Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

I had the pleasure of doing a Holy Hour at the Carmel of Mary Immaculate and St. Mary Magdalen in Flemington, NJ. For more information on this Carmelite Monastery, go to their website: The Carmel of Mary Immaculate and St Mary Magdalen. Following was my reflection on today's gospel from Holy Mass.

Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB

In our gospel for today Jesus is giving us some strong examples of what it means to be His follower. He starts off with, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Pretty strong words. Then he goes on to tell us that we must carry our crosses, or we cannot be his disciples.

How can we better understand what Jesus is trying to tell us? I think that what he’s trying to get across by using such strong imagery is that we need to prioritize.

There were indeed those followers over the years who put everything and everyone behind them to be His followers. The 12 apostles and his other followers placed Jesus before everything else in their lives. Then there were people like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare that took everything Jesus said literally and went off to form the Franciscans and Poor Clare’s. Further, there was John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila who knew that following Jesus was not meant to be easy. So, they reformed the Carmelite Order to be a truer example of what it means to be followers of Jesus Christ.  These are people we all know and love for their devotion and dedication to following Jesus Christ.

For the rest of us who have family responsibilities, how can we be true followers of Jesus without leaving behind those that we love? We want to be followers of Jesus, but we simply can’t renounce our families and possessions without being considered irresponsible.

Looking deeply into being a follower of Jesus and the cost of discipleship has to do with freedom of heart: holding possessions without possessiveness may be a way we achieve freedom from things. In other words, they are tools for us to use during our day-to-day life, but they are not to become more important than being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Same with our families: Jesus is not telling us literally to hate our families but rather is telling us that being his follower is more important than they are. We are called to care for and love our families, but our responsibilities as His followers is more important.

The gospel concludes with “…anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” By renouncing them and making Jesus the central focus of who we are is where Jesus is calling us. Let us pray for the gift of true faith to always keep Jesus as the center of who we are while serving those people that he has placed into our lives. In this way we can truly love God with our whole mind, heart and soul, and those in our lives as we love ourselves.