Thursday after Ash Wednesday – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 9:22-25

Like the First Reading today, the Gospel passage is also about death and life. It begins with Jesus foretelling what is going to happen to him. He will experience intense physical suffering, mental suffering through total rejection by the leaders of his own people, and a brutal execution. But all will lead to resurrection and a new life that can never be taken away.

Jesus goes on to say that anyone who wants to be one of his followers must be prepared to walk the same path, carrying their cross after Jesus. Perhaps we should emphasise that we are to carry our own cross, which will be different from the cross of Jesus and from that of other people. And Luke adds that it is something we must be prepared to do every day.

Of course, it is a call that goes against many of our normal instincts. Renouncing self goes against our desire to advance ourselves in the eyes of others. And who does not want to preserve their life? Self-preservation is a deep instinct. But self-preservation is not the same as self-advancement. Jesus is saying that a life spent focused only on ourselves and our own self-advancement is ultimately a recipe for self-destruction. We are bound to be disappointed.

The only way to live is, like Jesus, to offer our lives for the benefit of others in love, in caring, in solidarity, in compassion and in justice. This is the only way truly to find ourselves and to come out winners. What is the good of winning the whole world—becoming incredibly rich and famous—only to lose one’s integrity, one’s self-respect, one’s dignity as a person, and thereby to lose one’s happiness?

Our world—Christian and otherwise—is covered with statues and images of people who gave their lives for others and for causes and values greater than themselves. They are our heroes and our models.

And first among them is Jesus, dying in apparent failure and ignominy on the cross. We now see that cross as a victorious symbol of the greatest love that one can show for brothers and sisters.

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Thursday after Ash Wednesday – First Reading

Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Both readings today offer a clear choice between the way of death and the way of life. The First Reading passage comes from near the end of the Book of Deuteronomy, just before it relates the last actions and the death of Moses. It is in a section known as the Third Discourse, that is, a third discourse attributed to Moses. Only Deuteronomy speaks of a covenant made in Moab, an area to the east of the Dead Sea and the last territory which the Israelites passed through on the way to the Promised Land. The covenant is complementary to that made at Horeb, where the Decalogue was given to Moses.

This reading (as does today’s Gospel) offers a choice between life and death:

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.

Life is to be found by totally accepting the way of life that God proposes:

If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God…

In other covenants outside that of the Old Testament, it was common to name a list of gods who served as ‘witnesses’ to its contents. The covenant between Yahweh and his people was witnessed by both heaven and earth:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life…

The way to life that God offers is not one that much of the world proposes. In fact, the world sees God’s ways as limiting when, if properly understood, they are truly liberating. The life that God offers is not freedom to indulge in every desire and pleasure—pursuit of wealth, uninhibited sex, indulgence in drugs, and other self-serving actions. Day after day people’s lives are being destroyed by these things.

Life, now and in the future, consists in hearing, assimilating, and living out the way of life that God proposes. Today, God offers us the clear choice between life and death; he leaves the choice up to us.

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