In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Friday 17 February 2023

Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Word for today
The Gospel of Mark 8:34-9:1

Deny

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny [greek: aparnèesthai] himself [Greek: heautù], take up his cross [Greek: stauròs], and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life [Greek: psyche] for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”
If you want to follow Jesus, if you want to go in his direction,  you must do something, something  fundamental, perhaps the only thing that can be done. You need to aparnèesthai (deny) heautù (yourself). You do not have to deny, reject, or refuse your being, your person, which is a creative act of God; that would make no sense. You must deny the mental construction of your ego, the false, exclusively mental personality constructed by human training and worldly deceptions, that personality that has nothing to do with your true essence and spiritual identity.  To follow Jesus, to follow in his footsteps there is no other choice but to deny, or rather destroy, renounce, dehydrate, annul, and blow out our ego, the fruit of wounds, vanities, challenges and rebellions. Jesus Himself calls this mortal construction, psychè, and He reminds us that those who want to save their psychè, their thought structure, will lose their life.  Only then is it possible to lift, raise, take up one’s own stauròs, the Greek word for "pole" which symbolically represents the "cross." The Gospel never at any time alludes to the cross as life's misfortunes, diseases, painful events or accidents that bring suffering but to the weight of training, the inevitable “pole” full of wounds and wrongs that are embedded in each of us because of our training, deception and ignorance, an ignorance generated by the historical cost of belonging to an earthly dimension. Our crosses, our embedded “poles” are the inner wounds received from other wounded men and women; they are the limitations caused by ancient defiance and rebellions; they are our profound, unresolved jealousies. They are the pride that does not want to die and the vanity that refuses to be silent. Jesus asks us to peacefully accept the crosses, the “poles” of our disharmony, weaknesses, and limitations planted in our souls and hearts. He asks us to put them in His hands and in His mercy, not to indulge in them but to take away their power and poison which would otherwise keep us from Him and from life. Jesus teaches us to face and overcome our weaknesses, to first of all accept them, and carry them on our shoulders with humility by asking God’s forgiveness and offering forgiveness to others without resignation and contempt.