To Follow

Today’s Gospel Text: Peter began to say to him, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you." 29 Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many that are first will be last, and the last first." Mark 10:28-31

Reflection: Peter in the gospel claims that he has left everything while following Jesus: "Lo, we have left everything and followed you." (vs. 28)

There are something’s in life in which we can make a choice and some in which we can make no choice.

Can a child make a choice for an ideal parent or to go to an ideal school or can anyone make a choice aas to which country they have to belong and who should be their neighbor?

A cruel parent can make a child desire for the ideal or for a better way of life and so too an adult could opt or desire for something better if a marriage begins to get rocking or a job becomes a burden.

The search for the ideal or a better way of life is what keeps the adult going, either searching or learning or migrating or divorcing or breaking, etc..

With Jesus as the one to follow, Can anyone ever make a statement of wanting more or desire the immeasurable?

Is not Christ the fullness, the abundance, the provider and the creator and much more? Then what could be lacking a man who follows Jesus and what more can a person want if one follows Christ?

How unfortunate it seems that Peter who has made a choice to follow Christ was wanting more than what he had done. 

Yet there are very few in the history of humanity who has followed Christ with complete trust and abandonment.  It is so very much difficult to abandon oneself to the Lord’s providence, assuring presence and comfort with us.

I marvel at the heroic abandonment and trust of some of the saints beginning with the Apostles to give up everything in order to follow the pearl of great price.

Peter had to first learn from the master that to leave everything and follow Christ was to really leave everything and make Christ Jesus the only goal of one’s abandonment to God.

Prayer:  Lord, help me to follow you closely and trust in your providence, even willing to give up everything. 

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