Wednesday, XXXI Week of Ordinary Time
(Romans 13:8-10, Luke 14:25-33)
Gospel commentators call Jesus’ saying that his followers are to hate their families a “Semiticism.” This term means a way of expressing oneself in the Semitic language that Jesus spoke. Evidently his language did not use comparatives. For Jesus to mean that his disciples have to love him more than their families, he has to say that they love him and hate their families. He does not mean that they are to scorn their loved ones. After all, how could Jesus, who taught about the primacy of love long before St. Paul wrote about it, mean that we are to literally hate those who mean the most to us?
But still some of us may have trouble with the idea of loving Jesus more than our children and our parents, to say nothing of our spouses. “How could we do that?” we might ask. The answer is both simple and promising. First, we can love Jesus above all because he is so good – really perfect. Then it is true that by loving Jesus above all, we actually love our children, our parents, and our spouses not less but more. Allegiance to Jesus means doing what is truly good for all. We will not confuse indulgence with care and give in to the whims of our children. We will not accept the prejudices that lived in our parents’ home but treat all people with respect. We will not allow communication with our spouses to shrivel when we become aware that they think differently but always make an effort to express our thoughts and feelings.
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