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Gospel: Matthew 16: 24-27
Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each one according to his conduct.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Our faith is filled with paradoxes.
Jesus teaches us that the only way up is down; that the hungry, poor, and persecuted are blessed; that in our weakness, his power is made strong; that his yoke is light, even though he bleeds and dies upon a cross; that in giving our own life away, we save it.
As he says in today’s Gospel, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”
To the world, this is an absurdity.
Christ’s words will never make sense without faith. Christians must contemplate them, dig deeply into them in prayer, and put them into practice before we discover that these teachings are, in fact, true.
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Today we celebrate the life of Saint Paul of the Cross.
Born in 17th century Italy, he was the second of sixteen children, only six of whom survived infancy. From an early age, Paul experienced the uncertainty of life and the reality of death.
In an effort to make sense of his family’s suffering, he turned to the paradoxes of our faith – above all, that even in death, there is life.
By the time he was 26 years old, the Lord revealed to Paul in prayer that his life’s mission would be to establish a religious order devoted to our Lord’s Passion. So, Paul was later ordained a priest and, shortly thereafter, he began writing his community’s rule of life.
The first person to join his religious order, the Passionists, was his brother, John. By Paul’s death, there were nearly 200 Passionist priests living in 12 different monasteries. Nearly 2,000 of his letters on spiritual direction have also been preserved.
Today the Passionists continue serving the poorest among us, while living a life of poverty, penance, and prayer.
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What might Saint Paul of the Cross say to us today?
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The same thing Jesus says in the Gospel, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”
How might we give part of ourselves away today?
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Image credits: (1) Headway (2) saintpaulofthecross.com (3) Christ Church Pensacola, YouTube