Sunday, June 26th, 2022 – Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle C Readings: 1 King 19: 16b, 19-21, Psalm 16 “You are my inheritance, O Lord. “, Galatians 5: 1, 13-18, Luke 9: 51-62

     “Follow me” One of the great themes of the Gospel of Luke is the emphasis on following Jesus. According to him, following Jesus involves submission to Him and His teaching and being completely committed to Him as Lord. That is why in this Sunday readings especially in the gospel reading, Jesus makes some radical demands on His followers.
    On his way to Jerusalem after the refusal of the Samaritans to receive him, he encounters two men who volunteered  to be his followers and one whom Jesus himself calls to follow Him. In each of the three examples provided, we see potential Christ-followers blinded by fear, insecurity, and lack of understanding. We don’t know whether these men responded or not. But Luke doesn’t focus on their response because he wants us to apply Jesus’ words to our own hearts.
    For some of us the answers of Jesus to those men may sound harsh and unkind. But we must know that following Jesus should be more important than anything else in our life or than every other comfort we have. Following Jesus must be more important than every other responsibility we have. The most important desire a Christian should have is to follow Jesus and nothing should supplant that. It is an important desire to see that your children succeed in their career or dreams, but if those accomplishments keep them away from hearing about Jesus in a local church then your priorities are wrong.
    Therefore, this Sunday readings are inviting us to ask ourselves: Are we following Jesus totally or just casually ? Do we find time to serve Jesus or our church or our neighborhood? Do we think that the call of Christ at times is too demanding?
    The church today is in desperate need of devout followers of Christ who take their faith seriously. Perhaps there are many who think that following Jesus is important, but not the most important thing in their life. We pray God to help us through his Holy Spirit to be true followers of Jesus in our different vocations: marriage, single life, religious, consecrated life o priesthood.
Today Jesus keeps telling us: Follow me. What will be our answer?
Father Louis