TEXT: The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew 10: 37-42

The Apostles appear to be alone with Jesus.  Yet, we are brought into this conversation with them.  It is recorded in this Gospel of St. Matthew for our edification.  This is a profound lesson for us today, this is a taking up of the cross for us; this brings us to humility; and, therefore, this gives us the grace to help others.

There is a principle here of love.  The love for God must come first.  This message calls us all to the deepest level of spirituality available to us.  It calls us to union with God in humility and the obedience of faith.

37 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

I know of a person who made a choice a few years ago to follow Jesus completely  by setting aside the wishes of his family and mother to remain a Protestant follower of Jesus Christ.  The mother and family remain very anti-catholic in their teachings, and, the mother seems to feel  that the Catholic Church is the embodiment of the evil of  "Babylon the great," as spoken of in the Book of  Revelation, chapter 18.

So vitriolic was her feeling toward her son, and so misunderstood were his reasons for becoming a Catholic, that she disowned him and will not speak to him to this day.  He lives a life of simplicity for Jesus.  Former close Christian friends, who once considered him to be a good and knowledgeable Christian, have now abandoned him, considered him eccentric, marginalized, and have conveniently forgotten he exists, so he tells me.

This has been a painful experience for him, as he related his story to me.  For this one, his love was entirely for Jesus.  So much was his love for Jesus Christ, the Blessed Mother, and the Church --  that he left his former fellowships and converted completely to the Roman Catholic Church.

There was a price to be paid.

Yet, as St. John of the Cross has told us -- "The purest suffering bears and carries in its train the purest understanding."  (Spiritual Sentences and Maxims)

And, St. Theresa of Jesus adds, "Desire earnestly always to suffer for God in everything and on every occasion."  (Maxims)

It is here that we are called by the words of Jesus Christ to love God above all things, all relationships, all human understandings.  Often, we are called to love God even and ever above all the approbations of even the Holy Catholic Church we love and serve with a truthful heart.  When we are misunderstood, even as John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila, we suffer, when our desire and movements toward this "cross" in Jesus we seek, brings us the suspicion of the hierarchy and others who may think we go "too far" in our desire to love Jesus with our whole being, mind, body and soul.

Ah, to be lost in God, to be emptied of self, to be in union with Christ -- this desire, yet, how short we often fall, as the cares of the world distract.

Yet, Jesus calls us to such depth of love.  He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me is the call of God that makes us all cringe with fear that we may be hearing this wrong, yet, the words of Jesus, the challenge to this "discomfort" stands there looking us in the face.

And, there is more,

38 and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Unworthy?  Unworthy of Christ?  The Cross?  The cross we take up is the instrument of torture, of self abandonment, of exposure nakedly to the insults of the world.  It is the cross of abuse, of hatred, of misunderstanding, of whatever sort it is -- the instrument of death to self.  Jesus calls us to this cross.  It is not just the little crucifix we wear, the little scapular we wear, these "crosses."  It is the CROSS these symbols represent, the setting aside of our own will, and, saying with Jesus -- Not my will but Yours be done, Father.  It is the trip we make with Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemene, there to be with Jesus in spirit; from there, we take up our crosses in identification with the Son of Man.

For,

39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

How many of us have found a good life in this world?  Surely, when we have enjoyed it all and relished with delight the passions of this life, as wonderful as they are, we will see these brought into perspective as they fade from our grasp as we die and go to meet Jesus face to Face.

We grasp and hold onto, only to release all at death.

Jesus calls us to this death before we die, that we might live completely for God in the here and now.

When we have released all things to God, like the Apostles, we may share in the next statement.

40 "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.

Are we entirely consecrated to God?

Are we those who have released all to Jesus Christ in sacrifice, even the approval we might receive from father, mother, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters, friends, anyone?

When we are in union with God, walking in the light as He is in the light -- there is something to be received by others.  "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me," takes on new meaning when we see it from this perspective.

41 He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.

I believe these passages are calling us to be all in Christ, all in God, we are called to become.  We are new creations in Christ (II Corinthians 5:16, 17), now, how shall we become in Christ?

Out of real faith in Christ, the graces of God produce works of righteousness, beloved.

WE may cooperate in the grace from God, through God. . .

42  And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward."

Even a cup of cold water to another disciple has merit in the eyes of God, because we are recipients of God’s grace and lovers of God more than anything else.  It is all in the Love of God, that Love that is spread abroad in and through our hearts to the whole world.

This is a wonderful cross for to take upon our shoulders.

It is the Cross of Love, Loving God above all else.  It is the Cross which "God so loved the world."  It is the Cross that gives and sacrifices, because of Love.

It is the Cross that Mary took upon her shoulders, that pierced her Immaculate Heart, and made her our Sanctissima, the highest example of virtue for us, the Woman of Revelation 12.

May we become the seekers of this humility, this abandonment of selfish desires, this exaltation of the CROSS we must all take up for the greater glory of God.



Deus et Sanctissima.