Letter to Sinead, Mark, and their Friends,-  young adults who are searching, today.

Dear Sinead, Mark and Friends,

‘To go the whole hog’ means to give it everything you have. And Jesus goes the whole hog

'He set his face resolutely for Jerusalem.'

in today’s episode in Chapter 9 of Luke. We are told: ‘Jesus resolutely set his face for Jerusalem’. This verse is actually the turning point in St. Luke’s Gospel,- everything from here on, in the Gospel, is pointing towards Jerusalem and what would happen there. He had just told his disciples what lay ahead of him,- he would go up to Jerusalem, be rejected, be put to death,- and after all of this great suffering, he would rise from the dead. He ‘set his face’ for what lay ahead of him, and chose it with a heart and a half: nothing was going to stop him. He was ready to ‘go the whole hog’, to give it his all.

And then various people offered to follow him, but with excuses,- ‘I will, but!’  ‘I must do X, or do Y, and then, only then, will I follow you.’ They were lame in their following of Jesus. And he rejected that. If you want to be with me, then will you ‘go the whole hog’, and give it your very all?

Jesus doesn’t go in for small measures, then or now, – for himself or for his disciples. He asks for everything! There’s a wholeness in his invitation to each one of us,- to you, to me. And this wholeness of giving is life-giving. Letting everything go is finding more than everything (‘a hundred-fold’) in exchange!

See what Psalm 15 says, today: can you pray it? ‘O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup, it is you yourself who are my prize. You are my God… I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel, who even at night directs my heart. I keep the Lord ever in my sight: since he is at my right hand, I shall stand firm. And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad; you will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in your presence.’  There’s fullness of joy in giving one’s whole self to follow Jesus. And there are young hearts out there that are ready to answer the call in their hearts, and ‘go the whole hog’ for Jesus, and for the kingdom of God (God’s dream for our world.).

And Paul, to the young Christian community in Galatia (where Celts lived at that time): ‘When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Do not submit again to slavery. Serve one another in works of love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in a single command: Love your neighbour as yourself. … If you are guided by the Spirit, if you are led by the Spirit, you will be in no danger of yielding to self indulgence, since self indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit.’

From the Alleluia Verse: ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!’ were the words of young Samuel, still only a boy, but totally given already, even at age 7 or 8. Samuel wanted to ‘go the whole hog’ with God. ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’ Hear ‘Speak O Lord’ on Youtube, that picks up on this Listening heart. Click here.

A tough Gospel, this one today. But then, Jesus never said that following him would be easy- just that it would be great!

Discuss this with a friend or a few friends.  See how it speaks to your young lives. Jesus is always, in each generation, looking for people who will ‘go the whole hog’, for the kingdom of God in the world.

Thanks. Pray for me, that I will respond to him as He wants.

Fr. Seamus.    seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com

Your Comments are welcome!

See Mass Readings for texts. Readings are: 1st Kings:19:16, 19-21.  Galatians  5:1, 13-18.  Luke 9: 51-62. 

JESUS CHRIST DOES NOT DO ‘WISHY-WASHY’. He doesn’t do wishy washy for himself, and he doesn’t look for wishy washy from his followers.

No manager of any team, in football, in business, in communities, wants wishy washy from the members. No footballer would last long on a team that didn’t put his or her heart into playing, with a great hunger.

‘He set his face resolutely for Jerusalem’, says Luke in Chapter 9, verse 51. This is the major turning point in Luke’s Gospel,- when Jesus, after foretelling his passion and death and resurrection to his small group of disciples, then sets his own face up hill all the way to Jerusalem. Before this point, Jesus was entirely in Galilee, in his ministry. The remainder of Luke shows Jesus on that road towards what faced him in Jerusalem.

We next find James and John ready to call down thunder on the Samaritan village that would not let these pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem stay in their village. The Samaritans had no time for the Jews, and the feelings were mutual. But when these two ‘sons of thunder’ (‘Boanerges’ as Mark 3:17 calls them) wanted to call down vengeance on the village, Jesus rebuked them. Samaritans were as dear to Jesus as any other persons. All humans are most dear to him.

Then comes the ‘wishy washy’ bit, in three small incidents,-  three people who said that, yes, they would follow Jesus, but …   ‘I’ll follow you, but first…’ Excuses, excuses. Jesus is in a hurry for followers to go out into the world and begin to bring good news to the world and to build up God’s ‘kingdom’, God’s dream for communities and society and the world. There’s a hurry about Jesus. There’s a harvest to be gathered. No time to be wasted.

At an earlier place in Luke (Chapter 4), we see Jesus ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’, ‘led by the Holy Spirit’, and ‘filled with joy by the Holy Spirit’.  And that’s what he shares with his followers who walk with him wholeheartedly. Paul has the same words in his letter to the Galatians (who were a Celtic race living in that place, at that time): ‘if you are guided by the Spirit…. If you are led by the Spirit…’ And here, being guided by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit is shown as the opposite of self-indulgence. And self-indulgence is being wishy washy and worse.

‘Jesus resolutely took to road for Jerusalem’. Will we, led by the Spirit, be guided by the Spirit, filled with joy by the Spirit, resolutely take the road towards where and how God is calling us to be and to serve?

When the mantle of our own personal calling is put over our shoulders (as with young Elisha in the first Reading), will we say ‘yes, but…’, or will we ‘burn our boats’ and give the sacrifice of our whole heart, and go for it?

Not easy readings, today.

Fr. Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.  seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com

Your  Comments are welcome!