Who comes first in our lives?

Jesus reminds us in very bold terms that no one should get in our way of following him as a humble disciple of divine love and saving truth.

Jesus uses hyperbole, a well-placed exaggeration to point out the essential truth that God is the giver of life and salvation. Thus, Jesus wants us to put God and his commandments first in our life. The use of hyperboles, or hyperbole, was a rabbinic, Jewish cultural style of teaching at the time of Jesus.

If someone says, “I am as hungry as a lion”, we do not criticize them for lying because a lion can eat twenty or more pounds of meat in one meal, and no human can do that. Rather, we understand that the person is using a hyperbole, an exaggeration to emphasize the essential truth that he is very hungry.

So, when we hear in today‟s Gospel Jesus saying, “If any-one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple,” we understand that he is using an exaggeration, a hyperbole. Jesus is emphasizing that we need to love him first and foremost since he is God and the source of all true love and saving truth.

Some refuse to pick up their cross and follow Jesus Christ‟s call to holiness and may try to use this Bible pas-sage to convince you not to follow Christ, or not follow him in his Catholic Church. Out of love for them, we need to try to help them understand that Jesus uses hyperbole in order to emphasize a saving truth of our Catholic faith, in this case, that we must love God above all others, so that we can love God within all others appropriately, even to the point of lay-ing down our “life” for the truth of God and their salvation found in his Catholic Church.

We need the teaching authority of Christ‟s Catholic Church because we are imperfect sinners and without Christ we can lead others into sin, knowingly or unknowingly. Je-sus never does that, he always leads us to the Father, and he leads us through his Church he established upon St. Peter and his faithful apostles who had their crosses to carry.

One time a distraught mother called me because her son was not obeying her. In the past he would help with the dishes and take out the trash. But ever since he joined a Bible study after school, he told her that he doesn‟t have to listen to her because she was not a Bible believing Christian.

I am almost sure that the leader of this Bible study group emphasized the inerrancy of the Bible, which is true, but this leader probably did not know how to interpret the Bible in light of Sacred Tradition, that is, in light of the preaching of the fullness of faith that Jesus and the Apostles preached. Their inspired preaching came before the writing of the New Testament and within a certain cultural context of Judaism.

I asked the mother if I could talk with her son, and she handed him the phone. First, I told him that I felt glad that he was studying the Bible. I asked him if he truly wanted to follow Jesus Christ, and he said “Yes.” I then asked him if Jesus ever sinned by breaking any of his Heavenly Father‟s Ten Commandments, he said “No.”

I reaffirmed him, “You are right, Jesus never sinned and he always followed the Father‟s Ten Commandments. Doyou know what the fourth commandment is?”

He did not respond, so I reminded him, “The fourth commandment of God is to honor your father and your mother. Jesus did that perfectly by honoring God his Father and Mary his mother. Even the first miracle Jesus per-formed was when his Mother Mary asked him to change water in to wine at a wedding reception.”

The boy said, “Oh yeah.” I responded, “Well, I am certain that God wants you to honor your mother by helping her when she asked you to do some good deed that needs to be done. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” “Well good, then follow Jesus Christ who helped out his mother.” “Okay.” “And don‟t be afraid to ask questions of me or any other Catholic priest.”

Sometimes the smallest reality check can bring about a change of attitude. All my mother had to do when one of us seven children were out of line was to say, “Just wait until your father comes home.” I hated to hear that, but it was the best thing for us, and usually whatever good deed she wanted us to do was done before Dad came home. Some-times my Dad was a lion. One of the prophecies about the Messiah is that he is the Lion of Judah.

True, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of those who repent, but in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, we read this about Jesus Christ:

“Then one of the elders said to me, „Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.‟” (Rev. 5:5)

Jesus Christ is both the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, and the Lion of God, who will bring justice to God‟s people who follow his holy commandments, and he will defend them against every evil.

For this reason, Jesus teaches us emphatically, some-times using hyperbolic language, that we should always be his disciples by taking up our cross every day to follow him, for through his seven sacraments he brings us his saving grace and saving truth. Thus, we must love him above all things, hate the world of sin, and do our best to help others understand his teachings that, admittedly, can be confusing sometimes, but that is why we need his Catholic Church.

Peace in Christ,

Fr. Thomas McCabe