XXII-Sunday-Cycle A.

XXII SUNDAY OFTHE YEAR

JEREMIAH 20: 7-9; ROM 12:1-2;Gospel: MT 16: 21-27

It is said that St. Augustine was accosted one day on the street by a former mistress some time after he had become a Christian. When he saw her he turned and walked the other way. Surprised, the woman called out, "Augustine, it is I". Augustine as he kept going the other way, answered her, "Yes, but it is not I."
It is an amusing story ,but when Christ calls a man to follow him, he calls him to die." Augustine was dead to his former self, and so he said, it is not I.

Today’s readings explain how we can truly follow Jesus. Jeremiah, in the first reading, is certainly a prototype of the suffering Christ. In the second reading, Paul advises the Romans and us (Rom 12:1-2):to ‘’offer our bodies as a living sacrifice” to God by explicitly rejecting the ungodly behavior of the world around us and by discerning and doing the will of God.
In last week's readings, Peter was given the keys to the kingdom, and in this week's readings, he nearly gets them taken away from him! Jesus is so upset with him that He exclaims, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Peter got himself in trouble for strongly protesting Jesus' prediction of His Passion. In effect, Jesus is telling His disciples, "I never promised you a rose garden!" Jesus announces the three conditions of Christian discipleship: “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me”. Unless we constantly remind ourselves of the demands of this difficult vocation from God, we will fail to be the kind of disciples that Christ expects us to be.
Suffering, when we bear it with faith and unite it to Christ's suffering, is like the oven that cooks saints, the fire that purifies our hearts of selfishness. Gold is purified in fire. Adversity helps develop endurance. A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.

All the sufferings are not God given sufferings. Some we create for ourselves. Some come from Satan as he knows that some people renounce God when they meet with sufferings in their life and leave their faith in God.
Bob Hodges, a Presbyterian minister in Rogersville, Tennessee, tells about duck hunting with a friend of his on Cherokee Lake in East Tennessee. His friend, Riley, who had just recently given his life to Christ, began to ask some serious questions about his Christian pilgrimage. Riley's old friends were making it very difficult for him to remain consistent in his obedience and commitment to Christ. They seemed to delight in trying to get him to fall back into the old patterns of life. They ridiculed him for spending so much time with "the preacher." Riley asked, "Why is it that I'm having more trouble since I became a Christian than I ever did when I was lost? Everything seems to go wrong. I'm having such a struggle!"

Bob Hodges spoke up, "I'll tell you why, Riley. A couple of ducks fly over and you shoot. You kill one and injure the other. They both fall into the lake. What do you do? You have to get out of the boat and go pick up the ducks, but which one do you go after first?"

"Well," Riley drawled, "that's easy. I go after the injured one first. The dead one ain't goin' nowhere!"

Hodges said, "And that's the way it is with the devil. He goes after injured Christians. He's not going to bother with the man dead in his sin. But the minute you give your life to Christ, you'd better get ready; the devil is going to come after you. He is going to chase you; he's going to make it hard on you."
Sometimes, when life's crosses are especially heavy, it is hard for us to remember that God is with us in our sufferings. At times, like Job, we find ourselves rebelling against the suffering that God permits to come our way, instead of finding its hidden meaning. Those can be lonely, dark times, full of temptation and sadness. But God promises that he will be faithful. St Paul wrote: "God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians10:13). St Augustine says: "There is more courage in a man who faces rather than flees the storms of life, and who holds cheap the opinion of men.

The Church has decreed that above each of her altars there should be a crucifix. Whenever we enter a Catholic Church, therefore, the crucifix will be the focus of our field of vision. The crucifix is a depiction of humiliation, torture, pain, and death. Why such pride of place given for such a cruel reality? Why not put scenes of Christ's birth above every altar, or of his resurrection, or ascension? Because, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." Christ dying on the cross was the perfect sacrifice offered to God in loving atonement for our sins and the sins of all people (2 Cor. 5:15).

To get any where in a mirror-image world, you must go in the opposite direction! If you walk in the forward direction you will reach only the mirror, not the destination. Christ's teaching is a bit like that: If you want to be a follower ... renounce yourself! And walk the opposite direction of where the world is walking. If you want to save your life....be prepared to lose it! The Sermon on the Mount spells out the apparent contradictions.
Society tends to take the Peter approach: 'You can't do that!' To be a success, you must be strong, not weak; rich, not poor; aggressive, not meek.
Nothing stands in the way of our ultimate salvation as much as our own 'cosy' Christianity, the sort that wants to be a follower of Christ on our own terms, preferably without the 'nasty bits' of suffering, death and self-sacrifice.
Jesus did not turn back from suffering and death, he went through the heart of it, and it was transformed into resurrection. If we keep our sufferings close to the cross of Jesus, we are sure to be risen with him. Let’s bring all our crosses to him who promises to turn all our sorrows into joy.