Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Obviously, Jesus is not telling us that we should hate ourselves or those closest to us. That would invalidate the entire purpose of the command to love your neighbor as yourself that he gave us and the commandment to honor mother and father given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Instead, what he is giving is an extreme example of an argument which is most clearly presented in the last sentence of the Gospel, “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

Renunciation is a major theme presented throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, Abraham is told to leave his father's land to journey across Mesopotamia into the promised land of Israel, where he will become the father of a multitude of nations and establish a Covenant with God. In the New Testament Peter and Andrew leave their fishing nets in order to follow Jesus, the rich young man is unable to follow Jesus because, in spite of following all the commandments, he is unable to give up his possessions. There are many other examples that indicate the importance of renunciation. In short, the New Testament clearly indicates that renunciation of the goods of this world is an essential part of Christian life of discipleship: of following Christ. 

Which brings us back to the verse I quoted: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Jesus is not using the word hatred according to its dictionary definition of “intense dislike or ill will:” it would clearly be not only not a good thing but objectively sinful to intensely dislike or wish ill for our families or our bodies. Instead, it is used as a relative term, to discuss the extent to which our renunciation is supposed to reach. Since we are called to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our mind as the first and greatest commandment, alongside which stands the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is implied that we must be ready to renounce our closest relationships and even our own lives if the love of God calls for it. This follows the model of Jesus' life. Alluding to his own death, he says, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” When he took up the cross to be crucified, he did it out of love: to free us from our sins, not out of any hatred in the dictionary sense of his body.

This point is further emphasized by the rhetorical questions asked in the middle of the Gospel: wouldn't you make sure you had the resources to complete a building before you started it? Wouldn't you ask for peace terms ahead of time if you were likely to lose the battle? In the category of Christian discipleship, the implication is: you need to be ready for what being a disciple of Christ may ask of you. Taking the entire Gospel with this context, we can see that what Jesus is asking us, as his disciples, is are we ready for all that being his disciple involves? Are we willing to give up even our own life for the sake of following Christ, as he gave up his life so that we would be able to? Are we willing to renounce all for the sake of Christ?

What would answering “yes” to these questions look like? We are fortunate to have 2000 years of the history of the multitude of saints to look at to see what it really looks like to say “yes” to Christ. Many of these, throughout every century, have been martyrs who accepted that love of Christ was more important than their love for their own bodies, and, in a sometimes literal way, took up their cross. Most saints, however, aren't. One example that isn't a martyr, but who showed heroic holiness in the various renunciations he was called to, is St. Peter Claver, whose feast day is celebrated tomorrow, on September 9.
St. Peter Claver was a Spanish Jesuit who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. After joining the Jesuits, and completing his studies in Spain, he was sent to the New Kingdom of Granada, which includes 

modern-day Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela. He went through Cartagena, a city on the Caribbean coast that served as the largest port for the region, and was able to see the evils of slavery first-hand.  This was a very different, much more brutal, kind of slavery than that which St. Paul counsels against in the letter to Philemon that we heard as the second reading. When he made his solemn profession in 1622, by which he promised to live according to the Jesuit way of life for the rest of his life, he signed his profession document as Petrus Claver, aethiopum semper servus: Peter Claver, servant of the Africans forever. He then returned to Cartagena, and spent the rest of his life, 40 years, ministering to the slaves as they arrived, and died exactly 365 years ago today. He was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1888, who said on the occasion, “No life, except the life of Christ, has moved me so deeply as that of Peter Claver.”

So, in what ways did St. Peter Claver renounce his life and order his life to God? One renunciation was on entering the Jesuits, into a clerical order dedicated to serving the Church, the body of Christ. There is another renunciation in being asked to practice the obedience he was vowed to by moving across the Atlantic to serve the Church in the New World. There is a renunciation in confirming his dedication to the Jesuits by taking solemn vows. Then there is a great renunciation, what he was ultimately canonized for, in dedicating his life to service to the poorest of the poor: in truly living as a neighbor to those who were abused and beaten so that their owners could get rich.

So, that is one way to renounce your life and live a life of holiness, the life of being a true disciple of Christ, something we are all called to be. There are thousands of other examples of heroic holiness that can be found throughout Church history. Where did St. Peter Claver, and these thousands of other people, get the strength to live those lives of holiness? How did they make the seemingly impossible choices to says yes, Lord, I give my life to you? It came through grace and through their cooperation with it. In other words, God gave that strength to them, and they accepted God's gift.

What does this mean for us? What grace is God giving us, and how do we accept it? We can only partially answer that question. As the Wisdom of Solomon tells us, we are unable to see life from a God's-eye view. The answer to the rhetorical question “Who can know God's counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?” is nobody, at least on Earth. However, we can open ourselves so that we are able to receive God's counsel and get at least a sense of what the Lord intends us to do right now through a variety of means. One is our participation in Christ's saving sacrifice through the sacraments that not only cleanses us of the most disordered attachments we have: our sins, but also opens up God's point of view by raising us with him and making us a member of His body. Another is prayer that enables us to directly open our hearts to God by raising our thoughts to him in contemplation. The last is a virtuous life, which allows us to live according to the true good we are called to.