From the responsorial psalm: “Learn then that I, I alone, am God, and there is no god besides me. It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them. It is I who deal death and give life.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 16:24-28)
Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”
In this life, Jesus tells us, conduct does matter. It does matter how we choose to live. In making that clear, Jesus also precedes this by teaching how to choose in order to live. And it is completely upside down from the way the world teaches us to live. Rather than saving oneself for the sake of gaining life, Jesus instructs us to do the opposite: deny yourself, lose your life. Who would not be hesitant to do this, to commit to losing one’s life for the sake of finding it? Yet, Jesus asks, “what can one give in exchange for his life?” At what cost are worldly goods gained, and what are they worth in relation to life here and now and the life of the world to come?
God, help me choose to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Christ your Son, as he commanded. In the Our Father is the perfect disposition of true God and true man in obedience to your will. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Because of original sin and the challenging but numbing routines of daily life, it is difficult, Lord, to know your will. Help me see it as I move through each moment of the day. Help me let go of my own agenda and know that you alone are God, and there is no god besides you. Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.