Unconditional surrender

Today's Gospel is a continuation of last Sunday's theme about the meaning and the cost of authentic discipleship. Accepting Jesus and his message in one's life is a commitment to a mission that can surpass in value the most precious gifts in life, and sometimes even relationships with loved ones and friends. As history tells us, it can also bring about suffering and even loss of life. There has indeed never been a time when Christianity or its values have not been persecuted.

In rewriting an earlier saying related by St Luke, in which Jesus says that the disciple must "hate" parents and relatives, Matthew puts it a little less bluntly. He says that he who loves family "more than me" cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Family love is not condemned, but enhanced.

He also alters the harshness of the statement by adding Our Lord's words about hospitality, promising that everyone who gives one of the "little ones" a glass of water in his name will be rewarded.

No matter what the angle from which we look at Jesus's statement in today's Gospel, the authentic following of Jesus Christ must be understood in terms of an unconditional surrender to Him and a sincere acceptance of his message. Our Lord's message, on the other hand, also demands that it be translated into practical terms and should never disregard the actual situations and demands of daily life.

While we often read today in the lives of saints about their heroic virtues, about their uncompromising fidelity to Christ and generous service in his Church, we cannot help being moved with eternal gratitude to God for the extraordinary Christian witness they have given and still give us, as well as for their unconditional surrender to God. And this they did not only in extraordinary and unexpected sit-uations, but also in their everyday lives. Such saints have lived in past years since the beginning of Christianity and are still with us today.

On other hand, however, one cannot help being realistic and remain shocked by the alarming frequency of cruel situations and sufferings, caused by persons who claim to be Christian, against fellow human beings who are poor and helpless and, what is worse, are deprived of the love they are entitled to as human beings from fellow men and women.

"It is the man who loses his life for my sake that will secure it," Jesus is telling us today. Unconditional surrender to Him and an honest acceptance of his message should open our eyes, and still more our consciences, to make us see where we actually stand in the light of today's Gospel message.

Pope Pius XII, whose process of canonisation is still going on at the Vatican, has this to tell us in this context: "To live today as becomes a true Christian calls for a profound spirit of faith and for a power of endurance such as is proper to martyrs."

I have never read about a saint who did not have to struggle against oppositions of all kinds for the sake of Christ, just as I have never heard of one who has not been truly happy and irradiating joy around him. This is indeed the paradox of Christianity, a paradox due to the wholehearted acceptance of Jesus's teachings in one's heart and to the courage to live by them in one's daily life.