My dear brothers and sisters, in this Sunday Gospel Jesus is making two things clear to us.
First, he wants us to have no illusions about following him. His path is a hard path. Our nature has fallen, and to get back up again, even with his grace helping us, is going to be hard. It will involve self-sacrifice and suffering: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."
That is the obvious lesson in this Gospel passage. We can never let ourselves forget it. But there is another lesson too, equally worth our attention.
Jesus is teaching us that following him involves more than feelings and vague inspirations. We are supposed to use our minds, to put our creativity and intelligence to work in the adventure of following Christ.
This is clear from the examples Jesus uses. The builder and the warring king had to channel their enthusiasm through the cool filter of reason. Christians must do the same. The emotional excitement that comes from a retreat or a pilgrimage or a special grace-filled encounter with the Lord is like the blossoms on a cherry tree.
They bloom quickly and fill our souls with a sweet aroma, but then the long summer comes, and we have to persevere patiently, following an intelligent plan of spiritual and apostolic work, before the fruit matures.
Love, even the lasting love that comes from friendship with Christ, is often born amidst intense emotions, but it matures through sweat and suffering, and those can only be endured with the aid of reason and conviction - both of which go deeper than mere passing emotions.
Following Christ is more than following a whim; it is a long-term project that deserves and engages the whole person.
Do You Love Me
There is a song from a famous Broadway musical that gives a great insight into this truth. The musical is about a poor Jewish family living in Russia in a small village in the early 1900s. The parents, Tevye [TEHV-yeh] and Golde [GOLD-eh] are in the middle of seeing their five daughters marry and go off to start their own families.
One day Tevye and Golde are alone in the house. Tevye, the husband, in the midst of his nostalgia at saying goodbye to his daughters, asks Golde, his wife, if she loves him.
She is exasperated by the question and tells him to go inside and lie down. But he insists, he keeps asking: Do you love me? But she won't give him an answer.
Finally, she sings: "For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes, Cooked your meals, cleaned your house, Given you children, milked the cow, After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?"
Then they banter back and forth, and he keeps insisting, and finally she muses to herself: "Do I love him? For twenty-five years I've lived with him, fought with him, starved with him... If that's not love, what is?" It's an entertaining song, but it contains a deep truth. True love is more than feelings, true love is about giving oneself.
The same goes for our love for Christ. If we want to become mature Christians and grow in wisdom and grace, it needs to become a real friendship that engages and affects our whole lives.
To follow Christ means to work hard building up his Kingdom. To follow Christ means to work hard conquering our selfish, self-indulgent tendencies. To follow Christ means to roll up our sleeves and get down to business.
Following Through on Our Commitments
Is there anything practical we can do to help our spiritual lives become more stable and robust?
There is much we can do, but there are no shortcuts. Rocky Balboa was able to go from a washed out, mediocre boxer to world champion in two hours, but real life takes a more sustained effort than movie life.
One simple thing we can do to grow in our spiritual maturity is to follow through on our spiritual commitments. At some point or another, we have all made some of these. Maybe it was a New Year's resolution to pray the Rosary. Maybe it was a commitment that came at the end of a retreat. Maybe in a time of crisis we promised God that we would not let ourselves get caught up again in the superficial rat race.
But then the hustle and bustle of life, or some other distraction, or our tendency to laziness gradually crowded out our enthusiasm, and the commitment faded away.
It's not too late to start again. In fact, it's probably a very good idea to start again. It's a way to move beyond the fuzzy feeling of spirituality so popular on TV talk shows. And it's also a way to tell Christ how grateful we are for all he has done in our lives, and how eager we are for him to do more.
And if you can't remember a past commitment or need a fresh one, maybe you could start by renewing your confidence in Christ's love through the First Friday devotion.
It was suggested by our Lord himself to St. Margaret Mary and consists of receiving Holy Communion in a spirit of gratitude on nine consecutive First Fridays of the month.
It's small, but substantial, and it's a sure way to move beyond fuzzy feelings, since fuzzy feelings rarely last for nine straight months.