Hardwired to Be Love
September 3, 2023: A Reflection for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr A
Matthew 16:21-27
For those who wish to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Mt 16:29)
Jesus, you made us in your image and likeness – which is to say, I guess, that we’re hard-wired to be love in our world. It’s in our spiritual DNA to receive your love and love you in return; to love ourselves rightly as your children and to love one another. Perhaps that is at the heart of what you are getting at in today’s Gospel. It’s not so much that you require suffering from us as some heavenly Shylock demanding his pound of flesh in the form of suffering. That would not be like you at all. It’s all about love. It’s our reason for being, isn’t it?
When we gaze upon you on the cross, we see the ultimate love that gives all for the good of others. We can understand how you would say that we must deny ourselves and enter into the deepest sanctuary of love within us, lay aside our selfish concerns – or take up our cross as the gospel puts it – to follow you. It is not always easy to become love in our world.
Jesus, we’re just your little creatures whom you have made for greatness. Sometimes it feels like being a little girl trying on her mother’s hat and shoes. Way too big!
But eventually we grow into the love for which you have destined us. You call us to be your disciples and take on the growing pains of Christian maturity. You describe it as losing our lives and it can feel like that sometimes. Yet in this very path we find our life. We find who we truly are and who we were created to be.
You have not made us for suffering in itself, though suffering will be part of the journey in this path of discipleship. The discovery of our true identity, the joy of knowing how to love and be loved, to give and to receive your love in this world is worth whatever it takes to trust and follow you and carry our cross with you.
We ask you to open our hearts to know your love that surrounds us and fills us. To trust you in the dark days when it seems our cross is heavy and it is hard to go on but to go on anyway. Let us find our life in our following of you and share it with all with whom we come in contact. And let us be true to the greatness for which you made each one of us.