You can find the readings for the Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time HERE.
“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”.
As we know, there are many ways to spend our days. We may decide to live or we may just exist…
Through the strong words that you have heard a few seconds ago, Jesus indicates the way to live in fullness: in full communion with Him, with His teachings and with God; not in the dark and in the cold of selfishness.
This is a call to life! And it is also a call to choose.
“Do you really choose to accept my Cross? Sometimes it will be hard, but my Cross, during the journey and at the end of it, will give you the full truth about life and about yourself”. In fact, the shape of the Cross also reminds us of the two fundamental dimensions of our nature: the physical and the spiritual. The Cross of Christ speaks to us and also speaks about us.
“To lose our life to find it” should seem a paradox. it means that, if we understand that we are not the owners of our lives, we can start to become the artists of our lives.
A real artist, in fact, makes a painting or a sculpture not for money, but for love; because it is during his work, when he “loses” time on his artwork, that he really finds the meaning of his life and a sense of freedom.
Yes, the words of Jesus are a call to freedom: the freedom to be what we are, the freedom to say “no” to all the various addictions that enslave our lives, the freedom to donate our life as a gift, exactly in the same way in which, as a gift, we received it.
Many people spend their whole lives accumulating money under the illusion that money will save them. What a tragic illusion! They spend all their lives saving money instead of thinking about their final Salvation.
We all know that material goods may help us to live better but – and these are the words of Jesus – “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”. What profit will he have if he loses, at the end, the meaning of his life?
I conclude by reminding you of a funny, but very wise, sentence told by Pope Francis some years ago: “I`ve never seen a removal truck follow a funeral procession”…
Fr. Bruno Mollicone