Today's Mass Readings:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090813.cfm
How would you describe yourself?
Say you’re at a picnic or cocktail
party or staying after Mass for coffee and you meet someone new and they ask
you to describe yourself. What do you
say?
If you asked me to describe myself,
here is what I’d probably say:
My name is Ed Knauf, 54 years old,
married to my wife Pam for nearly 25 years, father of Lauren, Colleen and Erin,
ages 23, 21 and 20. I’m an accountant by
trade; I work for Performance Technologies in Brighton. A Notre Dame graduate and rabid Irish fan, I also
cheer for the Red Sox and Black Hawks. I
received my masters degree last year from St. Bernards and was ordained a
Catholic deacon a year ago this past June and assigned here at my home parish,
St. Kateri. I like to ski, golf, run and
hike. Am planning to run a marathon five
weeks from tomorrow/today, and I’ve climbed 37 of the Adirondack High Peaks. I guess that pretty much covers the main
points.
<pause>
Oh yeah, I almost forgot…one other
thing...I am also a disciple of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
Good thing I remembered that, huh?
Now I did this little introduction,
not out of vanity, but to demonstrate a point, and that is this – each of us
has all sorts of ways we define ourselves, but unless my last one – Disciple of
Jesus Christ – comes first and before all others, then I’m not a true
disciple. That is Our Lord’s message in
today’s Gospel. That He and He alone must
be first in our lives, before father, mother, spouse, children, job, sports,
hobbies, ministry, you name it.
You see, when Jesus tells us to hate
our loved ones, or our possessions, or our own lives, He doesn’t mean it in the
sense we usually think of when we hear the word “hate.” What
He is telling us is that the people, and stuff, and activities – all the attachments
in our lives – must not come before our discipleship of the Lord. It’s a question of our priorities - Jesus
Christ is to be first. Not one more
thing on a list of stuff that makes up my life.
But that’s a hard teaching,
huh? Really hard – and none of us
measures up – but what it means is that our lives must be spent striving toward
this goal – true discipleship of Jesus Christ.
It means that it’s a choice – to follow Him and Him alone, with all that
entails, all that it costs, or not. We
must calculate what it might cost us, Jesus tells us, so that we will be able
to finish the task. And it entails
taking up my cross. It might mean
suffering. It could mean loss – of
people, or possessions. It probably, no
I dare say definitely, means that we give up the life we’ve been living so that
we are living for Him. For today’s Gospel
is a call to a radical life change, a change to radical discipleship of Jesus
Christ.
Most of us were baptized as infants,
and so we’ve been calling ourselves “Catholic” all our lives. The question is, have we ever made our own
choice for Jesus Christ? Many people who
come to church week in and week out will tell you that they’re “Catholic” or
“Christian” but have they ever made their own choice to follow the Lord, to be
in an intimate, personal relationship with Him?
The choice that our first loyalty is to Jesus, above all other
loyalties.
This choice is powerfully demonstrated
in today’s second reading from Paul’s letter to Philemon. Paul has converted this wealthy slaveowner
Philemon, to be a disciple of Jesus.
Problem is, Paul has also converted Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway slave, and
Paul is now sending Onesimus back to Philemon.
It’s not right that you ran away, Paul is basically saying.
But this shortest book of the bible
is about Philemon’s choice – Philemon could have his runaway slave put to
death, but Paul pleads with himn to accept Onesimus back, no longer as a slave
but as a brother in Christ. Paul is
calling Philemon to a radical change, to forfeit his rights, disregard his possession
of this slave, to see Onesimus in a new light, a fellow disciple of Christ. We aren’t told how it turns out. We can only hope that Philemon accepted
Paul’s challenge to this radically changed way of thinking.
Thomas More is another great example
of what Jesus is calling us to in this Gospel.
Thomas was happily married with a big house full of kids. He had wealth and power - he was a brilliant,
trusted advisor to King Henry 8. But we
know the story - seeking a male heir, Henry wished to divorce and remarry,
contrary to the teaching of the Lord and His Church, ignoring the counsel of
both Thomas and the Pope. And while
every bishop in the land save one, John Fisher, was willing to go along with
the King’s wishes, Thomas refused. Out
of principle, out of his own radical discipleship, his loyalty to the Lord and
His truth came before all else. Thomas
refused to comply with the King’s wishes and was jailed and eventually
martyred. Not because he hated his wife,
his children, his wealth or position.
No. Because he loved the Lord above
all else.
Let us hope and pray, sisters and
brothers, that you and I are never faced with such a decision – go along or face
martyrdom. But in our lives, you and I
are faced every day with decisions – some large but mostly small. We must choose - do we follow the Lord? Or not?
Are we His disciples first and foremost, or not? In the face of injustices and evil of our
times that we can do something about, do we get involved or do we turn a blind
eye, go back to watching television?
This is the choice we face daily – Discipleship? Or not?
Let us pray for grace that our faith, our discipleship, may always come
first.
These decisions are hard. True discipleship often is, but the happy
result of putting Jesus first in our lives is this: we will experience lasting joy and peace, and
we will be more loving spouses, parents and children. If we choose Jesus first, and not worship the
idols of money, sex, possessions and activities, and instead worship the One
who gives all of these as good gifts, then (only then) will we experience the
true joy and peace that only come from Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
