Denying one’s self and taking up one’s cross are the small gate and narrow path that leads to life.

Only by uniting our suffering in life to that of Jesus can we carry our crosses.

There is a “self-forgetfulness” as you relativize your own life

and care for the life of others – a true death that we let in without violence.

 

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, virgin & martyr

1st Reading: Nahum 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7

See, there on the mountains,

The feet of one who brings good news, one who proclaims peace.

Judah, celebrate your feasts and carry out your vows.

 

For the wicked have been destroyed, they will not attack you anymore.

Yahweh will now restore Jacob's magnificence, like Israel's splendor.

 

For they had been plundered, laid waste as a ravaged vineyard.

Woe to the bloody city, city of lies and booty, O city of unending plunder! But what! Crack of whips, rumble of wheels and clatter of hoofs!

 

See the frenzied chargers, the flashing swords and glittering spears, the heaps of the wounded, the dead and dying-we trip over corpses!

I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make of you a shameful show, so that all who look on you will turn their backs in disgust and say: Nineveh-a city of lust-is in ruins.

Who will mourn for her? Where can we find one to comfort her?

 

Dt 32:35cd-36ab, 39abcd, 41 It is I who deal death and give life.

 

Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If you want to follow me, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. For whoever chooses to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life, for my sake, will find it. What will one gain by winning the whole world, if he destroys his soul? Or what can a person give, in exchange for his life?

 

Know that the Son of Man will come, in the glory of his Father with the holy angels, and he will reward each one according to his deeds. Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death, before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

 

Reflection:

"Deny yourself." 

Paradoxes are part of life. Paradoxes also characterize our faith journey. It may happen that we can then feel the closeness of God's presence when faced with serious problems. It is also then when we can hear God's message so clearly. Paradoxically, it is when we reach the limit of our situation that we see our need of God's salvation.

 

Hence, salvation ultimately is from God and not from us. Our role is to cooperate with God's salvific plan to the best of our ability and to emulate his manner of saving. And what is God's way of saving? God's way of saving is selfless. Our instinctive manner of saving is selfish. We tend to preserve ourselves rather than allowing God to use us as his instruments in bringing his salvation for everybody.

 

In today's Gospel, Jesus clearly told his disciples that the person choosing to save his life would lose it while the one losing it for Jesus' sake would find it. We may reflect that losing our life for Jesus' sake may mean that we lose it in imitation of Jesus' self-giving salvific act. Salvation is never self-referential. Salvation is always other-oriented. As Christians, we are called to live out this paradox.