September 7– 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Let us imagine that ten friends set off on a pilgrimage to a certain Marian shrine located in the mountains. The journey promises to be arduous: seventy kilometres of uphill walking. We ask ourselves: how many of them will reach the finish line? It is quite simple. Those who, when they set off, said with conviction: “I am going all the way.”
Experience shows that spiritual journeys are happily successful when they start from a determined and fervent first impulse. This principle applies above all to God’s call to the priesthood or religious life. The young person who feels the call to give themselves entirely to Christ and the Church, and responds immediately with a “yes” full of enthusiasm and generosity, without considering the possibility of turning back, will certainly make it very far and very high on the hard climb to the shrine of their own vocation.
In this light, let us analyse Our Lord’s announcement, the focal point of this Sunday’s Gospel, that a disciple must “renounce all his possessions” (Lk 14:33). Everything that the conditions of surrender to God may demand. Examples? The lives of the saints. How much St. Therese loved her father, who was old and in poor health! However, she left him to enter Carmel, because grace inspired her to do so: “I felt my heart beating with such violence that it seemed impossible to me to advance […] however, I advanced while wondering if I was not going to die by the force of the beating of my heart… Ah! what a moment! You have to have been there to know what it is…”1
A good number of our readers might then ask: “What is the point of this Gospel for me, since I am not going to be a priest or a religious?” Let us note that Jesus was speaking to “great crowds” (Lk 14:25) who accompanied Him. His words, therefore, apply to all those who claim to be His followers, or in other words, Christians.
“It is beyond doubt,” remarked a great preacher, commenting on this passage, “that Christ’s call to perfect self-denial is addressed to all those who want to follow Him; and He makes it not in terms of a simple invitation, but as a true and rigorous precept. […] Everyone is obliged, without any exception, to that abnegation of self which is indispensable for the perfect fulfilment of the duties of their own state and condition.”2
Yes, we are all invited to make arduous, even painful renunciations in order to obey Jesus. And this fidelity is all the more difficult the more “normal” the attitude we have to avoid seems, according to the world’s criteria. It might be when it comes to closing a deal whose terms involve a degree of dishonesty, opening an app on our mobile phone that will tarnish the purity of our eyes, planning our Sunday with the possibility of missing Mass, choosing clothing that will violate the rules of Christian decency…
At moments like these we must ask God for strength! We want to be disciples of Jesus! Let us say a brief prayer to Mary Most Holy – who never abandons those who trust in her – and take the step with determination and generosity, without looking back. ◊
Notes
1 ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX. Manuscript A, 69r.
2 ROYO MARÍN, OP, Antonio. La vida religiosa. 2.ed. Madrid: BAC, 1968, p.459.
