Following Jesus is quite an adventure that takes you by different and sometimes unknown road. Not everyone who follows Jesus makes the same path. Some become teachers and professors, some missionaries, and some work with the poor.
Still others, like myself, take the path of diocesan priesthood serving the Lord in parishes. It is an exciting life that allows you to discover the joy and challenge of living and working in a particular neighborhood or, as in my specific case, living in a different country and culture. Though challenging, this experience has been the fulfillment of one of Jesus’ promises: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.”
It’s been three years since I arrived at St. Leo’s parish in Leominster (Massachusetts) as an associate pastor. This has been an essential time in my ministry because it gave the foundation of my identity as a priest.
This is my last weekend in this parish. I’ve received a new mission in another church (St. Paul’s Cathedral in Worcester) and what an excellent way to say goodbye to my people and to begin a new stage in my priesthood than reflecting in our journey as disciples of Jesus and its requirements.
In the first reading, we have the calling of the prophet Elisha to follow Elijah (1Kings 19:16b. 19-21). As Elisha kissed his parents goodbye, burned his work tools and slaughtered the oxen to feed his people, he prepares himself to follow in the footsteps of Elijah. But his option is radical, and he doesn’t want any tie with the past. He wants to start this adventure anew. His path will be a service to the poor and the needy and a confrontation to the powerful. His is a calling to experience freedom.
In the Gospel of Luke (9:51-62), we have instruction on discipleship in three parts. The first one is about what Jesus expects when the disciples face violence and rejection. He doesn’t want his disciples to be judges and avengers or agents of violence despite the abuse they might receive. The second and the third lesson is about the requirements to follow Jesus. In both cases, Jesus invites those who want to follow him to consider the needs of their decision carefully.
These are essential lessons for radical options that somehow are shocking. But is this radicalism a doorway to gain the freedom St Paul talks about in the letter to the Galatians. “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”
Following Jesus needs a certain detachment of old structures and ways of thinking and relating to others. To begin a new story, we need to get rid of certain old forms. Being a disciple of Jesus demands a capacity to put into question old schemes and to allow the newness and the freedom of the Holy Spirit to recreate everything in our lives. The disciples of Jesus are called to observe together how we live the Gospel and to discern if they reflect the values of the Gospel.
And so, as we find out what to be a disciple of Jesus means we understand that there are yokes we cannot use any longer, roads we cannot walk again, people and places that is necessary to leave behind. It’s a hard lesson to hear and even more to learn. And it is the same in any commitment we take up in life. Notably, the commitment to the Gospel calls us to take upon the values of the Kingdom of God and to leave behind other ways and prospects of life to assume the path of Jesus.
And this is an option of freedom because it needs a constant exercise of discernment, to distinguish what is necessary and what is not, to decide between the values of the Kingdom and the values of this world.
As I leave this parish to continue my ministry, I harvest the fruits of three years of friendship and love from many great people I’ve worked with. But I also meditate on those requirements of following Jesus not as stumbling blocks or annoying norms but as tools to live this life intensely and joyfully, though demanding and sometimes hard, worthy every effort and toil we have to make.
Being a disciple of Jesus demands a capacity to put into question old schemes and to allow the newness and the freedom of the Holy Spirit to recreate everything in our lives.
