Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Taking up the cross

“…who­ever does not take up his or her cross and come after me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:38). This same say­ing is also found in Mat­thew chapter six­teen. After warn­ing Peter, call­ing him Satan and order­ing him to get behind him for try­ing to pre­vent him from embra­cing his mis­sion (Matt 16:21–23), Jesus turned and told his dis­ciples “if any want to become my fol­low­ers, let them deny them­selves and take up their cross and fol­low me” (Matt 16:24). This is the part of the cost of dis­ciple­ship. Deny­ing of one­self means the dis­ciple not put­ting his or her own interest first and self-abneg­a­tion. On the oth­er hand, tak­ing up the cross means the dis­ciples repla­cing his or her own will with the will of God. The cross to be taken should not be decided by the dis­ciple. It is the cross provided by Jesus. The idea of the cross is a meta­phor­ic­al ref­er­ence to the fate of the dis­ciple. It could be rejec­tion, con­dem­na­tion, or even per­se­cu­tion. The call to dis­ciple­ship is not a call to pleas­ure. It is a call to embrace the cross. It is a call to par­take in the bap­tism of Jesus. Any dis­ciple who dies with Christ, will surely rise with him (Second Reading).

Conclusion

The aspect of hos­pit­al­ity in the Odys­sey as repor­ted above, is a cent­ral theme in this work (Odys­sey). Most of the epic is filled with descrip­tions of the feast­ing and gift giv­ing by very gen­er­ous hosts. One con­cern of hos­pit­al­ity is the rela­tion­ship between guest and host and focuses on the shar­ing of wealth, know­ledge, and accom­mod­a­tion. Hos­pit­al­ity in this soci­ety was made to serve many dif­fer­ent pur­poses, such as pleas­ing the gods, pleas­ing guests, spread­ing a good repu­ta­tion through­out the known world, and cre­at­ing bonds between oth­er fam­il­ies and cit­ies. The repu­ta­tion of hos­pit­al­ity is passed down from fath­er to son. Hence, the bonds of hos­pit­al­ity are intergenerational.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vol. I)!! The reflec­tion for the 13^th Sunday is found on pages 349–358. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

 Email This Post