In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about the cost to come and follow him, particularly when it comes to our families. Our Lord had this to say: “For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.” As I reflected on this passage, I was reminded of my own conversion to Catholicism. I recall not telling my parents about my journey in O.C.I.A. to become a Catholic for fear of how they might react. I recall not telling my mom I was at the Rite of Election. I recall getting baptized and received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil without my parents or brothers present. However, to encounter our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is to love him more than anyone and anything else in this world; and that was precisely what happened to me. I love Jesus more than my own mother and father and brothers. This is the cost of discipleship, I believe.
I recently read these remarks from His Excellency, Samuel J. Aquila, Archbishop of Denver, who had this to say about “cheap grace” and the “cost of discipleship”. He wrote: “What is ‘cheap grace?’ It’s ‘preaching forgiveness without repentance … grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ.’ In other words, it’s living as if one’s actions don’t matter; since one has already been forgiven – no conversion of life is required.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Protestant theologian, wrote that “[cheap] grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” Archbishop Aquila continued, saying: “We have a lot to learn from the suffering Church when it comes to costly grace and its value. There is no avoiding the cross in life. . . Every human being suffers as a result of the Fall. What our faith does is give meaning to our suffering. Through faith, suffering can become something that we embrace as an act of love. A willing offering of love for God, for a friend or even an enemy.”
The Archbishop then spoke of “spiritual martyrdom.” Asking ourselves: “How God is calling each of us not to settle for “cheap grace”? How is [God] calling you to embrace the more difficult but eternally rewarding path of costly grace that accompanies the life of a true disciple? We are called instead to embrace the cross so that the very image of God, the form of Christ, takes shape within us. . . We are called to preach the truth in love, seeking out the lost and forsaken as Christ did. Becoming confirmed to the image of Christ means loving those who don’t understand us, who hate us and who ridicule us, as Jesus was during his Passion. It means remaining at the foot of the Cross with the suffering, who may not even think they are suffering.” He went on to suggest “that today we must cultivate the virtues of courage, wisdom and perseverance. These virtues mark the lives of every martyr – whether spiritual or physical – and they lie at the heart of witnessing to the faith in a hostile culture.”
How do we go about doing this in our own lives? Well, I believe that the Prophet Isaiah tells us how in today’s first reading. Here is that the Prophet Isaiah had to say: “Hear the word of the LORD. . . Listen to the instruction of our God. . . Bring no more worthless offerings (such as “cheap grace”). . . Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.” We should not settle for “cheap grace” but to embrace “costly grace” as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. This is how we can live our lives in a way that is worthy of the sacrifice of the Crucified One for our salvation out of his love for us.
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