Ordinary Time - Week 21b
Following Christ
(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)The First Reading of today's Mass tells us about the moment when the Chosen People, having crossed the Jordan, are about to enter the Promised Land. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel together at Sichem and said to them: If you be unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers sewed in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And all the people answered him: Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord. We also will serve the Lord; for he is our God.
In the Gospel of the Mass we also find Jesus posing the same question to his disciples. After the announcement of the Eucharist in the synagogue at Capharnaum many of his disciples abandoned their Master because they found his teaching about the mystery of the Eucharist difficult to accept. Jesus is left with only his closest followers, and He wants them to reaffirm their loyalty and their unconditional confidence in him. So Our Lord turns to those men who have followed him thus far and asks them: Will you also go away? And Peter answers in the name of all: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed; and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God. The Apostles say Yes once more to Christ. What would become of them without Jesus? Where would they go? Who would satisfy the longings of their hearts? Life without Christ, then as now, is life without meaning.
We too have said Yes to Jesus, for always. We have embraced Truth, Life, Love. We have directed that freedom which God has given us towards its only valid objective. The day on which Our Lord looked upon us in a special way we told him that He would be the goal towards which we would direct our steps; and we have since told him on many other occasions: Lord, to whom shall we go? Without you nothing has any meaning.
Today is a good opportunity to examine the sincerity of our self-surrender to Our Lord, to see if we joyfully put aside anything that prevents us from following Jesus. Ask yourself now whether you are holding firmly and unshakably to your choice of Life? When you hear the most lovable voice of God urging you on to holiness, do you freely answer 'Yes'? To say yes to Our Lord in all circumstances means also saying no to other paths, to other possibilities. He is our Friend; only He has the words of eternal life.
Like those disciples who reaffirmed their full adherence to Christ at Capharnaum, at all times and in all places there are many men and women who, having walked perhaps for a long time in darkness, eventually find Jesus and see the path that leads to heaven open and marked out before them. So it has happened in our lives too. At last we discover that our freedom was given us not just to go from one place to another without a fixed reference point, but rather to make for a goal: Christ!