Today at holy Mass we hear in the Gospel of St Mark Jesus reminding St Peter about what it means to suffer…That “the cross” is a requirement for salvation…That there is no getting around it…..Its not within man’s power to eliminate the evil that exists in the world….Only by uniting ourselves with the one who conquered death itself do we overcome this evil that continues to plague mankind….And in order to unite ourselves with the God-man, we must embrace “the cross”…."Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it."
The first disciples of Christ left everything to follow him, no small feat, however as we read the gospel we come to see just how much they did not understand….Jesus fully embraced the cross…..And as we all know…All but one of the first twelve disciples when “push came to shove” ran away when Jesus was lifted upon the cross….Are we any different?……We love the “idea” of Jesus…We love the “idea” of going to heaven…But do we really know what those concepts are all about?……..It is through the cross…Its is through suffering, which is apart of every life to varying degrees that we come to understand and mature not only as adults but as Catholics….It is our Christian duty to help eliminate suffering in this world but when we “think” we can eradicate it all together or somehow avoid it ourselves…Its at that point we hear the words of St Peter when he too tried to do the exact same thing, which Jesus addressed in no uncertain terms….”Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
God’s ways are not our ways…And God works in mysterious ways
When we accept that we are not in control, God is…That we are only a small part of a much larger plan…..We find peace….We can not eliminate evil, no matter how hard we try, however Jesus will have the last word……On a small hill 2000 years ago, three men were crucified…One was God…One man was “good”…And one man was “bad”…….This scene played out on that “hill” was a microcosm of the same “scene” playing out to this very day…..One man turned to God and one man did not…The man who turned to God did not have the answers and was deeply flawed…..And God saved him…The other man too did not have the answers and was flawed as well…But this man did not turn to God…..And death had the last word for him……So it is with us today...Which man are you?
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”
Getting back to the gospel today from Mass…Jesus asks St Peter and the first disciples a serious question…."But who do you say that I am?”…..Peter answers that question without fully understanding what the answer meant…..St Peter was in “denial”…He did not want to accept “the cross” and the suffering that goes with it…..Are we any different?…..However, we all know the end of the story…Peter did in fact accept the cross and was crucified himself…But that took time…He needed to be formed by the Holy Spirit…And so do we…God’s ways are not our ways but make no mistake…God is at work!….We need to cooperate with him…Allow him to mold us into who we were born to be…That means we must suffer…That means we must embrace the cross…And in that process we are transformed and in that transformation we will transform the world around us
A light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it….Only by means of the cross does that light shine bright
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