Fr. Michael Williams

Our Lord often used strong, and even, exaggerated language to make His point. In today’s gospel, from St Luke, we hear Jesus say, ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes even his own life too, he cannot be my disciple’. Jesus is indicating that following Him can be costly and demanding. ‘A disciple of Jesus must give an uncompromising preference to the will of God over all other considerations. One must be ready to let go of any possession, a family tie, a personal relationship, an ambition, an occupation or a pursuit, if these run counter to the way of Christ’ (O’ Flynn).

To understand this strong language of Jesus we need to look at the lives of the saints, because they are the ones who put Jesus’ teaching into practise most faithfully. If we look at the life of Sir Thomas More, the great English Chancellor - during the reign of Henry VIII - we see somebody who chose the way of Christ above all other considerations. Sir Thomas More was Chancellor at the time when Henry VIII rejected the Church’s teaching on marriage. Thomas More would not countenance Henry’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, because that would have been legitimising adultery, according to the law of Christ and His Church. Thomas More was thrown into the Tower of London for his opposition to Henry. This placed great strains upon More and his family. More’s wife, Alice, and their daughter, Meg, pleaded with Thomas to stop opposing the King and thus return home with them. In Robert Bolt’s play, ‘A Man for all Seasons’, which dramatises these events, Thomas’ wife Alice says, ‘You’re content then, to be shut up here (in the Tower of London) with mice and rats, when you might be home with us’! Of course Thomas More suffered terribly because he wanted to be with his family, but he knew faithfulness to the Lord was paramount. On July 6^th^ 1535 Sir Thomas More was beheaded, and thus he became St Thomas More. He had truly taken up his cross and followed the Lord into paradise.

Another saint who heroically followed the demands of Christ was Gianna Beretta. She was an Italian paediatrician of the twentieth century, who married a fellow Italian, Pietro Molla. They had four children. However, during her pregnancy for her fourth child Gianna developed a tumour in her uterus. But her first concern was for her unborn child, rather than for herself. She told the doctors: “If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child - I insist on it. Save the child”. Gianna refused an abortion, despite the warnings that continuing with the pregnancy could result in her death. On the morning of April 21, 1962, her fourth child was born. A week later amid unspeakable pain and after repeated exclamations of ‘Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you’, the mother died. She was 39 years old. She was canonised as a saint of the Church in 2004 when Pope John Paul II said, ‘this holy mother of a family remained heroically faithful to the commitment she made on the day of her marriage. The extreme sacrifice she sealed with her life testifies that only those who have the courage to give of themselves totally to God and to others are able to fulfil themselves’.

Thomas More and Gianna Molla give us an example of a man and a woman who heroically followed Christ, and the demands of the gospel. They chose the way of Christ even though it is the way of the cross, because they understood the way of the cross is the only way to the Resurrection and eternal life.

‘The tough demanding side of Christianity runs directly counter to the permissive culture of today, which cries out for the gratification of every desire or feeling’ (O’ Flynn). The saints of the Church show to us that it is possible to live out the demanding side of Christianity. Let us be inspired by their lives and so accept the demands of our faith with courage, knowing that the way of the cross is the only way to the Resurrection and eternal life.