Jesus told his disciples,
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
This must have been very difficult for the disciples of Jesus. They had lived with him for three years. He had become an intimate friend; closer even than their own families. They loved him. They knew that he loved them. They had left everything to follow him. And now he was talking to them about his suffering and the end of his life.
Why did he have to die? Perhaps every Christian, at some point, asks himself that question. Why did Jesus have to suffer and die?
The most important reason involves his love for us: That he would lay down his life for his friends. It helps to see the bigger picture. Everyone in the world prior to Jesus lived in fear of death and disease because there was no hope of escape for any of us. His disciples often saw him cure the sick and bring the dead back to life.
By his death on the Cross, Jesus, the Christ of God, defeated death, once and for all. Death could no longer have any power over him. He wanted to give us that same power over death. That is why he had to suffer and die on the Cross. His Resurrection is our hope for overcoming Death, as well. The Cross is his gift to us.
In order to receive his gift of eternal life, we need to believe what he says.
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
How do we “take up our cross? The Church has always taught that the most important lesson is that we must learn to deny ourselves. We must learn to make ourselves less important, and grow to put others first.
We see this growth in maturity all around us. Just look at teenagers who are just learning how to become adults. They are big, physically, but still self-absorbed children inside.
Just look at young adults when they begin to marry. The couples become attracted and oriented to the other. There is a struggle between selfishness and self-giving love for the other. They will spend their entire lives struggling with these tensions between self-love and love for the other.
Just look at first-time parents. They become totally absorbed in their new babies, but then they have to struggle with the fact that these, their own children, are so self-absorbed that they now demand constant attention, and they have endless needs. New parents have to learn these lessons.
And, so, we learn to grow between self-absorption and the Cross. The Cross is the ultimate spiritual maturity. We learn that there is no greater love than to give ourselves completely for those we love.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
We are celebrating Father’s Day. Are fathers really necessary? Well, it depends. If the father is absent, self-absorbed, selfish and refuses to become the teacher and model of character and virtue, the child will have more difficulty learning to love and leave childish ways behind.
However, if the father is growing in love, self-denial and commitment then the children will learn more rapidly the truth of self-denial as a gift for life. From their fathers they will learn to be more healthy adults.
Fathers are essential to the formation of our families and children. I thank God for the fathers who regularly deny themselves for the good of their families, and help their children to learn the gifts of faith.
The fathers are the first teachers of faith. When faith is not important to the father, the children learn this lesson quickly and early.
Those fathers who teach and practice that their faith in Jesus is important to their lives, they automatically teach the faith to their children. When they love their spouses and their children and always try to live their most important values, fathers are the best of teachers.
Dads, Happy Father’s Day.