Fr John O’Callaghan OSB
‘We can hardly guess at what is on the earth, and what is at hand we find with labour’, as the first reading says. Many of us may be painfully aware of how hard knowledge is to acquire as new books pile high on our desks at the beginning of the school year. To learn another language, to understand mathematics or history, or how to run a business, can challenge the most capable of us. And life is more than books: learning the guitar, winning a game of chess or a rugby match, can show us the limits of our ability- to say nothing of trying to being friendly and courteous to all and to live together in peace! In all these challenges we recognise our limitations but today’s gospel puts everything into a wider perspective: Christ reminds us of another challenge in our testing world: ‘if anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, spouse, children, … and his own life too, he/she cannot be my disciple.’
Let us be clear from the outset that by ‘hating’ Jesus couldn’t possibly mean despising another human being; he spent his whole life teaching us to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’, to treat people as we would have them treat us, even our enemies. No, it was the Aramaic style of Christ’s speech to use superlatives instead of more nuanced comparatives to make his point; by ‘hating’ those closest to us he was saying ‘don’t prefer them to me’. The gospel is telling us not to prefer anything at all to being a disciple of Christ, not to take anything more seriously than going-to-God and making Him the centre of your life.
This applies to us today; He is saying that in all your hopes and ambitions for the coming year, be they for top grades in the Leaving Cert’, trophies on the games fields, or good times with friends, remember that there is more to your life than any of them, more than all of them put together.
And why? Because there is more to our lives than meets the eye! We are more than our marketable qualities, more than our reputations for winning or losing, more than what we can get out of other people. In our baptism we were all made members of the People of God, given a share in the divine life as His sons and daughters, destined for eternity. Our lives are sacred, because they have been made so by God. We have been made for him, the eternal God. Our importance and value cannot be reduced to achievements, reputation, or just ‘fun’ with a circle of friends. Instead our lives open onto eternity. To illustrate this Jesus takes what may be most dear to any of us, our special relationships, with family and friends, and teaches us that these relationships must always be second to our relationship with Him. That is saying a lot, as
anyone knows who has run into the love parents have for their children. It is what Paul was talking about in the second reading today: that Philemon should take back his runaway slave, Onesimus, with affection, rather than with punishment, because he is a fellow Christian. And Jesus teaches that even life itself is not worth extending forever, as an absolute value. He showed this by taking the road to Jerusalem, where was to die. He gave up his life on the cross for something better, so that we might share with him in the life of God.
Ultimately what we are talking about here are rival loves. We have every right to love learning, to love sport, to love people. But let us love them as Christians, knowing they are not absolutes, taking us over, ‘owning’ us. They are gifts and for a time. As we move from one home to another in the course of our life, from family, to school, to the world of work and elsewhere, let us remember that our destiny is greater than them all, our true homeland is in heaven. If we make of one of our passing homes the final end of our life that would be the final end of
us. So let us approach study with serenity, sport with honesty, and people with Christian respect, thanking God for all these blessings as we make our way to our heavenly homeland.