Dear Preachers:

When we see someone we have not seen for a while, we often ask, “What’s new?” As we approach today’s Gospel, one we have heard many times, Jesus is asking something new of us – or perhaps something deeper.

His words are challenging. He asks us to love him more than father, mother, son, or daughter. Is he serious! Even more, he asks us to take up our cross and lose our life in order to find it. He is not speaking only to new disciples; he is addressing those who have been following him for a long time – like many of us gathered for prayer today.

His question to us today may not be new, but it remains very much in the present tense: “After all these years, am I still first in your life?” Most of us have been coming to church for many years. Have we gradually settled in, allowing comfort, routines, opinions, possessions, or even family concerns to take the central place that belongs to Christ?

Then there is the uncomfortable question Jesus puts before us: Are we still willing to carry our cross? The cross may no longer be dramatic persecution. It may be putting everything aside to care for a spouse or a dependent adult child; forgiving old hurts or remaining faithful when prayer seems lifeless. Jesus is asking whether we will continue walking with him even when discipleship is costly.

And in his name, as his disciples, are we still open to the stranger and the needy? The Gospel passage ends not with heroic deeds but with simple acts of hospitality – a welcome and a cup of cold water. We are reminded that holiness is often found in ordinary kindness and generosity.

Here is another question for us older disciples: Do we trust Jesus enough to let go as we grow older, experience losses, face health challenges, grieve loved ones, and eventually surrender our own lives? Jesus says that those who lose their life for his sake will find it. He invites us to place our future in God's hands. For the regular churchgoer, this Gospel is not a call to do more things but to renew our first love – Jesus. He is asking us to trust him and follow him wherever he leads.

Hearing his words anew today, I want to ask myself: What currently occupies my heart more than my relationship with Christ? And as I look ahead to the coming week, to whom can I show Christ's love through a simple act of welcome or kindness?

This Gospel is not addressed only to new disciples, nor is discipleship something we accomplished years ago. Rather, being Jesus' disciple is a choice we must make again each day. Even though we have been following him for a long time, he continues to say, “Follow me.”

When Jesus says, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it,” it sounds like a contradiction. But he is speaking about two different ways of living. The person who tries to “find” life by making self-preservation, comfort, security, success, reputation, or personal advantage the highest goal will eventually discover that such a life is too small. In trying to save oneself at all costs, one can lose what matters most: a relationship with God, love for others, and the deeper purpose for which God created us.

By contrast, the person who “loses” life for Christ's sake is willing to place faithfulness above self-interest. This does not usually mean physical martyrdom. For most Christians, it means daily acts of self-giving: forgiving when it is difficult, serving without recognition, speaking the truth when it is unpopular, remaining faithful to commitments, caring for the vulnerable, and following Christ even when it costs something.

Jesus is teaching a paradox: life becomes fullest when it is given away in love. The more tightly we cling to ourselves, the less alive we become. The more we entrust ourselves to God and spend ourselves for others, the more we discover the life God intends for us.

The saints discovered the truth of Jesus' words. They did not become less themselves by giving their lives to Christ; they became more fully themselves. In God's kingdom, the path to life is not grasping but giving; not holding on but trusting; not self-centeredness but love.

Jesus is not asking us to hate life. He is inviting us to stop making ourselves the center of life. When we lose ourselves in love for God and neighbor, we finally find the life we have been searching for all along.

What does St. Paul mean when he tells the Roman community that those “who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death”?

For Paul, baptism unites us with the saving events of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. We die to our old way of life, dominated by sin, selfishness, and separation from God. Through baptism we are buried with Christ, symbolizing the end of our old existence. With Christ we rise to a new life, already sharing in the power of his resurrection.

The power of sin no longer has the final claim on us. As Paul says, we are to “think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.” This does not mean Christians never sin again, but that our fundamental identity has been changed.

Baptism is not simply something that happened years ago at the font. It is a way of life. Every day Christians are called to die to whatever diminishes life – resentment, greed, pride, and indifference – and to rise to a new way of living marked by faith, hope, love, mercy, and service.

Perhaps Paul is asking us the same question Jesus asks in today's Gospel: Are you following me only when it costs little and is convenient? Or are you willing to die to self so that Christ may live more fully in you?

The Christian life is not merely about believing certain truths; it is about participating in Christ's death and resurrection every day. In losing ourselves for his sake, we discover the new life that God has been offering us from the beginning.

Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062826.cfm