Pastor’s Corner 15.09.2024

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”

HOW DOES A CHRISTIAN FOLLOW CHRIST?

If we are to follow Christ faithfully and till the end, we must then be prepared to (1) SAY NO TO OURSELVES; (2) CARRY OUR DAILY CROSS.

(1) SAY “NO” TO OURSELVES

– There is no other way if we are to live Christ’s life. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t think that Christ’s way is a sad, kill-joy, miserable path! No.

– CHRIST’S WAY IS A WAY OF LOVE. And love knows how to renounce and sacrifice oneself to make the other happy. LOVE AND SACRIFICE ARE INSEPARABLE. Love entails self-giving for the good of the other, although it may demand sacrifice. A person who is not willing to sacrifice himself for the other is a person not capable of loving for he loves himself more than the other.

– We need to say “NO” many times to our disordered inclinations –pride, envy, sensuality, greed, anger, vanity, gluttony− out of love for God (always!). This requires a daily interior struggle, again out of love for God and humbly beginning again, standing up each time we make a fall.

(2) EMBRACE OUR DAILY CROSS: What does this “daily Cross” comprise?

It comprises bearing cheerfully and out of love for God the “LITTLE CROSSES” OF EACH DAY, for example: struggling against our laziness and love for comfort; offering to God a small headache, an unexpected change of plans; bearing cheerfully the tiredness after a hard day’s work; treating with patience a difficult person; offering to Our Lord a humiliation or an injustice; biting one’s tongue to avoid hurting a person’s sentiments; fulfilling a daily schedule of piety, patience in family life, bearing patiently a traffic jam, heat, cold…


SAINTS THIS WEEK

September 16: Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs

Nothing is known about Cornelius’s upbringing and early life. In 251, he was elected as the twenty-first pope, a position he held until his death two years later. Cyprian, born Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, was the son of wealthy pagan parents in North Africa. Well educated in Greco-Roman literature and rhetoric, he had a successful career as a lawyer and teacher. Around the age of forty-six, he converted to Christianity and gave much of his wealth away, devoting himself to prayer and asceticism. Within three years, he was ordained a deacon, a priest, and finally, the Bishop of Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, North Africa, around the year 249.

As we honor these early saints, ponder the impact that they had on the early Church. Their witness affected the people of their time and has had an ongoing effect upon subsequent generations. Honor these holy men of God by imitating their courage and mercy in your own life so that God will use you to influence not only those in your life but also those who will come after you in ways that are known only to God (Courtesy: My Catholic Life).

September 20: Sts. Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions, Martyrs

The evangelization of Korea began during the 17th century through a group of lay persons. A strong vital Christian community flourished there under lay leadership until missionaries arrived from the Paris Foreign Mission Society.

During the terrible persecutions that occurred in the 19th century (in 1839, 1866, and 1867), one hundred and three members of the Christian community gave their lives as martyrs. Outstanding among these witnesses to the faith were the first Korean priest and pastor, Andrew Kim Taegon, and the lay apostle, Paul Chong Hasang.

Among the other martyrs were a few bishops and priests, but for the most part lay people, men and women, married and unmarried, children, young people, and the elderly. All suffered greatly for the Faith and consecrated the rich beginnings of the Church of Korea with their blood as martyrs.

Pope John Paul II, during his trip to Korea, canonized these martyrs on May 6, 1984, and inserted their feast into the Calendar of the Universal Church.

September 21: St. Mathew, the Apostle

Saint Matthew, the first-century tax collector turned apostle who chronicled the life and ministry of Christ in his Gospel, is celebrated by the Church today, September 21. Although relatively little is known about the life of St. Matthew, the account he wrote of Christ's ministry – traditionally considered to be the first of the four Gospels - is of inestimable value to the Church, particularly in its verification of Jesus as the Messiah.

Jesus most likely first encountered Matthew near the house of Peter, in Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. The meeting of the two was dramatic, as Matthew's third-person account in his Gospel captured: “As Jesus passed on,” the ninth chapter recounts, “he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, 'Follow me'. And he got up and followed him.”

Reflecting on St. Matthew's calling, from the pursuit of dishonest financial gain to the heights of holiness and divine inspiration, Pope Benedict said in 2006 that “in the figure of Matthew, the Gospels present to us a true and proper paradox: those who seem to be the farthest from holiness can even become a model of the acceptance of God's mercy and offer a glimpse of its marvelous effects in their own lives.” (Courtesy: Catholic News Agency)