24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B September 15, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“He spoke this openly.” What did he speak openly? That the dreams of glorious conquest people had about the promised Messiah would turn out to be just dreams, that his mission and ministry would look like a total failure, that he would be betrayed and murdered in the most shameful and painful way. Simon Peter, his right hand man, takes that about as well as you’d expect. We so often look at the crucifix, are so familiar with how the story ends that perhaps we don’t allow ourselves sufficient room to truly comprehend what it means to be disciples of a crucified master, to really “carry the cross” and follow him.
Yesterday was the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. A relic, an actual piece of Jesus’ own cross is in the chapel downstairs right now and people are there praying, keeping vigil before that cross precisely because it is so central to what it means to be a Christian. I think the single most common thing people get wrong about Christianity is the way they try to avoid the cross. It’s why we made the newly-begun 9 year great novena focus especially on the cross.
Even with a straightforward saying like, “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me,” the world constantly wants to redefine our faith without the Cross. Some wish to reduce our religion to a vague conglomeration of commands to be “nice” to others. Others, however, collapse Christianity into an exercise of “telling it like it is,” no matter what. So we see on one hand people willing to compromise any moral teaching if they think it doing so might make the person they love feel good. On the other hand, it is just as worldly for people to seize on to any form of power they can to impose their idea of a “Christian culture” on the world around them.
Yet the cross cannot fit neatly into only one of those categories. To those overly focused on niceness and inclusion, we rightly point out the unyielding moral demands Jesus makes of people: the 10 commandments, forbidding divorce, radical humility. Add in his teaching that loving him means keeping his commands and his promises that the world will hate us and it gets difficult to neatly reduce Christianity to a religion of pure kindness and inclusion.
To those overly focused on truth and power, however, we rightly point out just how often Jesus chose to align himself with weak outcasts. I’ve heard it said – and repeated it myself – that Jesus wasn’t put to death for being too nice. But he kinda was. Note carefully what first triggered the plot to kill Jesus. It was because he healed someone… because he was too “nice” to someone on the sabbath that the scribes and pharisees set out to murder him.
So yeah, we cannot easily get away from the sometimes harsh demands of truth on one side nor the uncomfortable requirements of love on the other. Rather than avoiding this conflict, Jesus leans into it, insisting that what looks like a tension between truth and love is actually a unity. And we must do likewise. What, practically, does that look like?
First, who do you say Christ is? No, seriously, I want you to define Jesus Christ for yourself. In Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs, participants are asked to accept a higher power as they understand him. Despite coming from Catholic spirituality, these programs intentionally use that broad phrasing about God. Why? Because the objective truth about God does little to help someone who has never integrated that into their personal, subjective convictions. It’s good if you can define the trinity on a test, but it matters far more that you interiorly and personally grasp the Trinity as your living God.
So, here’s a little homework. Sit down this week and write out who Jesus is to you. Don’t just copy out of the catechism, but search your inner convictions. It doesn’t have to be unique or creative, just true. What do you really think? If you write out that answer and can then see that it isn’t what it should be, okay. Honesty about what you really think is essential. Only from that starting point can begin to work towards more closely aligning the God of your understanding with the truth of what he has revealed to his Church. And you should do so.
That step is essential because it is only after correctly identifying who Jesus is that the apostles are ready to hear him speak “openly.” That brings us to the second practical step: confront what Jesus actually says. Reread this gospel. Reread the beatitudes, the agony in the garden, and Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper. Every Catholic who can read and who can get their hands on a bible should read the bible every day. Read his words. Hear him speak often so that his words have an honest chance to challenge your ideas and refine your motivations.
Third and most importantly: confront the cross. Let the cross teach you to think not as human beings do, but as God does. Go spend at least some time praying before the relic of the cross this weekend. Let the cross challenge your thinking. I simplified the conflict to simple truth vs. love, but the reality is that most people tend to bounce between both extremes, just in different areas of life.
What part of your life, which of your habits make you more inclined to soften the truth so as to make yourself and others feel better? Then let the cross speak to you of how love is not love without truth. To love is to will the good of another and what’s good for someone ultimately depends on what is true. What part of your life, which of your habits make you more inclined to “tell it like it is,” to treat truth like a bludgeon and disregard the unique difficulties each person faces? Then let the cross remind you that Jesus hung upon it because he loved people enough to help them even when it cost him power and credibility. For Jesus, being “right” was never about flexing his power.
All of us hesitate sometimes to carry the crosses of daily life. So, take the time to look at a relic of the true cross – it’s usually a tiny splinter of wood. See in that splinter your share of Christ’s cross, so much heavier than our own. Take courage from knowing that he not only carried a greater burden, but that like that splinter was part of the cross already carried, so your burden has already been carried by Christ.
Whatever your challenges, whatever your particular struggles in reconciling truth with love or love with truth, look to the cross! Do not avoid the tension it represents. Do not drop your share in its weight. It represents a death we cannot avoid, but do not be afraid! Ultimately, we are going to lose our lives no matter what we do. But by the power of that cross, we can turn that unavoidable loss into unending life.