Message from Fr. Omar Ayubi V.F.

St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Parish

Dear Family:

The main theme of today’s gospel reading is the cost of discipleship.

As Jesus reminds his disciples, there is a price to be paid by all who wish to be his disciples by those willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk: ‘whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me’ (Mt 10:38).

Any commitment that is real rather than notional is costly, involving sacrifices and self-less service of others.

The Fourth Commandment tells us to “honor our father and mother” but today Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

Are these two in conflict?
Absolutely not. Jesus does not tell us that we should not love our mother or father. He says we should not love them “more than” him. Remember, elsewhere Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God and the second is to love our neighbor. We are to love all, but God should be first.

Jesus goes on say, “Whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” What does it mean to lose our life? We have busy lives. Work or school can be a full-time effort. Even retirees can have a lot of commitments with grandchildren or with their generous volunteering. There can also be sports, music, and plays, or whatever your children’s (or grandchildren’s) favorite activities are. Just caring for little children or elderly parents can take a lot of time. These things can be important; at least some of them should be important.

• Some of them help us to have happy lives but are these activities what we are created for?

• They are part of life, but are they our whole life?

The life we are created for is life with God. Spending time with the people we love can help us understand God’s love for us. For instance, being a parent and struggling with a disobedient child might help us reflect on our own relationship with God as His child. Some people mistake involvement for commitment, but they are not the same. The difference is illustrated by a humorous fable I heard many years ago. ‘One day a pig and a hen were walking down the road when the hen says to the pig: “I was thinking we should open a restaurant!” The pig replies: “Hm, maybe, what would we call it?” The hen responds: “How about ‘ham-n-eggs’?” The pig thinks for a moment and says: “No thank you. That would mean I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

“Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me,” says the Lord today. There is no avoiding the cross if we really wish to be true followers of Him who gave his life for us.

‘If a person serves me, that person must follow me; wherever I am, my servant will be there too’ (Jn 12:26).

The cross is an invitation to become like Jesus, who is our true Life. ‘Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it’ (Mt 10:39). This is the heart of the paschal mystery in which we are all called to participate.

As St. Paul reminds us in our second reading today, ‘When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life’ (Rom 6:3-4).

We may not all be called to be martyrs, but we are all called to die to self, if we wish to follow Christ and share in his new life. The spirituality of ‘cheap grace, grace without the cross’, much in vogue today, is an illusion.

We must put God at the center of our lives if we truly want to live with him in eternity. This means God must be our greatest priority. This is not easy. We have to work to be able to put food on the table. We have to take care of our children. God wants us to do these things but to do them with his love. Sometimes coming to Church for Sunday Mass can just seem like one more thing to do on an already busy schedule. It can be easy to think that missing one Sunday is not a big deal. Then, one Sunday becomes two and sometimes more than two.

Here someone is probably thinking ‘but I don’t feel like I get anything out of Mass.’ The Mass is never meant to be a magic potion that instantly makes us feel good. Celebrating Mass is about praising God. In the way we pray at Mass, we pray not for ourselves as individuals but for all the People of God. Yet, in hearing God’s Word and receiving the Eucharist, we cultivate and nourish our own ongoing relationship with Him. Every week at Mass we hear God’s Word. In Ordinary Time, the gospel is read in sequence (so is the second reading). Missing weeks sometimes breaks up the flow of the readings or leaves us without critical components to understand the gospel as a whole.

Of course, the Eucharist is offered to us as the Bread of Life each week. It truly is the Body and Blood of Jesus. We may not always appreciate this to gain the full value. We also might not always understand what goes on at Mass to appreciate it. Nonetheless, we are to choose God always first. This implies to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Every love we give to God or done for the sake of God, comes back to us; “Anyone who welcomes a prophet will have a prophet’s reward; and anyone who welcomes a holy man will have a holy man’s reward”. God remembers our love and sacrifices because He cannot afford to owe us. He pays back by rewarding us beyond measure. An example of this is today’s first reading.

We are all invited to be like the woman in the first reading; to give to God by supporting the activities of His Church and her ministers and, more importantly, to love and support all those who stand for Christ and share in His mission of evangelization. That will always make us One Body, One Spirit, One Family!

Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Katharine Drexel, Saint Michael the Archangel, St. José Gregorio Hernández, Pope Saint Pius X, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Charbel, pray for us.

Yours in Christ!

Fr. Omar Ayubi V.F.
Pastor