Gospel: August 9, 2024
August 9, 2024 (Friday)
18th Week in Ordinary Time
Psalter: Week 2 / (Green/Red)
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, virgin & martyr
Responsorial Psalm: Dt 32: 35cd-36ab, 39abcd, 41
It is I who deal with death and give life.
1st Reading: Nahum 2: 1, 3; 3: 1-3, 6-7
Gospel: Matthew 16: 24-28
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If you want to follow me, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. For whoever chooses to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life, for my sake, will find it. What will one gain by winning the whole world, if he destroys his soul? Or what can a person give, in exchange for his life?
Know, that the Son of Man will come, in the glory of his Father with the holy angels, and he will reward each one according to his deeds. Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death, before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Reflection: “Deny yourself”
Paradoxes are part of life. Paradoxes also characterize our faith journey. It may happen that we can then feel the closeness of God’s presence when faced with serious problems. It is also then when we can hear God’s message so clearly. Paradoxically, it is when we reach the limit of our situation that we see our need of God’s salvation. Hence, salvation ultimately is from God and not from us.
Our role is to cooperate with God’s salvific plan to the best of our ability and to emulate his manner of saving. And what is God’s way of saving? God’s way of saving is selfless. Our instinctive manner of saving is selfish. We tend to preserve ourselves rather than allowing God to use us as his instruments in bringing his salvation for everybody.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus clearly told his disciples that the person choosing to save his life would lose it while the one losing it for Jesus’ sake would find it. We may reflect that losing our life for Jesus’ sake may mean that we lose it in imitation of Jesus’ self-giving salvific act. Salvation is never self-referential. Salvation is always other-oriented. As Christians, we are called to live out this paradox.
