Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
And Jesus talks about giving stuff up in the Gospel today. He says, “‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,’” and “‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’” He says this to His apostles, and so it can be easy to think that lay people don’t have to give up any of that stuff. That’s for those people who take vows and promises.
This is not to say that the life of a consecrated man or woman, or a priest or bishop is nothing but denial. Our first reading may be the first example of inviting the priest, er, prophet over for dinner. But getting back to giving up stuff, it’s truly for everyone, not just me, Bishop Boyea, or the sisters. The call to follow Christ and to abandon certain things is for all who call themselves disciples, not just those who have made a special commitment through vows or promises. Now, it’s true that not everyone vows or promises to abstain from marital relations (otherwise we’d never have any children); or to obey a superior (though some husbands may argue that, for all intents and purposes, they have a vow of obedience to their wife, with very harsh penalties for disobedience!); or to live simply (like priests and bishops) or not have their own bank account or grasp on to personal possessions (like sisters, nuns, brothers, and monks). But when we were baptized, we all committed to, or our parents committed us to, give up certain ways of life and certain practices which are inconsistent with being a follower of Jesus.
That’s why St. Paul can say that we died with Christ in baptism. Yes, His Death was given to us, so that we could have life, but we also died to anything which is contrary to Him. And by dying to anything contrary to Him, we live by all the things which are united to Him: life, joy, peace. Death, which comes from sin, no longer has power over us who are baptized, unless we invite death and sin back into our lives through our individual choices.
There are two ways that I would invite us to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to Him this weekend. The first is thinking about our relationship with Christ in a consumerist mentality. Almost everything we do today is touched by the reality we have in our economic life, where I get what I want or I go somewhere else. I am the judge of what is best, and I get what I want, when I want it, how I want it. That’s not horrible when we’re talking about a restaurant, or a clothes store. But when it comes to our faith, that approach is an approach of death and the antithesis of what it means to follow Christ.
We do not follow Christ on our own terms. We do not get to decide exactly where I want God’s grace, when I receive it, or how I receive it. That consumerist mentality makes us the master and Christ our lackey. Or, to use another analogy, the Church is not a country club to which we can belong, where, if we don’t get the service we want, we end our membership and go elsewhere. Christ offers us eternal life, but He offers it to us in His way, because He is the way. And if we do not like how Christ offers us life, we cannot find it anywhere else. When we seek to make Christ and His Church change to our fleeting whims and fancies, we are trying to find our life, but will lose it. But when we lose our life to conform it to the way Christ shows us, then we actually find eternal life.
[Especially here at St. Pius X, we know that there will be changes in the near future and the coming months. It is fine and natural to mourn a Mass time that we loved and a parish that we loved that has declined in population. But if we allow that pain to say uncharitable things, to pout like toddlers, and to abandon our practice of the faith altogether, then our desire for what we want has actually become an obstacle to Christ and the grace He desires to give us, especially the grace that comes from suffering with Him patiently.]
The second way to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to him is how we view Sunday. Growing up, there was, for me, two parts of the week: weekdays, and weekends. But for a follower of Christ, each week usually has two parts: Sunday and every other day. Sunday is the day that belongs to the Lord, that we assemble to worship God at Mass, that we spend time with family and friends, or doing works of charity, and that we rest. Our day of rest as followers of Christ is Sunday. God wants us to rest in Him, to give Him fitting worship, and to build up the relationships of love among ourselves, especially on His day. But too often it’s just another day of the week, another day of work, another day of sports.
Don’t get me wrong, some have to work on Sunday, either because of their field of work, or because of a shortage of workers. But, to the best of our ability, do we accomplish our chores on the other days of the week? Do we take time to get off our phones and spend time not with the FaceTime app, but with face time with our family and friends in person? I am convinced that if we treated Sunday as the Lord’s day, if we died to this secular idea that it’s just another day for work, and rose to the idea that it’s time that we get to eat together as family and friends and share how life is going, many of our problems would go away. There will always be work to do; there will always be chores that need finishing. Let Sunday be a day that your worship God at Mass, and relax with each other and with God.
When we were baptized, we died with Christ. The rest of our life is following-up on that dying to everything which is not of Christ, so that we can live for Him. All of us are called to give up something for Christ. Will we find eternal life by giving up the works of death?
