Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time C.  June 20, 2004.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:30, 6PM.  Zechariah 12:10-11, 13;1.  Galatians 3: 28-29.  Luke 9: 18-24. 

He was a very careless insensitive young man.  He always thought of himself first.  He had many talents and gifts, and besides he was good looking, so people tolerated him.  Yet everybody, even those he called his friends, knew that he would use them, and brush them off in an instant if he found something or someone who would be better for him, help him go to the top, or give him more pleasure.  His girlfriend was a very kind and caring woman.  No one knew why she agreed to marry this self-consumed slop, but she did.  She seemed to be able to get him to think of someone besides himself.  The young man began to mellow a bit.  He had begun to show concern for others.  When the baby arrived everyone wondered how the young father who had always been so selfish would react.  The young man took one look at the baby – his daughter – and something snapped within him. For the first time in his life he knew that there was someone for whom he would die.  For the first time in his life he had met someone he loved more than he loved himself.  He was a father now.  While his own father had not paid much attention to him, this young man had fallen in love with his daughter immediately.  Becoming a father had completely changed his life.

This was only the beginning. His daughter would teach him how to love as she screamed for food and a clean diaper in the middle of the night, navigated her terrible two’s and shouted her way through her defiant teens. This daughter was a hand full for him and his wife to handle.  Yet the father was quite content.  In laying down his life for his family he had found a happiness that he had never experienced before in life, even when he seemed to have everything and to be getting his own selfish way. Loving his daughter had cost him his old way of life and it was teaching him how to love.

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered, “You are the Christ of God.”  Then Jesus told his friends a great mystery.  To be the Christ of God, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”  To make sure that his followers didn’t think that what he was saying applied to him alone, Jesus turned to them and said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

The Holy Week and Easter seasons have passed.  During the summer months of Ordinary Time the Church goes back and reviews the entire life and mission of Jesus Christ with us to make sure that we understand.  Today’s gospel confronts us with the central message of our faith, the message of the Cross.  We are blessed and bless ourselves with the sign of the Cross.  We hang the cross on our walls and around of necks.  We place the cross on the top of our churches so that all who are passing by may see this primary symbol and message of our faith.  In a society with many conveniences and comforts, do we really believe that the Cross is the way to happiness, a healthy society and eternal life?

As I prepare young people for the sacrament of marriage I hear them talk about how much they love one another and how much they are willing to give to show the depth of their love.  Yet we all deal with a lot of couples who are living together without getting married and married people who are breaking up and moving apart. Admitting that there are indeed situations that were wrong from the beginning, abusive or otherwise impossible, are we honestly facing the fact that a good marriage makes great demands on the husband and wife.  A good marriage is a wonderful blessing. It is also a Cross that demands that we must lose our lives and ourselves before we find happiness in marriage. Without dying to self and laying down our lives for our spouse and our family marriage will not work.  Like all true blessings a good marriage costs a lot.

I love being an uncle and a family friend because I enjoy children immensely and it costs me so little to have fun with them.  I love to bring kids to the zoo, or the circus or the Fair.  Whenever they are tired I simply bring them home.  Being a parent is a 24 hour a day, seven days a week responsibility lasting for at least 18 years.  The father or mother who thinks that he or she will raise children without carrying the cross is not living in the real world.  Good children have responsible parents. Being a parent is a high cost vocation.  To be parents mothers and fathers must lay down their lives in countless ways each day.  Are we willing to pay the costs?

I remember watching my youngest brother come home from football practice, bruised from head to toe and exhausted.  Those who think they can become great athletes without carrying the Cross and paying the price are couch potato, TV athletes.  Anyone who has played athletics seriously, for a long period of time, knows that you carrying the scars, the sprains and the joint damage for the rest of your life.  The cost of being a really good athlete is high.  Are we willing to pay the cost?

The same is true of academic achievement, business success, or any other kind of meaningful accomplishment.   No Cross, no glory.  We are almost desperately short of vocations to the priesthood.  Why are so many of our young people avoiding one of the most challenging and rewarding vocations possible?  I assure you that there is a Cross in the priesthood.  There is also an abundance of love and joy.  Are we willing to pay the cost?

Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but wherever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

For the power of the Cross, and the joy and peace it brings in our lives we give God thanks and praise.