First reading: 2 Kgs. 4:8–11, 14–16a

One day Elisha came to Shunem, where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her. Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine. So she said to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God. Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, so that when he comes to us he can stay there.” Sometime later Elisha arrived and stayed in the room overnight.

Later Elisha asked, “Can something be done for her?” His servant Gehazi answered, “Yes! She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years.” Elisha said, “Call her.” When the woman had been called and stood at the door, Elisha promised, “This time next year you will be fondling a baby son.”

Second reading: Rom. 6:3–4,8:1

Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.

If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.

Gospel: Mt. 10:37–42

Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

In other words

by Fr. Magdaleno Fabiosa, SVD (Holy Name University, Tagbilaran City, Bohol)

Today’s Gospel is taken from that section in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus talks about the Mission of the Twelve. But in some parts of the said section (chapter), especially our Gospel reading for today, Jesus seems to be addressing a crowd. This observation is in consonance with the section in St. Luke’s Gospel (Lk 14:25–35), where this theme on the cost of discipleship is addressed to a crowd, not to a chosen few. Like most, if not all, of Jesus’ injunctions, they are intended for all his followers. This sounds like what Lumen Gentium teaches: we all are called to one and the same holiness (a relatedness with God), which is not a product of our own efforts but a gift given to us by God, for free.

In this section of Matthew, Jesus is forewarning those who want to follow him about its necessary consequences. To follow Jesus demands that one’s devotion to him must be wholehearted that even attachment to parents and other members of the family must not be allowed to stand in the way. (This is what is meant by the use of that strange word ‘hate.’) They have to deny themselves, i.e., say “no” to their “old man,” whose value system is opposed to that of Jesus. They have to give up reliance on their own efforts but rely on God alone, and subject themselves to Jesus’ discipline (being ready to carry one’s cross).

Jesus knew that what he was offering was a new life (“I am the way, the truth, and the life”), which actually is a relationship with God himself, who was incarnated in him. Paul says, “I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Jesus also knew the role played by the “spin-offs” of original sin (concupiscence). Our old, divided, inauthentic, and yet so real self resists that life of Christ in us, which, nevertheless, we need absolutely. To absorb Christ’s life implies pain and darkness, mortification and purification, not because Christ wants to inflict suffering on us, but because the inauthentic in us resists transformation.

We can approximate what this means in what happened to the first man who had a heart transplant. Philip Blaiberg, a South African, was the first to undergo a heart transplant in South Africa. From January 1968, the time he underwent the heart transplant, to August 1969, after the procedure, his entire body, from the brain to the least important cell in his body, fought with ferocity and inventiveness to repel and reject the new heart that, nevertheless, was vital for him.

This should help us understand the language Jesus used when describing the cost of being his disciples. Similarly, our old, divided, inauthentic, and yet so real self will resist the life of Christ in us, which we need absolutely. Because it is an evil threatening our life, that resistance has to be mortified. To absorb the vitality of Christ in ourselves implies pain and darkness, mortification and purification, not because Christ wants to inflict suffering on us, but because the impure and inauthentic in us resists transformation.