Moses said in the first reading for mass today, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.” Then Jesus said in today’s gospel, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” They both have a point. Christ explains this further, “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”
What did Christ mean when he warned us not to lose or forfeit ourselves? What immediately comes to mind is our eternal salvation. Many people in the world spend their lives pursuing money and material things, instead of worshiping God and serving Him and their fellow man. The temporal things of this world is all there is to them. If they can’t confirm the existence of things with their five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell) then it isn’t real, or it doesn’t exist to them. People deny the existence of God because of the lack of a temporal proof of His existence. And yet, everyone knows what love is. You can’t put love in your hands and touch it, or see it, or hear, taste or smell it either.
God is love. Love is what life is all about. If we never quite grasp this concept, or lose sight of the fact that love is the most important thing in our lives, then we cease to live a genuine life. Our lives become superficial. We are only living on the surface of life and have yet to discover the depths and beauty of love, which lives forever. Love is the only thing we take into eternal life and life is slipping away from us a little at a time each day. Let’s not wait until the last minute to realign our priorities. Death could come when we least expect it. If that should happen, what real treasure have we built up to enjoy for all of eternity in heaven? Seriously, this is worth giving some thought to today. This is one of the purposes of Lent, to face the fact that we will die one day and to reevaluate how we are actually living our lives.
Love is either selfish or unselfish. Selfish love manifests itself in many unhealthy ways, like sins of the flesh, addictions, pursuit of wealth, power and prestige. Selfish love clings to itself. Every human being needs to be loved, but this need can become perverted, focusing inward on itself, instead of outward toward God and toward other people. Selfish love may manifest itself as a temporal good, but it is fools gold that will eventually fall apart and disintegrate. All of a person’s efforts in life can end up being for nothing, if it was lived from a selfish perspective. Nothing lasts except love, faith and hope. Love is eternal and our faith in God is also eternal. We live our lives in hope for the resurrection of the dead and eternal life in heaven with Jesus and those we love.
Christ told us in today’s gospel, “If anyone wishes to come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” This is the hardest part of the Christian life and it is actually the most important “lesson” that we were supposed to have learned during our lives, to overcome our own selfishness. We were all born selfish. It is easy to be selfish. It is our natural inclination to be selfish. To become like Christ though, is to become self giving.
We do not magically become an unselfish person. It takes work. This is why Jesus told us to take up our cross daily and follow him. We are transformed a little at a time into his image, when we forget about ourselves and learn how to love other people. This is what life was all about. Loving God, loving other people, and placing our hope in Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead into eternal life.
Daily Mass Readings:
Dt 30: 15-20 / Ps 1: 1-2, 3, 4, 6 / Lk 9: 22-25
