Persevering in Discipleship with Jesus

The Call of Jesus to Discipleship

The word of God highlights the transitory nature of human life with its limitations and shortcomings. But, says the author, take courage; God gifts us with wisdom to help us discern what’s the right thing to do. Some of today’s so-called gurus and pundits seem to marginalize God. God’s word challenges us to anchor our lives in wisdom: to do the right and love goodness and walk humbly with God.

We also heard St. Paul, in a letter from prison, asking a slaveholder to welcome back a runaway slave as a brother in Christ. Now some may ask, why didn’t Paul specifically condemn slavery? Others, of course, argue that the society and times then were different. In any case, Paul sees the dignity of every human being and asks us, do we love others as brothers and sisters of Jesus?

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus challenges us to make discipleship our first priority. In the two parables here, Jesus cautions us not to naively rush into discipleship without gauging the cost. If discipleship with Jesus our priority, then all of our other relationships will thrive. God will bestow upon us the grace, power and energy of the Spirit, to persevere in a life of discipleship with Jesus, who is our way, our truth, and our life.

If we commit ourselves to worthy goals, if we persevere, we can achieve many good things.
We have many examples, religious as well as secular. I give you one: Mother Teresa of Calcutta whose feast day we celebrated last Thursday.

Mother Teresa is a model of perseverance in faithfulness to God, prayer, and love. She joined the Sisters of Loreto and began teaching in India. Seventeen years later, she felt the calling to work among the poorest of the poor. Eventually she studied the basics in nursing, and began to care for the poor, sick, and dying on the streets of Calcutta. In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose numbers expanded to over 4,500 sisters in more than 600 missions in 133 countries today. There is also a male branch and an association of Lay Missionaries.

Mother Teresa showed us what holiness is: doing whatever our life's work is as best we can. Through a life of prayer despite her own “inner spiritual darkness,” and through a desire to meet people’s basic need for love, Mother Teresa taught us the priority of prayer and service in realizing one's true self as a son and daughter of God our Father.

There are many examples of perseverance in trying to do our life's work as best we can. In light of the Gospel theme, let us ask God to grace us with the energy and power of the Spirit to persevere in our life of discipleship with Jesus, to let the beatitudes in Matthew Chapter 5 be our spiritual guide so that we can indeed be grateful coheirs to the kingdom of God.