Tuesday, January 12, 2021
![life of christ, the_t_nv[1]](https://thenoontimes.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/life-of-christ-the_t_nv1.jpg?w=300)
Fullness of Life
Deny Self, Take up the Cross, and Follow: These are very simple words but oh, so challenging to live. Bible commentary tells us how difficult it is to fully and absolutely follow Jesus.
This utterance of Jesus challenges all believers to authentic discipleship and total commitment to himself through self-renunciation and acceptance of the cross of suffering, even to the sacrifice of life itself . . . [This is] an expression of the ambivalence of life and its contrasting destiny. Life seen as mere self-centered earthly experience and lived in denial of Christ ends in destruction, but when lived in loyalty to Christ, despite earthly death, it arrives at fullness of life. (Senior 81)
An authentic life is rich indeed even, and perhaps especially, when it is lived in poverty and want.
A challenging life is one in which we are called to something that asks us to stretch ourselves outside of our comfort zone even, and perhaps especially, when we are called to confront our biggest fear.
A life of self-renunciation is not tragic and sad. It is a life lived fully because in this way we go beyond our humanity to experience our divinity.
A life spent in cross carrying brings us the tools we will need to fully and wholly enter into union with God. It prepares us for the eternal.
Jesus is always about inversion and with these words today, recorded simply and faithfully by Mark, Jesus describes the straightforwardness of his life. If we wish to follow we must allow Christ to act with, in and through us. And when we do we will fully understand the words we read today.
To be human, we must allow the divinity planted in us by God to open us up to possibility. To be divine, we must allow our humanity made holy by Christ to transform us. To be both human and divine, we must allow ourselves to accept the gift offered by God, the opportunity to experience life in the fullest, the gift and opportunity we receive from the creator as God’s Christmas people.
We may regard the price of this gift as being too high for the human reach and yet . . . it is the true path to eternal life.
Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.81. Print.
Image from: http://covdevotions2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-95-philippians-23-4.html
Adapted from a reflection written on October 4, 2010.
The Noontimes 
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