or son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.”

No contradiction between these two statements, though. If we consider family loyalty of the utmost importance, which we naturally do. To put our family ties even in second place, after God, after Christ—doing that can seem, to family members who would insist on having first place, like hatred.

But let’s keep going: If anyone comes to me without hating even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

At yet a different point in His pilgrim life, the Lord Jesus predicted His Passion, and the Jews listening to Him asked, “He is not going to kill himself, is he?”

Whoever does not carry his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

Seems to me like we have long since reached the point where successfully interpreting all this is way above my paygrade. So let me quote St. John Chrysostom:

“He means not that we should place a beam of wood on our shoulders, but that we should ever have death before our eyes.”

Always have death before our eyes.

Listen, I love to stay up late and watch election returns as much as the next guy. At the same time, I’m also just as much against “rampant secularism” as the next religious guy. But I think we need to pause and think about what “secularization” really means.

The saeculum, the century, the current age, involves: elections, smartphones, getting married, having children, cars, college basketball seasons, hamburgers, turkeys, Thanksgiving-dinner arguments, highway construction, tv shows and movies, e-mail and appointments, traveling for work and/or pleasure, having a job, sleeping, buying and wearing clothes, catching colds and getting over them.

By all the same tokens, the saeculum, these years in which we live, also provides us with our one and only known opportunity to: praise God, be kind, welcome strangers, help people who need help, seek the truth and stand up for it with courage, learn, read, see beautiful things and listen to beautiful music, grow, expand our minds and hearts by seeking and loving the Good and the True.

To live for this life only is a kind of suicide. By this time next century we will all be dust and ashes. No one will remember even a single one of all the fascinating comments we made.

That said, committing suicide is also a clear form of suicide. These days we have now–they come from God, out of His infinite love. Even the hardest of them–especially the hardest, most painful days—they come as the most precious gifts.

Every second of every minute of every day He gives us serves a purpose: We can love Him and our neighbor right now. Thereby transforming ourselves, little by little, into something that can actually endure forever, like God.

Shoes Tied and Ready to Play

Jesus said to His disciples…

Last week we began to discuss the discipline of a disciple of Christ. Who wants to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? Let’s see the hands again.

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler by Heinrich Hofmann

Now, who thinks that it is possible for a disciple of Jesus Christ to make any progress without knowing the Ten Commandments? By heart. Cold. Knowing them backwards and forwards, like the back of my hand.

Of course it is impossible to follow Christ as a disciple without eating, drinking, and sleeping the Ten Commandments.

Christ Himself said to the rich young man who wanted to follow Him, “Keep the commandments.” Following Christ without knowing the Ten Commandments would be like trying to play for the Washington Redskins without knowing how to tie my shoes.

Who thinks it’s possible to make any headway as a disciple of Christ without going over the Ten Commandments in my mind, one by one, carefully asking myself if I have followed them all faithfully—and doing this frequently, like at least once a week? Anybody?

The Way the Messiah Messiahs

Today we read the famous gospel passage about the ambitious Apostles. We have previously reflected on the fact that we can hardly condemn James and John for their ambition, nor their mother for hers. What James and John wanted, and what their mother wanted for them, is what we all want: to be close to Christ and to reign with Him forever.

Both of the Zebedee brothers were, after all, preferred by Christ. He chose them to ascend Mt. Tabor with Him and to enter the Garden of Gethsemane, too. And their mother, to her credit, presumed in her request that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah and the king of heaven.

Where everybody fell short—mother, sons, and the other disciples, as well—was in this: They did not like to listen to Jesus when He explained the hard truth, the inevitable facts of the divine plan, the actual way of salvation.

You believe that I am the Messiah? Good—because I am. Know this: the Messiah does His Messiahing by sorrow and suffering. The Messiah walks the earth as a pilgrim of death. Yes, I eat and drink; I befriend all; I reject nothing wholesome and human as I trod this path of death. But all of it, I will let go. All of this folderol which preoccupies you is really just straw that will be burned in an oven.

If you are at-home in this world, you are not with Me. Only one path leads to the place prepared for Me by My Father; there is only one road the Christ of God can take: rejection, mockery, scourges and spittle, my Body treated like a wooden warning sign and nailed to a tree. Then: the silent tomb.

You want to reign with me? Good. Your faith is true. There is no eternal kingdom but Mine. You will sit at my right and left. My throne is the cross. To get to my kingdom you have to hang on it and die.

Three Characteristics of the Former Way of Life

Do you also want to leave? (John 6:67)

The Lord Jesus asked His Apostles this question after many of the other disciples left and returned to “their former way of life.” The Apostles said, “No, Lord. You have the words of eternal life. We are not leaving.” But a lot of the other disciples left and never came back.

What had the Lord said, which made these other disciples take a walk? He told them that He came from God as the anointed Savior, the One for Whom Abraham, Moses, and all the prophets hoped. He told them that His Body and Blood, shed for the life of the world, would feed the human race unto eternal life.

He demanded an act of faith. Believe in Me. Believe in the divine food I will give. It is the flesh of God made man. Believe.

Some of His disciples could not make this act of faith. “Okay. Yes, he’s an impressive teacher. Yes, he works miracles. But does my worldview have room for a divine man who invites me to eat his flesh? I mean, I’m just a simple working stiff. Can I feature this scary-talking wise man, who calmly, gently, and lovingly insists that my sins will cost Him His life, but He will rise again and establish a Temple in heaven? Can I feature this? Not really. I like hamburgers, sleeping late on the weekends—all the normal stuff. I like watching t.v. I’m not cut-out for what this Nazarene preacher has in mind. Time to go back to the way things were before.”

Happy to Be Alive

This time last year–quarterfinals of the Big East tournament–the Hoyas were already dead.

But today we visited sweet revenge upon the USF Bulls.

Tomorrow? …Oh, yes: Syracuse. High Noon.

…Check out this interesting sculpture from Chartres cathedral.

The Lord is forming Adam from the dust of the earth, sculpting the head of the first man.

The original Adam was made in the image of the New Adam–Christ. This sculpture reflects this.

May it also reflect the way that the New Adam shapes and moulds us. Only Christ can form me into the person I am truly meant to be.

I allow Him to form me by worshiping Him, studying Him, obeying Him, imitating Him.

May He make saints out of us all!

It’s not Just a Religion, It’s an Adventure

…Let me say this, my blizzard-jockey friends: When the Washington springtime comes this year, it will be the sweetest ever…

Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him.

Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”

When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:8-11)

“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

These were St. Peter’s words when he recognized the awesome holiness of Christ. Peter was afraid. He knew he was not worthy to be in the presence of God. After all, he was a rough and humble working man.

Take Up Your Cross

 

 

 

Since Archbishop Wuerl wrote to us priests and asked us to make his points about Church teaching on abortion in our homilies this morning, I never got to give the homily I had prepared for today.  So here it is—a “web exclusive.”

 

 

You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;
you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.  Jeremiah 20:7

 

The prophet Jeremiah cries out his complaint to the Lord, and then resigns himself to his fate.  At the time when Jeremiah was called to prophesy, the people of the kingdom of Judah had fallen so far into paganism that they had taken up the practice of sacrificing children to Baal.  The Lord ordered Jeremiah to speak out and condemn this.  Jeremiah was to prophesy that the people’s apostasy and evil would cause them to lose their homeland and be taken away in exile.

 

Jeremiah made his resigned complaint after the High Priest of the Temple struck him and ordered him put in the stocks because the prophet declared that doom would befall Jerusalem.

 

Jeremiah was not naturally inclined to make trouble; he was no grandstander.  He would have preferred a quiet life.  But the Lord compelled him to speak the truth and warn the people about the coming wrath.  Even though obeying the divine summons cost him abuse, imprisonment, and exile, Jeremiah wistfully acknowledged to the Lord that he could not help but obey Him.  There is nothing sweeter, in fact, than to suffer for the Lord by bearing unflinching witness to the divine truth of Revelation.

 

Then Jesus said to his disciples,“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.”  Matthew 16:24

 

This verse comes shortly after the verses we read at Holy Mass last week ( https://frmarkdwhite.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/caesarea-philippi/ ).  When the Lord told them to take up their crosses, His disciples were still with Him at the foot of Mt. Hermon.  As we recall, St. Peter had just declared the truth about Christ for the first time:  You are the Son of God.  You are divine.  This is what has been revealed to us:  Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal truth. He is the Lord of heaven Who compelled the prophets to speak.  Christ is the Holy One of Israel for Whom Jeremiah freely chose to suffer.

 

So St. Peter had declared the Catholic faith for the first time ever.  You might think the Lord Jesus would have patted him on the back, and then they might have spent some time basking in the moment.

 

Instead, Christ declared:  I, the Almighty Master of all things, I will bend my neck beneath the yoke of suffering and give myself over into the hands of my enemies.  I, the immortal One, will suffer and die.  This is my destiny; this is my mission.  And it is not to end in disaster, but in the triumph of life over death.

 

Let us try to put ourselves in the place of the disciples who first heard Christ tell them that in order to follow Him, they must take up their crosses.  Now, two millennia later, we know that the cross is the symbol of the perfect sacrifice of atonement offered by the Son of God.  We know that it is the symbol of our Redemption and eternal life.

 

For the original disciples, however, the cross was only a perverse instrument of torture used by their foreign overlords to make a public example of anyone who dared try to stand up against them.  No fate could be worse, in the mind of any Jew, than to be condemned to crucifixion and be driven by Roman centurions through the streets with whips, dragging your hundred-twenty-five-pound cross along with you pathetically on your shoulder.  Then you would spend two or three agonizing days hanging by your arms, with birds picking at you.

 

This is the metaphor that God incarnate used to describe what it was like to be His disciple.  Even the prophet Jeremiah might have quailed at this.

 

The crucial phrase in the Lord Jesus’ words, however, is:  “and follow me.”  God Himself has walked the way of the cross ahead of us, and He has risen again from the dead.  From heaven, He pours out His graces on us so that we can accept His invitation and become His disciples.

 

What are the crosses we have to take up in order to follow the Lord?  Each of us has his or her own.  Our crosses are formed by two beams.  The one beam is reality and the truth:  the law of God, the duties we have.  The other beam is our own smallness, selfishness, weakness, and fear.

 

It would be easy to imitate the virtues of Christ if we weren’t sinners; it would be easy to be humble, gentle, kind, chaste, courageous, and unswervingly faithful and honest.  Our crosses would be weightless if we weren’t so miserably inclined to run away from reality and the mission the Lord has given each of us to accomplish.

 

Let us resign ourselves like Jeremiah.  Living in the truth is an agony of self-purification and self-denial.  The truth makes demands of us.  But what else are we going to do?  God is God.  His grace is sufficient; His grace will be our strength.  If we lose our lives for His sake, we will find life.  And when He comes again in glory, we will shine like the stars in the sky.