Sunday, September 04, 2016 23rd Sunday in
Ordinary Time Gospel Reading: Lk 14:25-33
One day, when large crowds were walking along with Jesus, he turned and said to them, “If you come to me, without being ready to give up your love for your father and mother, your spouse and children, your brothers and sisters, and indeed yourself, you cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not follow me carrying his own cross cannot be my disciple. “Do you build a house without first sitting down to count the cost to see whether you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, if you have laid the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone will make fun of you: This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’” And when a king wages war against another king, does he go to fight without first sitting down to consider whether his ten thousand can stand against the twenty thousand of his opponent? And if not, while the other is still a long way off he sends messengers for peace talks. In the same way, none of you may become my disciple if he doesn’t give up everything he has.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Any attempt to follow Christ must consider the possibility of suffering and even of death. Once this is settled one can proceed with normal strategic planning to identify possible sources of strength. One tried and tested source is prayer.
There are different kinds of prayer, namely, spontaneous, private, communal, and sacramental prayer.
Of these four, sacramental prayer obtains the greatest strength on two grounds. First, it is centered on the Eucharist where Christ is the one offering through the instrumentality of the priest, and the one being offered in his flesh and blood. Second, it is essentially communitarian and enjoys benefit of Jesus’ promise that he will be in the midst of two or more people who gather in his name.
The life of the Blessed Virgin Mary shows us how important prayer is. Like any mother she suffered a lot seeing her son unjustly oppressed. But she kept everything in her heart and pondered upon them meritoriously. This sustained her until the end. If only people realize that prayer is really important to a disciple as fuel is to any motorized vehicle they would not easily give prayer up. If no excuse is valid to postpone gassing up a vehicle, there should be no excuse for a disciple to miss prayer.
The cost of following Christ can be scary because it involves dying even literally. But following him is not impossible since God himself is willing to supply the strength if one is willing to pray. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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