Brothers and Sisters,

I share with you this week a commentary by Joseph laCombe on “The Cost of Discipleship”

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple… In the same way, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

These words spoken by Jesus in Luke 14:26 seem pretty extreme. We are all called to be disciples of Christ by loving one another and doing His will, but it seems pretty outrageous that we would have to hate our loved ones and renounce everything we own. But what Jesus is really saying here is that the love we have for our families, friends, our possessions, and ourselves must be a distant second to the love we have for Him. That is how much we are supposed to love God. As much as he expects us to love one another, that love should pale in comparison to how much we love Christ.

We cannot do this halfway. We cannot say we love God, but then put other people, things, our commitments, and other things of this world before Him. But we do. We do this all the time. We are human. We are selfish by nature and we often put other things and other people in our lives before God. And we may justify it and say we were doing God’s will for this person, or serving the community through groups we’re involved in, or taking care of our family’s needs, or being there for our students or co-workers, and helping those in need. Each of these, in and of itself is a work of love and doing God’s will. But when our commitments to others, even if its through love, interferes with our relationship with God, well, that is what Christ is talking about today.

Many times, we get so wrapped up in our careers, our volunteer activities, our families, and serving others, that we often put our relationship with Christ second, even if we say its through Him that we do all of these things. Often, we get so wrapped up in our service to our careers, families, communities, and even our parish that we lose sight of why we are here.

We lose sight of Christ that He is our reason for being. We put other things and people before Him, before attending Mass, before receiving His grace through His sacraments, and before spending time with Him in adoration. Even when we are doing God’s work and being of service to others, He needs to be first and foremost, before everything, and we need to remember why we are doing these things.

Being a disciple means to be a follower of Christ and spread his Gospel; therefore, to truly follow Him, there can be no one else in-between.

Think on these things!