Friday, March 2, 2007 Lenten Weekday (Total Consecration - Day 10) |
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March 02, 2007 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Friday of the First Week of Lent
![]() Today's station is at the Church of the Twelve Apostles. Traditionally, this is the place where the Romans choose their candidates for priesthood (Rite of Election). It was erected by Julius I (337-352) over the barracks of ancient Rome's firemen and entrusted since 1463 to the Conventual Franciscans. Originally dedicated to the Apostles St. James and St. Philip, it was rededicated to all the Apostles in the 16th century.
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Jesus' words, which must have seemed extreme to his listeners, indicate the standard he requires his followers to live up to. He does not ask for short-lived enthusiasm or occasional dedication; he asks everyone to renounce himself, to take up his cross and follow him. For the goal he sets for men is eternal life. This whole Gospel passage has to do with man's eternal destiny. The present life should be evaluated in the light of this eternal life: life on earth is not definitive, but transitory and relative; it is a means to be used to achieve definitive life in heaven: "All that, which worries you for the moment, is of relative importance. What is of absolute importance is that you be happy, that you be saved" (J. Escriva, The Way, 297).
"There is a kind of fear around, a fear of the Cross, of our Lord's Cross. What has happened is that people have begun to regard as crosses all the unpleasant things that crop up in life, and they do not know how to take them as God's children should, with supernatural outlook. So much so, that they are even removing the roadside crosses set up by our forefathers...!
"In the Passion, the Cross ceased to be a symbol of punishment and became instead a sign of victory. The Cross is the emblem of the Redeemer: in quo est salus, vita et resurrectio nostra: there lies our salvation, our life and our resurrection" (J. Escriva, The Way of the Cross, II, 5).
Jesus promises eternal life to those who are willing to lose earthly life for his sake. He has given us example: he is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (Jn 10:15); and he fulfilled in his own case what he said to the Apostles on the night before he died: "Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13).
Each person's eternal destiny will be decided by Jesus Christ. He is the Judge who will come to judge the living and the dead (Mt 16:27). The sentence will depend on how faithful each has been in keeping the Lord's commandments to love God and to love one's neighbor, for God's sake. On that day Christ will not recognize as his disciple anyone who is ashamed to imitate Jesus' humility and example and follow the precepts of the Gospel for fear of displeasing the world or worldly people: he has failed to confess by his life the faith which he claims to hold. A Christian, then, should never be ashamed of the Gospel (Rom 1:16); he should never let himself be drawn away by the worldliness around him; rather he should exercise a decisive influence on his environment, counting on the help of God's grace. The first Christians changed the ancient pagan world. God's arm has not grown shorter since their time (cf. Is 59:1). Cf. Mt 10:32-33 and note on same.
Excerpted from The Navarre Bible - St. Mark
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