{"id":4330,"date":"2023-07-02T01:41:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T00:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2023-07-03T12:26:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T11:26:41","slug":"commentary-on-13th-sunday-of-the-year-a-2-07-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-13th-sunday-of-the-year-a-2-07-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on 13th Sunday of the year (A), 2.07.2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/h3>\n

Mt 10:37-42<\/b><\/p>\n

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.\u00a0 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.\u00a0 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.\u00a0 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple \u2013 truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Commenting on the first line of today\u2019s Gospel reading, St John Chrysostom (c. 349-407 AD) wrote, \u201cIt is holy to render one\u2019s parents every honour, but when they demand more than is due, we ought not to yield.\u201d\u00a0 But then, to save the parents\u2019 feelings, Chrysostom adds that they are not being put in the second place to their son or daughter but to Jesus.\u00a0 To follow Jesus, he explained, we have to be prepared to give up everything – even our own life.\u00a0 The parents are not being put in the second place to oneself, but to the Lord; that should ease their feelings.<\/p>\n

What is being expressed here is the absolute character of the following of Christ.\u00a0 Faith is not a separate compartment in one\u2019s life, a special interest or hobby to be taken up when we put down our serious work. \u201cDo you not know,\u201d wrote St Paul, \u201cthat all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?\u00a0 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life\u201d (Romans 6:3-4).\u00a0 The word \u2018baptised\u2019 means \u2018plunged\u2019.\u00a0 We have been plunged into death with Christ \u2013 plunged into his death \u2013 and so we hope that we will also be raised with him.\u00a0 It is not an \u2018interest\u2019, then; it is a matter of life and death.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a morbid religion you have!\u201d a Muslim said to me once in Pakistan.\u00a0 \u201cAll that emphasis on suffering and death can’t be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

But suffering and death do not stand by themselves, for a Christian. \u00a0We are never to think of them as if they were the whole story.\u00a0 We never think of Christ’s suffering and death without thinking of his resurrection; and likewise our own suffering and death are openings to resurrection.\u00a0 The last word is not suffering and death, but \u201cthat we might walk in newness of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

This pattern (death-resurrection) is stamped on our whole life: it is not only the pattern of the whole, it is stamped on every cell of the body, so to speak.\u00a0 There is no deep life without a lot of dying to oneself.\u00a0 The way to deeper life is not through exaltation of the ego, but through its death.\u00a0 The false self, the self-made self, the ego and its false pride: this has to die \u2013 or rather burst, because it is nothing real but only a bubble.\u00a0 \u201cThose who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie Mt 10:37-42 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.\u00a0 Those who find their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7888,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions\/7888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}