Posted by The WORD in other words (2014) by Fr Dionisio Miranda SVD – University of San Carlos, Cebu City
Monday 13th Week in Ordinary Time
Human progress has resulted in the enlargement of choices for so many people. Former slaves no longer need to toil in servitude. Women have been liberated from cultural taboos and have been given more career options than previously imagined. Consumers need not be tied to a single provider if they find the service unacceptable or the commodity unsuitable to their preference. Professionals have greater latitude today to dictate the terms of their contracted services.
This environment of freedom of choice renders much of the Gospel problematic because, as in today’s Gospel, Jesus does not water down his message in accommodation to peoples preferences, but in fact escalates his challenges, in a counter-intuitive strategy. Instead of making it easier for disciples to follow him, he deliberately creates difficulties and imposes higher demands. The disciple has to be prepared to live a rootless life and even abandon family if it should could to that. How is that motivation for discipleship?
People forget that we enjoy what we have because we owe so much to so many, nameless and faceless, men and women who sacrificed for the blessings we enjoy. Young and old heroes offered their lives in battle so we might be free of overlords. Women and girls endured ridicule and ostracism when they challenged prejudices against their gender. Consumers had to organize and spend their own resources before business and industry bent over backwards to keep them in their market. Educators has to redesign their systems and methods in order to provide alternative skills and niche expertise. In short someone paid the price of our freedom.
Jesus too paid a price — but do we really realize what it was for and what benefit it brought us? Are we willing to pay the same price in the name of the same reward?
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