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Commitment

Monday of the 15th week - (Matthew 10:34-11:1)


The La Salette cemetery, located in our Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Cavite, is not only a place of our dead brothers in the community. But, it is also a place of prayer and meditation. It is a place of our faithful missionaries who sacrifice their lives to tireleslly make the message of our Lady know to all the world. It is a place where we are reminded of our destiny after we are done with the vineyard of the Lord. And it is, above all, it is a place of God who lavishly shared with us His divine love.

Whenever I visit the Shrine, I always stop by the cemetery to say a prayer for those lying in rest there. And what inspire me to stay and reflect in that place is the presence of our American La Salette priests and brothers. These missionaries made a solemn commitment to stay and die in the Philippines --their place of mission, after they decided to leave everything behind, their families and country, for the sake of the kingdom of God.

The lives of these missionaries remind us that there is nothing impossible with God, if we always do everything in His name.

The "hard-to-take" verses that Jesus used in today's gospel is to stress to us that following Him involves commitment. This commitment is a decisive decision - a choice that must normally be made between a number of good things. Jesus is not against family or peace. He strongly used words to emphasize that those who follow him should have a total commitment. We cannot have a half-hearted commitment. Our commitment should always be rooted in God and His promise that He will not abandoned us. No one and nothing should hinder us.

Are we willing to embrace this kind of commitment? What really hinders us from proclaiming the Good News of the Lord? Is it the material attachment and comfort that we enjoy right now? It is our fear of losing in the process our family and their support?

Ask the Lord for the grace of commitment. Ask Him that He may use us as instruments of His love and presence to all we meet today and everyday of our lives.


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