Reflection for the 24th Ordinary Sunday 2024

He summoned the crowd with His disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”

For seven Sundays we journeyed with Jesus and His apostles coming to understand that we receive Him. For the rest of Ordinary Time and the special Solemnities of our Church, Jesus discusses applying our life in Him. How do we do it?

Jesus again lays it on the line for His followers. He tells them that they must take up their cross and follow Him.

We kind of miss the point based on our religious-cultural experience of Jesus and Christianity. We can watch movies and see Jesus carrying His cross. Certainly, He saved us by that, but what is Jesus asking of me today?

We obviously, unless we are being tortured for our faith as is done in some places, will never experience seeing, touching, or picking up a cross. We may have a symbolic one in our bedrooms or the entryway to our house, we may see large ones in churches, and during Holy Week we may adore the Cross as an expression of our love for what Jesus did for us. Yet the idea of taking up a cross is distant and foreign to us.

What is Jesus trying to tell me?

Let’s place ourselves amid the crowd Jesus was speaking to. They knew what a cross was, what it meant, what it felt like, and what it resulted in. They may have had family members arrested by Roman soldiers and subsequently killed on a cross. Their system of torture and execution was placed where all could see and experience it. Even when a person had died, the cross was left there awaiting its next victim.

To the people in the crowd this was the worst thing they could possibly experience. It was the most tortuous, most awful experience. Yet, Jesus tells them to take up this thing a person would not even wish on their worst enemy. 

Jesus is telling the crowd and us that discipleship is more than an occasional bit of harder-than-usual work. It is more than what we think we can do. It is an all-in complete self-giving in following Him. As His disciple, I must go all-in, giving of my whole self. Taking up that level of dedication comes with the most awesome of promises.

We people, named after Christ Jesus, yes, Christians, having given our all all-the-time will come before the Father one day and Jesus will tell Him that we are His friends. He will welcome us and lead us into that eternal place of life, homecoming, and eternal joy.

Reflection for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith.

A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. 

We are near the end of our Ordinary Time reflection on Strength of Faith. In these last two weeks Jesus’ message focuses on the end times, the eschatological moment. Considering His immanent return, we are to offer Him our complete surrender. We are to walk the gospel path even more closely. We are to redouble our efforts in strengthening our faith by placing our full trust in our heavenly Father.

Jesus has been teaching in the Temple. His subject, in the passage from Mark today, is on strength of faith. Jesus compares the weakness of self-interested faith exhibited by Israel’s religious leaders and then points to a poor woman and her total gift, the giving of all she had.

God measures our strength of faith, not in the amount of stuff we do, not by counting, but by the totality of our spirit in doing it. We are measured by how deeply and completely dedicated we are to the gospel way.

Jesus well knew, while teaching in the Temple precincts, that He would completely surrender Himself to His Father’s will in just a few days. His all would be given through the torture of the Passion and His death on the Cross. He also knew that He had to show us the way, and He did so through the example of the widow’s absolute surrender and total trust in God.

Jesus points to the religious leaders of the day. They were honored in everyday language. They were given the head seats at the synagogue and at feasts. The people even stood as they passed by in their flowing white robes. Jesus condemns them for being self-intoxicated, men who even abused their privileges by sponging off the poorest, literally devouring them.

Here in contrast comes the devoted widow. She had nothing but her last two coins. Remember, widows depended on others for support. She had no support network, no friends to help her out. What she had she had, and… she gave it to God. That is an act of Strength. That is an act of Faith. That is trust in the heavenly Father. Her poverty exhibited in the coins she gave, the smallest minted in Palestine, a copper “lepton” worth one eighth of the smallest Roman copper coin, a “quadrans” worth a penny.

Others were literally throwing in (eballon) their gifts, like a rich man burning money. Wrapped in their security blanket, they thew in their ten percent without a thought.

The nature of the widows gift was not in its money value, it was in her total giving. Her placing it (ebalen) showed the motivation behind her gift was total commitment to and trust in God.

As we approach the last days, as we look forward to Jesus’ return, let us live like the Widow – all in.