The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to consider the choices we have to make daily as we continue our journey as disciples of Christ.
The reading from the Book of Deuteronomy presents the Choice Before Israel.
j. [30:15] Dt 11:26–28; Jer 21:8.
k. [30:16] Dt 4:1; 8:1; 11:22.
l. [30:17–18] Dt 5:7; 6:4; 8:19–20.
Psalm 1 presents the Two Ways.
* [Psalm 1] A preface to the whole Book of Psalms, contrasting with striking similes the destiny of the good and the wicked. The Psalm views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad. Each “way” brings its inevitable consequences. The wise through their good actions will experience rootedness and life, and the wicked, rootlessness and death. (Psalms, PSALM 1 | USCCB, n.d.)
The Gospel of Luke presents the First Prediction of the Passion and the Conditions of Discipleship.
* [9:23] Daily: this is a Lucan addition to a saying of Jesus, removing the saying from a context that envisioned the imminent suffering and death of the disciple of Jesus (as does the saying in Mk 8:34–35) to one that focuses on the demands of daily Christian existence. (Luke, CHAPTER 9, n.d.)
Don Schwager quotes “God calls us to conversion,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD.
"God calls us to correct ourselves and invites us to do penance. He calls us through the wonderful gifts of his creation, and he calls us by granting time for life. He calls us through the reader and through the preacher. He calls us with the innermost force of our thoughts. He calls us with the scourge of punishment, and he calls us with the mercy of his consolation." (excerpt from Commentary on Psalm 102, 16) (Schwager, n.d.)
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 9:22-25 comments that in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his listeners that in order to follow him, they must “take up [their] cross daily” (Luke 9:23). He knows that as we embrace our cross, we are doing things that can be hard and uncomfortable. We choose humility when we would like to win an argument. We reject the temptations of comparison and jealousy when we are scrolling on social media. In some ways, taking up our cross is the spiritual version of going to the gym. We are “training” ourselves to choose a path that is often difficult and that goes against our fallen desires but that reaps a multitude of benefits.
Every day, you have opportunities to bear your cross. You often don’t have to look further than your first interaction with another person! The Lord sees your desires and your efforts, and he promises to reward your choices to love, to give, to humble yourself, and to pick up your cross today—in whatever form it presents itself.
“Lord, I want to follow you. Show me how to embrace my cross today and receive all that you have for me.” (Meditation on Luke 9:22-25, 2025)
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the theme in Deuteronomy that we must choose between life in observance and death in refusal of the Law of God. A Covenant declares both blessings and curses. Jesus refers to Himself using text from Daniel 7 as the Son of Man and includes the description of the Suffering Servant from deutero-Isaiah, meek and buried among robbers. We “take up our Cross” as we surrender the things that cause loss of life and become signs and sacraments through our death to self.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces artist and organizer Stephen Pavey who finds parallels between Israel during the prophet Amos’ time (8th century BCE) and the United States today. In chapter 5, Amos begins a lament, or cry of sorrow, against this way of life: “There will be wailing in all the streets” (5:16). In our own day, the prophet Callie Greer, who lives in Selma, Alabama, and organizes with the Poor People’s Campaign, tells the nation, “You must let me wail.” In February 2020, she testified to her pain and oppression at a public gathering in Selma: years earlier, her daughter had died in her arms due to poverty and lack of health care. Callie cried out, “You must let me wail for the children I’ve lost to poverty and will never get back, wail for all the children we mothers have lost. I won’t waste my pain. I hope I make you feel uncomfortable. I hope I make you feel angry. I’m wailing because my babies are no more.” [1] Richard Rohr reflects on Jesus’ blessing for those who weep.
Jesus did not intend his statement “Blessed are those who weep” (Luke 6:21) to be sentimentalized or remain unnoticed. Hard-heartedness, or what Zechariah and other prophets called “hearts of flint,” prevented the people from hearing the law and the words that YHWH had sent by the Spirit. A heart of stone cannot recognize the empires it builds and the empires it worships. Lamentation does. It moves us through anger and sadness, empowering us to truly hear and respond to the always-tragic now.
The prophet Ezekiel says: “I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you…. You shall be my people and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26–28). This is the organ transplant that we all long for, the interior religiosity that all spirituality seeks. (Rohr, n.d.)
We seek the assistance of the Spirit to contemplate the new heart with which we are to make decisions on our journey to act like Jesus in our attitudes and actions to bring truth, love and compassion to our encounters with all humanity.
References
Deuteronomy, CHAPTER 30. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/30?15
Dilly, B. (2025, March 6). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/030625.html
Luke, CHAPTER 9. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/9?22
Meditation on Luke 9:22-25. (2025, March 6). The Word Among Us. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://wau.org/meditations/2025/03/06/1221931/
Psalms, PSALM 1 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/1?1
Rohr, R. (n.d.). Lamenting All That’s Lost. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/lamenting-all-thats-lost/
Schwager, D. (n.d.). Take up Your Cross Daily and Follow Christ. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2025&date=mar6
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