The Cost of Discipleship
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us about the conditions of discipleship, and these words from the Gospel must be understood in the context of all the other teachings of Christ. It is true that “hate” is a strong word, and the way that we commonly understand “hate” as the opposite of “love” cannot be taken as what was meant by Christ, because He is the one who told us to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” On the contrary, our love for relatives, friends and strangers should not be exclusive from the love of God. We cannot choose to love our neighbor in a way that would be displeasing to God. In addition, we must keep the proper hierarchy of charity: God must take priority over everything. We cannot be half-hearted when it comes to loving God. We must strive to please God rather than men.
Jesus uses the analogy of a man building a tower and a king marching into battle to emphasize the importance of being prepared. Just as a builder must be prepared to finish building a tower, or a king must be prepared to deal wisely with another king in times of war, so too must we be prepared if we are to become disciples of Christ. Two things that we have to be prepared to do, in order to become true disciples of Christ, are to carry our own crosses in life, and to renounce all our possessions. If we should be detached from our relatives, then more so should we be detached from our possessions. Just as a king is imprudent if he goes to war without an adequate army, so anyone is foolish who thinks he can follow our Lord while being too attached to material things. It is impossible to serve both God and mammon (Lk 16:13). If human prudence requires that we plan and work out in advance the risks we may encounter, all the more reason should we prepare to embrace the Cross of Christ voluntarily and generously, because there is no other way we can follow Christ.
Christianity is not a religion of convenience. We must be willing to give up many things in order to become true followers of Christ. St. John of the Cross once wrote: “As long as the soul does not reject all things, it has no capacity to receive the Spirit of God in pure transformation.” Therefore, for a soul to become filled with God, it must first be emptied of everything that could be an obstacle to God’s indwelling.
The Holy Name of Jesus Chinese Catholic Mission’s Fall Garage Sale is on Saturday, October 5! Please bring items for sale to the church on or before Sunday, September 29. Items must be in saleable and working condition. The best items for sale are clothing, accessories, kitchen and dining items, small kitchen appliances, small furniture, office items, home décor and similar items. Please do not bring old books and magazines, tapes and VCRs, old TVs, radios or electronics. Only new and modern electronic items are saleable.
During the Pastoral Council and Finance Council meetings held last Sunday, September 1st, it was agreed that all the old playground equipment on church property will be removed and disposed. The old playground equipment is outdated, unsafe and can result in injury.
If you have used ink cartridges, don’t throw them away! Please bring them to the church office. Every ink cartridge we recycle gives us $2 off for our next ink purchase. Any size ink cartridge is accepted.
