24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, 2024

Published: September 14, 2024

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Booneville on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024.

Bishop Taylor

In today's Gospel we have a very revealing moment in the life of Jesus. A layer of popular misperception was removed to enable the disciples for the first time to recognize the authentic Jesus. But there were problems.

1.) First of all, on the level of Jesus himself. As God, Jesus already knew everything about himself: his mission, his destiny, the destiny of his followers and everything else. But as man, this knowledge unfolded progressively as it does for any of us. Perhaps a good way to understand this is that Jesus discovered progressively things about himself that he already knew, but which were just then surfacing to his active consciousness — especially in times of prayer or conversation.

And this was one of those times. He was dealing with his growing realization that he not only was the Messiah, but also what kind of Messiah he would be and that his mission sure wasn't going to look very successful. All the leaders were going to reject him, the Romans would execute him, he would suffer much and his followers would suffer persecution.

Have you ever had something difficult to tell someone close to you — especially something very painful? You knew they weren't going to want to hear it, but you also knew you were going to have to say it. And when you shared your problem, you were amazed that not only could your friend handle this difficult news, but indeed as a result of this sharing that person was able to give you support in ways that would not have been possible had he or she not been "in the know."

You felt free and close, not alone with your problem, understood and accepted for who you really are, what you're really facing, problems and all. People may admire strength, but they can relate to weakness.

2.) Jesus kind of eased into sharing this with his disciples. He asked what the crowds thought about him: what do I look like on the outside? A great prophet, Elijah, John the Baptist. And then he asked what they thought about him — and Peter said he is the Messiah. This was Jesus' opening. They were in the ball park.

So he risked sharing with them something about himself that they never could have imagined, namely his fears: the rejection that awaited him, the suffering, that far from appearing glorious, they would see him endure the worst day of his life — stripped, flogged, a cross on his back, the jeering crowd, their own cowardice.

This was the first time that he had told them and they had a hard time dealing with it. And to top it all off, Jesus adds that to remain his disciples, they must embrace the same fate themselves ... take up their cross and follow him. The remainder of the Gospel would be the story of how all this unfolded just as Jesus said, and the story of how the disciples came to understand the truth of Jesus' words.

In today's Gospel, Jesus, in a way, invites us to become for those around us another Christ. Where he has gone, his true disciples will follow, and this will involve taking up our own cross and following him too. Our crosses are too heavy for us to carry alone — even Jesus had the help of Simon of Cyrene, and more to the point, in today's Gospel Jesus shares with his disciples in advance the burden of his fears, and of the suffering that he's about to have to face.

The same can and should be true for us. We will only be able to bear our own crosses faithfully when we take the risk of dropping our facades of self-sufficiency and begin to share them with others whom we trust. They will then feel free to reciprocate, to share their burdens with us, to respond by revealing their true self to us, to give us a share in their journey. Shared crosses are much easier to bear. Jesus invites us to take up our crosses and follow him. Those of us who share in Jesus' Calvary will also share in his victory.