Bishop Barron's Gospel Reflection February 27, 2020

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

LUKE 9:22-25

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord lays out the conditions for discipleship. He makes this demand: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Notice that this is not simply a question of accepting suffering that happens to befall one. This is not simply a Stoic resignation. Jesus is telling us actively to take up our crosses, to seek them out, to carry them as he willingly carried his. What Jesus did on the cross was to bear the burden of the world’s sin. He bore others’ burdens in love. And this is what we must do: actively, proactively seeking out ways to lighten other people’s loads. Dietrich Bonhoeffer commented that when the Lord summons a person to discipleship, he calls him to come and die. When the blind Bartimaeus received his sight, at the midpoint of the Gospel of Mark, he followed Jesus up the road that would lead to Calvary. The way of the Christian life begins and ends with the man who is God dying on a cross. Reflect: In what ways can you go out of your way this Lent to choose one person in your life and lighten his or her load? Thursday after Ash Wednesday Lectionary: 220 Reading 1 Dt 30:15-20 Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Gospel Lk 9:22-25 Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Then he said to all,  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”