“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”
These words of Jesus from the Gospel according to John echo Matthew’s Gospel from last Friday, when Jesus said to his disciples: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This spiritual paradox is paired with Jesus’ comparison of a grain of wheat that falls to the ground, dies, and sprouts to produce more wheat. Whoever serves and follows me in this life, Jesus says, the Father will honor in preserving it for eternal life.
Father in heaven, the grain of wheat is the gift of life that you have given me. Help me understand that if I use it to gain only in this life, I will ultimately lose it. But if I let it fall and use it to glorify you, there is life to gain—here and in the life to come. As St. Augustine said of the example St. Lawrence followed, “Christ did not love his life in this age; that’s why he came, in order to lose it here, to lay it down for your sakes.”
Lord, you know me and understand me better than I understand myself. In quiet prayer, my thoughts run wild, and there is no end to it. Yet, I have to smile as you look at me because I know that although you hear and dignify my thoughts in prayer, my troubles and anxieties are nothing to you. It is nothing for you to disperse the worries as easily as one might blow dust off of a table. Help me today in this way, Lord: set in my way the opportunity to laugh at myself, to let fall the seriousness of my attempt to make good out of the life I have in me today. Grant me the grace that I let myself die to the day so to live in the life I gain by losing it.
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.