Gospel: Luke 14:25-33
One day, when large crowds were walking along with Jesus, he turned and said to them, “If you come to me, unwilling to sacrifice your love for your father and mother, your spouse
and children, your brothers and sisters, and indeed yourself, you cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not follow me, carrying his own cross, cannot be my disciple. Do you build a house without first sitting down to count the cost, to see whether you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, if you, have laid the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone will make fun of you: ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
And when a king wages war against another king, does he go to fight without first sitting down to con-sider whether his ten thousand can stand against the twenty thousand of his opponent? And if not, while the other is still a long way off, he sends messengers for peace talks. In the same way, none of you may become my disciple, if he doesn’t give up everything he has.
Reflection
Jesus repeats what he asks when someone wishes to follow him – detachment. Discipleship entails detachment not for the sake of being freed from responsibilities but for us to be more attached to Jesus, who invites us to carry our crosses just as he did. It requires a sincere weighing of whether we truly mean what we intend. St. Alphonsus teaches that when a person follows the Lord, that person has to be detached from inordinate affections driven by the self and not by God. Hence, being detached is about dying to oneself so that what remains is what God desires. We are inspired by God’s desire to give ourselves in the way Jesus has given himself to all. Of course, given our human frailty, one cannot deny the difficulties that this entails. However, this
invitation of Christ gradually draws us to him and does not abruptly demand. It carries us through at the pace that God wants us to take.
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