Passport to discipleship

What does it take to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? The passport to discipleship and eternal life is being open to and striving to do the Will of God. This sounds easy, but as we hear in our first reading from the Book of Wisdom, God’s ways cannot always be understood through human thought.

St. Paul, in the second reading, challenges his disciple Philemon to welcome, assist and love all as you do me, Paul. The Gospel of St. Luke gives a rather harsh choice: that we are to renounce our own flesh and blood family and take all on as family. Knowing blood is thicker than water just Imagine having to assist, love, forgive all. Yet, that is the call to do the Will of God. If you want to enter Heaven, you need this passport, just as you need a passport to enter a foreign destination.

Plan ahead each day, as you start the day in prayer, ask how are you going to live the will of God out in practical ways? Jesus makes this point in the parables, that He gives us in the Gospel this weekend. If you are planning to build a tower, you better get a few construction bids and check with your bank to be sure you can afford it and that the supplies, workers and location are available for your building.

If you end up with just half or a quarter of a tower, you will have wasted your money and created a mess. Likewise, if you were a general, planning for a possible battle, you better consult with your tacticians and intelligence specialists to see what troops and finances the enemy has to go against you. Then you can compare them with your own to calculate the odds of your winning and at what cost.

The short moral is, do not start what you can’t finish! Jesus is not building a tower or going to battle but what he proposes is be ready for the Will of GOd. This Will may cost you everything, to follow in love and forgiveness — the passport needed for eternal life.

Jesus does not just offer these words for our thought, but desires we get them into action for a ready passport to Heaven. We need to be like two clergymen, who met after years of being separated and one came to listen to the other at a Mass he was preaching.

Afterwards, he remarked about the change in his friend’s preaching style. “Years earlier, you had been all fire and brimstone, and now you are more subdued and you tend to say more in fewer words,” he said.

The preacher commented, “When I started, I thought it was the thunder that impressed and moved a congregation to action. Now I know it’s the lightning!’