Brother’s, today’s reflection is due to my Lent where I started reading the Bible. I’ve never read the Bible from beginning to end, so I started at the Gospels and doing the New Testament, then go to the Old Testament. But I have a message to share tonight that will be a reflection that I think we can take with us that’s important now in the time that we’re living in, but also important right now with our diocese with the bishop that is coming and the excitement that’s about to happen.
As I read through this, I’m going to look at Luke chapter 9. It’s a great moment when Jesus sends out the mission of the twelve. And he says to the twelve to go out, and boy they went out and they were given amazing gifts. They proclaimed the good news and they were able to cure diseases, and then they came back. And they watched Jesus feed five thousand people. Pretty amazing stuff. At this point in time in the Gospel, they are falling in deeper and deeper with our Lord and they are realizing that Jesus Christ is our messiah. And then Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you think I am?” And Peter’s response was “the messiah of God.” Jesus rebuked them directly and told them not to tell anyone anywhere. Pretty amazing, right?
So here’s Peter, standing up and saying “you are the messiah of God.” But then Jesus does something amazing. This passage came up the first week of Lent, we had our first prediction of the Passion. And in this moment he said, “The son of man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” So here these disciples were able to go out and do incredible things, they basically proclaimed that Jesus is God, and then they learn that oh my goodness, our Lord has to die.
This is the crux of today, right now. The conditions of discipleship. So at this very moment in Luke chapter 9 as you pray about it, Jesus then looks at the 12 and says, “if anyone wishes to come after me, he must die to himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” We all hear that passage a lot. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for the one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself.”
That’s the passage I’ve alway heard, but it’s the next sentence that spoke to my heart: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, the son of man will be ashamed of when he comes into his glory in the glory of the father and of the holy angels.” And we know, dear brothers, that Peter three times denied Christ when they asked him, “Who is that man?” It was Peter, who was sitting right there. But it was also Peter who received the love of Christ when he knew he made a mistake and returned to our Lord, and proclaimed him.
And so my ask of you tonight is that we as men are not ashamed to be Catholic men in this world. My other ask of you is that you go forward knowing that we have the most amazing, merciful heart of Jesus who will forgive you of anything you have done, and not be held back so that you can do what you are called to do in this lifetime.