Hearing what we don’t want to hear

When life is not a bed of roses, we must remember who wore the thorns! Jesus knew what had happened to prophets whose mission was to preach God’s word, such as Jeremiah in our first reading today.

Most of us are like St. Peter in the Gospel today. We are happy to hear about the peace, love and joy that our faith can bring us, and it can; but we don’t want to hear about the cross.

After Peter told Jesus who He was, in response to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”, Jesus told the Apostles what being a Messiah would involve, and that He would have to suffer greatly, be killed and on the third day rise.

Peter objected! Peter did not want to hear any of the negative stuff. Jesus refused to back down from Peter’s objections. Rather, Jesus also predicted suffering for his followers. Jesus states, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”

Then, Jesus uses some of the strongest language in rebuking Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan.” He was not saying that Peter was an evil person, but that he was doing the work of Satan, being a tempter to talk Jesus out of His mission, which involved suffering, rejection and death.

When life is not a bed of roses, we must remember who wore the thorns! Jesus knew what had happened to prophets whose mission was to preach God’s word, such as Jeremiah in our first reading today. For Jeremiah, hearing the word of God burned so fiercely in his heart that he had to proclaim it, even though it brought him derision and reproach.

These readings are difficult. We need to pray each day for the strength and courage to bear our crosses, even when we cannot understand them. We cannot conform ourselves to the world. But as we dare to make the Sign of the Cross, so many times a day, we need to stop and realize what we are doing and why.

Suffering for its own sake is never any good. It is a reasonable thing to do what we can to try and alleviate it. However, it is important to realize that as people, of faith, hope and love, there are some crosses and sufferings we cannot avoid! They are part of our journey to eternal life. We cannot answer all the questions and problems of life — some we just need to pick up and carry forward.

Life is enjoying the roses and picking up the thorns delicately, as the cross with prayer and trust in the Lord will lead to success.

Two buckets were on their way to the well. “You look mighty sad,” said one bucket to the other.

The sad bucket responded, “I was just thinking about the futility of what we do all day, Time after time we go down to the well and get full, but we always come back to the well empty.”

The other bucket responded, “You’ve got the wrong slant. I enjoy what we are doing. The way I look at it, no matter how many times we come to the well empty, we always come away full.”

Your attitude and ability to both deal with the negative and the positive, as well as the crosses and joys of life, make all the difference.