“Jesus addressed the crowd, ‘If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?’”  Luke 14:25-28

Jesus’ message contains two important lessons for us to ponder:

1.     Our lives are ultimately about connecting us – all of God’s people, i.e., everyone in the world – to God.  Our efforts to further our own interests, even when they are for the good of our own families, must be seen as just a small part of this broader goal of bringing to God’s whole family Christ’s message about God’s loving interest in all of us.

2.   Living a life of faith is not about expecting “cheap graces” – divine intervention, without our own sacrificing which paves the way for the acceptance of God’s grace.

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”  ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Let us ponder this and gather this weekend striving for a deeper commitment to our discipleship and to following Jesus’ words and example of carrying our crosses.

SUNDAY MASS READINGS
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 8, 2019