As Jesus and his disciples were proceeding on their journey, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”- Lk 9: 57-58
Friends, God is good, all the time.
A famous statement of St. Jerome is that "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." The revelation is right for us as it was for Jerome. So, as we celebrate his memorial, let us pray for the same earnest desire to know and follow Christ every day in the scriptures just as he did in his lifetime.
However, let my Catholic brethren understand that our knowledge of Christ is better nourished, enriched, and deepened when we add the Eucharist to it. So, making an effort to develop an insatiable desire for personal reading of the Bible and coming to Mass to be fed with the Eucharist is what will preclude us from being ignorant of Christ, the living Word, and Christ, the bread of life.
Jesus shows us a three-part approach to follow him. In guiding the three individuals associated with the gospel story today, we notice how good motives, urgency, and commitment are bound together daily for the followers of Christ.
Jesus' response to the first individual indicates that he doesn't call us to follow him simply for personal gain and comfort, but the knowledge and love of him. He told the man who offered to follow him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."
In the second individual, we realize that Christ must be a top priority and urgent to our quest for a meaningful life today and everlasting life with God in the future. He said to that individual who wanted to make excuses, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God."
And in the third individual, we learn that once we have committed to follow him, we must be active and faithful all the way to the end. It was this he meant when he said, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."
Therefore, my dear brethren, let us set time aside to get to know Christ. Know your bible and thereby know Christ. Receive Christin in the Eucharist and thereby permit Christ to live in you.
Prayer blessing: Father thank you for the presence of your word with us, which gives us hope and encouragement in life. Help us to be attentive to your son, the Word, and the Bread of life. Amen.