Do You Trust Him With Your Death?

A (better late than never) reflection on the Gospel for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary time.

Sometimes it feels so easy to claim that you are a disciple of Christ!  And then you go to Mass and hear these words coming at you. “

If anyone comes to without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

If you are lucky, you will get a strong homily that will not shy away from some of the harder, more mysterious words of Jesus.  Even so, you still have to surrender to these words; you have to trust that Christ knows what your discipleship should look like better than you. I am not innately that strong or courageous.  I know there are plenty of little comforts that I cling to that do not allow me to carry my cross and follow Christ, but I cannot let go of them because they help to cover over the nagging knowledge that I am nothing.  I know there are many legitimate concerns and obligations that I have; many people that I love and who depend on me for something, which gives my life meaning. But even those are passing in this world.  They will not have eternal meaning unless I surrender to Jesus.

The truth is we are all dying, and there is nothing we can do about it, though we try.

For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.

Do you trust Him with your dying to the little gods that distract you from the vanity of this life?  If you do, He will break them, destroying their power to stifle your love for those whom God placed in your life.  Even if your “gods” are your children, or your spouse, He will restore the order of your love so that you can draw your love from His everlasting living water, not from your own stagnant and diminishing well water.  But it is a dying, and it is not easy.  The cost will be high.

Like Saint Thomas More, whose love and fidelity to Christ cost him his earthly power and friends.  He was eventually imprisoned and forced to be separated from his beloved family and finally he was beheaded, because Jesus came first. Because he trusted Jesus with his death.

Execution scene from the film “A Man All Seasons”

Let’s pray for each other to surrender to His will, and love with His love!

Peace and Grace!
Heidi