“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
Peter had started out strong when he correctly answered Jesus, “You are the Christ.” But he lost it all when he tried to dissuade Jesus from His coming passion. Jesus rebuked him, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (See Mk 8:27-35)
Jesus used this opportunity to stress the essentials of being His disciple, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” This statement gives us four Ds of being an authentic disciple of Jesus.
Desire
“Whoever wishes…” We must first have a strong desire to follow Jesus Christ. He does not force us to follow Him against our will. He does not impose against our wills or cajole us with threats and warnings.
However, this desire to follow Jesus Christ is a gift from God as Jesus Himself affirmed, “No one can come to me unless my Father who sent me draw him.”(Jn 6:44) We are to receive this desire with deep gratitude and keep this desire strong and constant. We must not lose this desire for any reason, not even because of our sins, struggles, scandals in the Church, persecutions, temptations, etc.
Peter resists the coming passion of Christ because he has forgotten that his desire to follow Jesus was a gift that he did not deserve at all. There were two boats on the shore when Jesus entered his boat. After the miraculous catch of fish, he acknowledged his sinfulness, “Lord, depart from me for I am a sinful man,” Jesus did not reject him because of his sins but still invited him to follow Him, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.”(See Lk 5:1-11)
Denial
“Deny himself…” This call to self-denial is not arbitrarily imposed on us. We Christians are to deny ourselves simply because our lives are no longer our own, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”(1Cor 6:19-20) Having been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we belong to God and not to themselves or to other people. We deny ourselves so that we can make use of our entire being in glorifying God with His gifts.
Peter struggled to follow Christ in His passion because he had not yet denied his comfort, security, and faulty idea of a messiah. We will surely deny Jesus soon when we are not willing to deny ourselves anything for the sake of following Him more closely.
Self-denial also gives God a chance to act in us and in our lives for His greater glory. God cannot use us for His eternal purpose when we are holding on to our lives, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”
Determination
“Carry his cross…” We need to remind ourselves that we are following Jesus, the suffering servant, who was truly determined to do the Father’s will even as He was oppressed and taunted by others, “I have not rebelled, have not turned back…The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.” (See Is 50:5-9) Jesus shows us that the Father demands this determination of all His servants.
If the shepherd is so determined, we, His flock, cannot afford to waver or falter in our discipleship because of the bad treatment that we get from others or our bad experiences or conditions in life. If we are not resolute and firm in our purpose to follow Jesus in all conditions, we cannot face the many hardships and trials that come with discipleship.
Peter was rebuked because he lacked the determination of the suffering servant. He was not ready yet to share in the resoluteness of Jesus in His approaching passion and death.
Discipleship
“Follow me…” Lastly, we are to follow Jesus to the point of sharing in all His experiences and in His attitude by the power of His grace. We cannot follow Jesus and be detached from all that He experienced. We also cannot follow Him when we hold on to our own sinful and self-centered attitudes.
Peter failed in discipleship because he was not ready at that time to share in the painful experiences of Jesus and in His attitude. He wanted to keep his own self-preserving attitude and dissuade Jesus from His complete self-sacrifice on Calvary.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not easy to follow Jesus Christ. It is much easier to give up or to compromise in our discipleship. Like Peter, we can even try to lecture Jesus about suffering. The weakness of our humanity and the onslaught of the devil and the world make it very difficult for us to remain faithful to our commitment to Jesus. But we have hope in the knowledge that Jesus does not demand what is impossible for us to do with the help of His grace.
We also have a great source of hope in Mary, our Lady of sorrows. No human person embodies these four Ds like the most blessed Virgin Mary. We find them all present in her fiat, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.”(Lk 1:38) We also find them exemplified in the events of her life.
Her desire to belong completely to Jesus and to His saving mission was strong and constant, even when she did not completely understand Him. She completely put aside her own plans and embraced God’s plan with all her being, even when that plan was painful and mysterious. She was determined to follow Jesus even to the dark moments at the foot of the cross, even when all others would abandon Him. She freely shared in all that Jesus experienced during His passion and she entered into His own complete silence and abandonment to God on the cross. She waited with faith for His glorious resurrection.
Let us look to Mary, our Lady of Sorrows always, and she will keep alive these 4 Ds in us so that we too can follow Jesus Christ in faithful discipleship all the days of our lives.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image credit: Unsplash+ License
Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) – Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9 | Psalms 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9 | James 2:14-18 | Mark 8:27-35.
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About the author:
Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, is a Roman Catholic priest and religious of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary currently serving in the Philippines. He teaches theology and is a seminary formator for candidates to the priesthood and religious life. Father also gives Ignatian retreats and serves as spiritual director to many of the lay, religious, and clergy in the area.
He earned his first degree in Physics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. Ordained in 2009, he studied at St. John’s seminary, in Brighton, Massachusetts. Father has an STL/MA in Moral Theology from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines.
Father Moneme blogs at https://toquenchhisthirst.wordpress.com/.
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