Reflecting on this Sunday’s Gospel, Matthew 10:37-42, I’m taken aback by the directness with which Jesus asks me to consider if I am prepared to pay the cost of discipleship. He makes it very clear what it means to pick up the Cross and put their relationship with Jesus at the very centre.
I question my desire to place Jesus at the very centre of all I do. Can I let go of the security of my possessions and the quiet acceptance of current philosophy and culture.
The late Sr Verna Holyhead sgs reflects on this passage with clarity and wisdom. She considers the contribution of the great German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer compares ‘costly grace’ with ‘cheap grace’. The latter is grace without the Cross and so without Jesus. As a leader of the German Confessing Church which confessed Jesus in opposition to the Nazis, Bonhoeffer ‘hated’ his own life to the extent of being imprisoned and executed by the Nazis in April 1945, just before the end of the war. Bonhoeffer compares the two graces in this way.
‘. . . The person who hears the call to discipleship and wants to follow but feels obliged to insist on his own term to the level of human understanding. The disciple places himself at the Master’s disposal, but at the same time retains the right to dictate his own terms. But then discipleship is no longer discipleship, but a program of our own to be arranged to suit ourselves, and to be judged in accordance with the standards of rational ethics.’
Am I prepared to stand up and do works of justice, stand up for those who have no voice and sacrifice privilege and reputation? Somewhere deep in my herat I do want to be that person. The person who is remembered for striving to live out their Catholic faith and be willing to enter difficult moral, political and ethical conversations.
Our 24-hour news cycle constantly reports on a growing wave of racism, entrenched injustice and disadvantage associated with the escalating onslaught of AI. There is a disregard for the dignity of each person. There are so many aspects of my life in which I have real enthusiasm for the Gospel and yet I have to ask daily for the courage to respond.The Sunday Gospel reading is both a source for encouragement and challenge.
by Virginia Ryan