Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
“You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped…” We can all relate to this on some level. We start out on a path with high hopes and dreams. Then we run into challenges we never saw coming. Oh, the things we never signed up for!
I started out at Conception Abbey ten years ago this month, and I never had any inclination I’d become a monk. Yet, here I am, having professed solemn vows. I’m happy that God led me on the path to join the Abbey for life, even though I started out only expecting to be here for four years as a seminarian. We walk through life thinking we want one thing or another, but the truth is that we really want to be with God. We can say with the psalmist “my soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.” All people have a desire to come to God even if they don’t know it or will not admit it.
St. Paul carries that thought even further. He encourages his flock not to conform themselves to the age they live in. He tells them to give themselves over to God, to even give their bodies over “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” Our minds can be given over to “renewal” to “discern” the will of God. Only this will lead to what “is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Jesus Himself encourages us to follow through on this lifegiving work to its completion.
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
We can only have eternal life with Christ if we take up our cross and follow Jesus. The paradox here is that we don’t preserve our lives by trying to save them. We lose what we have when we guard ourselves in fear or selfishness. We live life to the fullest when we give ourselves totally in everything we do. And we have life itself when we give our lives over to Jesus.
Reflection: Jesus calls us to take up the Cross, not as a burden, but as a gift. Jesus took the Cross, which was a symbol of fear and death, and turned it into a symbol of eternal life. That is why we may enthusiastically live by the Cross. Amen.
Reflection by Br. Matthew Marie, OSB
Posted in Articles for Lent, Daily Reflections, Lenten Resources