Word of the day

A reading from the Book of Deuteronomy
Dt 30:15-20

Moses said to the people:
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

From the Gospel according to Luke
Lk 9:22-25

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”

We cannot think about the Christian life apart from this path. There is always this journey that He first made. It is the journey of humility, and of humiliation, of self-emptying, and then rising. This is the way. Without the cross there is no Christian way of life, and if the cross one without Jesus, it is not Christian. This is the way of life that will save us, will give us joy and will make us fruitful. For this journey of self-denial is undertaken in order to give life: it is the opposite of the journey of egoism, of being attached to goods for myself. This way is open to others, because the journey that Jesus made of self-emptying, that journey gave life. (Homily, Santa Marta, 6 March 2014)