Let us acknowledge Jesus as God’s Messiah and follow him

Would you trust someone you don’t know? Why wouldn’t you follow someone you know very well and trust implicitly?

We can see from the Gospel the importance of the situation presented by the evangelist Luke. Before every critical event, Jesus prays, and it is no different in the pericope we read. Jesus asks about the disciples’ relationship with him. And this is where Peter enters with his confession on behalf of all: God’s Messiah – the Christ – the Anointed One. In this confession, Jesus’ special closeness to God is expressed, and in this connection, Jesus goes to meet the suffering he must suffer. And here, he commands the disciples to be silent about it. It seems incomprehensible. The disciples, like the crowds, may not have understood why the Son of God, the Son of Man, must suffer. Jesus knew and predicted persecution, suffering, and death while still living on earth. That is why he says: “The Son of Man must suffer many things; the elders, chief priests, and scribes will reject him and kill him, but on the third day he will rise from the dead” (Luke 9:22).

However, the most profound reason for Jesus’ suffering and death is not a presumed political development but a necessity and importance decided in advance by God. Jesus does not forget to add that just so the person who follows him cannot avoid suffering. “And he said to all: Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake shall save it” (Lk 9:23-24). Notice how Jesus ends his discourse. We can discern here five different sayings of Jesus as we follow Him. He wasn’t just speaking to Peter. He is saying “to all of us.” He gives the terms of what it means to “follow me” – to follow Jesus. The conditions of discipleship to which “all” are called. To follow means to go with him and his “way,” and it means to deny oneself—bearing the cross – willingness to witness, to remain daily under his cross and to persevere. To hold oneself up selfishly save oneself leads to the loss of one’s existence.

How is it with us? How do we take our daily crosses on our shoulders? Following Jesus means following him, it even requires the sacrifice of life, whether it is martyrdom in times of persecution or committing ourselves to people for Jesus’ sake in times of mission. To carry our daily crosses requires that we know who Jesus is. Heck, what would I answer Jesus to the question he asked the disciples? “Who do you think I am?” Would I say some learned philosophical definition, a mindless platitude? Would it be a statement of my heart? How can I follow someone I don’t know? If I were to ask a child how he imagines Jesus, God, he would portray the figure as he is depicted in pictures. Aren’t we adults also left with these childish ideas of God? Have you ever felt a longing to know God? To see the essence, to understand who God is…

St. Sister Faustina recounts in her diary how she thought about the Holy Trinity, the essence of God, saying: “I felt an urgent desire to examine thoroughly and to know who God is… My spirit was as if caught up out of this world at one point. I perceived an unapproachable light and within it, as it were, three strands of light that I could not comprehend. And from this light, words came forth in the form of lightning and surrounded heaven and earth. I could not understand any of this, and it grieved me greatly. Then, our beloved Savior came forth in incredible beauty with glowing wounds out of the sea of inaccessible light. And out of that light, I heard a voice say, “What God is in His essence no one can fathom, neither the reason of angels nor men.” Jesus said to me: “Know God, contemplate his attributes.”

His greatest attribute is infinite mercy, infinite love. God doesn’t just talk to the saints, as we might think. He speaks to every single one of us. I have to show a willingness to speak to him. How can I know someone if I don’t speak to him? That is what prayer is for. Jesus is God and gives us the example of worship. He prays before he asks the disciples a question, he prays before he makes a big decision, he prays in suffering, he prays. Can I go to someone I don’t know? Jesus offers us whoever wants to follow me, but he adds that let him deny himself and take up his cross.

Let us take up our daily worries, difficulties, illnesses, adversities, … those we are afraid to bear. Let us not be scared to accept them. Let us surrender them to God. Our crosses will be easier to take with him with his merciful love. Where can we find it? We will meet her at the breaking of the bread in a little while at the Eucharist. Let us draw the strength that is offered to us from this source. Jesus helps us to bear our crosses, even through this sacrament. St. Faustína merited holiness by following Christ and carrying her cross despite her then incurable illness, tuberculosis. She shows us how she handled ordinary life situations thanks to God’s grace.

In his diary, he writes: “Today I was visited by a certain worldly person for whom I had great trouble because he abused my goodness and lied about many things. The first moment I saw her, my blood stiffened in my veins, for all that I had to suffer for her sake was revealed before my eyes, although I could have freed myself from it in a word. It occurred to me to tell her the whole truth decisively and at once.”

There were many similar situations in our lives. This is precisely how most of us would have acted. We would have dealt with the person in question the same way. But by doing so, we would be shortchanging ourselves, selfishly saving ourselves, the opposite of what Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel. “Deny yourself, and follow me” – do as I do.

Sister Faustína, however, continues in her diary, ” But at the same moment, I remembered God’s mercy and decided to treat her as Jesus would have done if he had been in my place. I began to speak to her kindly, and when she longed to talk to me about her loneliness, I pointed out to her very considerately but the sad state of her soul. I could see her deep distress, though she hid it from me.” She goes on to say, “Without God’s grace, I would not have been able to treat her in this way.” And few of us have behaved in this way, as Faustína did, thanks to God’s grace.

Therefore, let us follow the example of Sister Faustína, and, also at her intercession and together with her, let us ask for the necessary graces of God so that we may be able and willing to deny ourselves in following “God’s Messiah,” so that we may be able to know and confess Him. And with her, let us exclaim: “O Christ, though it takes such great effort, yet with your grace, all things are possible.”