Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?” LK 9:22-25
Why do we have to deny ourselves? We have inherited a fallen human nature, a loss of grace/holiness. We have an inclination to sin each day we wake (concupiscence). Oh, how many times I have followed my own desires instead of the Lord’s. What cross? Our daily crosses. Everyone suffers. It is relative to the situation your are dealt in life, but everyone suffers. Jesus gives purpose to our suffering and fashions our daily crosses to what we can deal with and sometimes what we can’t deal with, we can offer them up and receive grace which is necessary to reach heaven. The saints thanked God for their crosses. Our crosses are where we learn to embrace Christ and recognize we need Him falling to our knees to ask for Him to give us what we truly need, His grace, comfort, peace, and joy.
It is impossible to be holy without God’s grace. Salvation is a complete gift along with our lives. Therefore, we must lose our life to save it. We must become suffering servants like the Master Suffering Servant. Finally, our lives are not about us, they are meant to be given away. Look at a crucifix and really try to figure out the Truth about our lives.
When we believe Jesus resurrected and everything He says is true, we come to His feet each day in the Gospels to learn how to be a good and faithful servant. We are asked by Christ to lose our life for the sake of the Gospel. Our suffering has purpose and the saints even looked for ways to suffer more. Why? Jesus gave all. Even more important, He loved doing the will of the Father. The will of the Father was for Jesus to give up His life for the world. We could never even come close to paying Him back. He paid the ultimate sacrifice to save you and me. He continues to sacrifice today to stay with us hidden behind bread and wine, so that we will have spiritual food for the journey. He forgives when we are truly sorry and have fallen. Each time we fall and go through suffering, we become stronger and closer to Him. He strengthens us, never leaves us, always forgives, and is waiting daily for an invitation to be with us in our suffering.
Last, and most importantly, the greatest way to follow Jesus is by being detached from material things. ”What profit is there to gain the whole world but forfeit one’s life.” We are so distracted from what matters most. It takes daily submission to God’s will, prayer, silence, bringing ourselves to the sacraments, and continual learning and instruction by Jesus in the Gospels. We are human and we quickly forget. We are a mystery to ourselves. We need a rock, never changing Truth, to come back to so we do not get off the beaten track. I need Him constantly throughout my day. He has left us with the Holy Spirit to help us understand His Truths and pass them on to others. How shallow is our faith if we cannot pray in public and dialogue with others what we believe.
“Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words
in this faithless and sinful generation,
the Son of Man will be ashamed of
when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
Ouch! I have a lot of work to do! If we believe in the resurrection of Jesus which makes all of His Words True, this Lent may we begin to live in our hearts and minds like Christ. Christ is not dead, He is fully alive today with us. He resurrected!!!!! If we want to follow Him, we are called to die to self, offer up our daily crosses, strengthen our faith through His teachings, put on the Armor of God, and begin to fight Satan and grow in holiness! It is impossible to follow Him, without His grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. “Come to me all who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” ”My heart is restless until it rests in You.” Amen.
Today’s challenge: Lent is here, make a commitment to grow in holiness, fight Satan, and make time to pray and reflect on the Scriptures. Establish a good habit of this during Lent so that it continues throughout the rest of your life so you can look back at next year’s Lent and say, “I have grown in holiness the last 40 days.” We have suffered a lot this year. Reflect on suffering and its benefits!
Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YOLO
We need to give ourselves up to God in order to gain anything from this life.
Jesus gives us a purpose and if you don’t feel like you don’t have one that means you haven’t found true happiness and a true relationship with God YET. I know these things are hard to talk about but you need to and if you don’t you will be spiritually lost.
I think this scripture is saying always chose to do the right thing and don’t listen to the devil or bad temptation. To always follow Gods path and he will lead us to Heaven.
i need to put my trust in God and focus on my prayer so for this lent im going to give up time and this time will be spent reading the bible
In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. We need to give up our lives for God. We can not take material things after we die, so instead of wishing to save what we have on earth, we should be focused on God.
This tells me we have so much work to do. We always find something better than God and think its okay. This is the best time to give him full attention instead of everything else. This is the time we can get close with him closer than we ever have before.
I think God is saying that you must give up everything to be with him. He knows you will fail and it will be hard but it will be worth it to be with him forever. Jesus sacrificed everything he came down and died for you. I think we need to believe in that devotion because if he is willing to go threw that much pain for us that is true love.
In todays gospel God is telling me that we need to give ourselves up to God no matter what. If we live life to please ourselves then there is no point in living. God created us to serve Him in life and in death. We are only in the world for a short amount of time, very short. So,we need to use this short life to serve God because thats what He wants us to do. If you try to save your life then you lose it, if you don’t try to save your life but praise God then you will have eternal life.
This Scripture passage literally has the meaning of life in it. “Whoever loses his live for my sake will find it.” That’s what life is about. To put it into simpler terms and quote Audio Adrenaline: To live your life, you’ve got to lose it, and the losers get a crown.
I think this is talking about how we care too much about ourselves. The world isn’t about us, it’s about God. Our fallen nature as humans makes us fail to realize that God was who put us on this Earth and God was the person who gave us everything we have. We need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about God; worshiping God, and only God.
In this gospel I learned that I we can’t do anything without God’s grace. We should learn to appericate his grace, which he has gifted to us, and should learn how to thank him properly. When we pray we should thank him for what he was given to us, and we should thank him for the life and love that he has given to us. He gave us all of these gifts because he loves us and care for us, I think it’s time to give back what he has handed to us.
In today’s Scripture Jesus is telling us that if we want to follow Him we must give up our lives to Him fully. We have our own physical things that may not get us closer to Heaven either by taking time out of our day to not be with Him or things that cause us to sin. We must let those things go and use that time to be with God and be able to go to Heaven.
The scripture today is telling me that we need to pay more attention to our own soul. We can do great things in the world, like ending world hunger or curing cancer, but if we neglect our soul, we won’t be happy.
We deny ourselves because we are afraid. Afraid of judgement, failure, and disappointment. We don’t want to admit when we are wrong and completely give up ourselves because we are human and that’s our nature. But in the end we always have to remember that Jesus is with us and only wants us to have happiness with Him. We have to train ourselves to fully trust Him always.
Why should we choose ourselves above others and God? We are just a tiny piece of sand in the vast sea of the world. God, our Father, gave us life, and we, as followers, must give it away in order for it to flourish. As a spouse gives up oneself for another, a Religious gives their life away, or a single person remains single for the sake of others, so to must we. Our lives are not for us to horde but to give away.
“For it is giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” -St. Francis of Assisi
I hope that was okay.
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Jesus wants us to give him ourselves. In return out reward will be eternal life. Jesus also wants us to rely on him and let the troubles of the world melt away
This Gospel Jesus is telling us that we need to follow his footsteps. The devil is always trying to tempt us but US as humans we need to not let him tempt us and find Jesus and follow him.
The scripture is telling us that we must pay more attention to our souls and take better care of them. We should pray more often and grow closer to God. God’s love is infinite and he will love us no matter what. We should love him back
I think it means that we always find things that we like to do instead of spending time with God. It can be very hard but if we do it will get us closer to God and being close with God is the best thing other than reaching Heaven.
I think its saying that we have to give up everything for the Lord. Also even though we might fall Jesus is there to pick us up and he might not really really be there but he is always with us.
Jesus gives us great encouragement to get to the kingdom of heaven. We need to stay motivated whenever we receive a cross given to us by God.
The gospel today is telling me that we should always choose do the the right things. We should never follow what the devil wants us to do and we should always follow what God wants us to do.If we want to be with God we should start following in his footsteps.
This scripture reflection says to me that we all need to be ready for the burden that we need when ever we are face to face with Jesus. That we all are going to be faced with him and to be ready.
We need to throw away our pride and our ego to grow closer to God. This lent I want to grow closer to God and make it a daily thing not just a lent thing, where I am praying a rosary every day and sitting in silence because it makes us more calm and sacrifice. Sacrifice is lent and Jesus says in the Gospel give ourselves up through sacrifice in this life and you will be set for the next life.
I think God is saying to give things up to be with him. In one passage of the gospel i don’t remember Jesus says give up your things and follow me. This is saying that we need to give our physical things up to be with him.
“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?” This line stuck out to me today, I think it is asking us “why would you hoard earthly things, and forfeit your eternal salvation, the free gift you have been given?” Jesus offers us eternal life, yet we turn it down for our years on Earth.
We have to deny ourselves to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. Why, we ask. Because we have a fallen human nature and a temptation to sin. When we deny ourselves and surrender ourselves to Jesus, we don’t get rid of that, but we have God to guide us, to tell us what to do. But as much as He tells us everyday, we can only take up our crosses when we listen.
This scripture tells us that God never promised us a life without suffering. We’re so caught up in the modern world with electronics and trying to please others and being selfish, where in all of that we won’t have time to dedicate ourselves to God. We should set a time outside of “having” to go to mass and to spend time with God, talking and listening to him.
Jesus tells us whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. God wants us to give up our lives. For him and for others, we all just go about living out lives thinking about ourselves and no one else. God wants us to change that give up our lives for him and for others.
In today’s Gospel, I believe that God is telling us in His words that we should give ourselves up to Him and spread His name. Do not fear giving yourself up to Him, for He is your salvation and will guide you through your life to be happy and strong through the hardest times of your life. You cannot do anything without God. Don’t even say that you can because you can’t. If you think you are, you aren’t. He is the one helping you. Do not deny that God is with you forever.
This scripture tells us that God never promised us a life without suffering. We’re so caught up in the modern world with electronics and trying to please others and being selfish, where in all of that we won’t have time to dedicate ourselves to God. We should set a time outside of “having” to go to mass and to spend time with God, talking and listening to him.
It is better to sacrifice a little bit while on Earth and go to Heaven then to sin a lot even if you like it and risk not going to Heaven. If you suffer on Earth but go to Heaven then it will be a small amount of suffering compared to being in Heaven for eternity. This is what Jesus tells us today when He says “what profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”.
In this gospel, what stuck out to me was, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” This tells me that in order for me to follow Christ without wanting to save my life first, I’ll have to be all in. This lent, I’m going to try harder to do that by doing extra acts through the forty days.
I think this Gospel passage is telling me to not be afraid to stand up to the devil and always choose good. Always choose God. If someone asks you if you believe in God, would you say yes? Even of it costs your life? “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?” Which I think is telling me if I deny God, because I want to live, I won’t live. But if I say “yes I do believe that God is our savior and only God, Jesus Christ,” then we will live an eternal life with God in Heaven.
This scripture reminded me that we have our own free will, and that we have the choice to create who we are seen as. We are in charge of ourselves and we can’t blame anyone for our being. We are in charge if we get to heaven. Do good.
I think this scripture passage is telling us to adore God with you whole heart because everything in world will not be with you in heaven.and we have alot to improve in our prayer life.
What I think the Gospel is saying is that God is all we need and yet we still think we need more. We always think we need more but we have what we need we have God/Jesus we don’t need anything else. I can apply this to my life by not wanting everything I see and not being greedy.
I think What Jesus is trying to tell us is that we encounter adversary along the way and we need to keep the power of God with us at all times and if we give up we lose our faith
Today’s Gospel is saying if we want to get to heaven and be eternal with him, we must be ready to give our soul for him so we can be rewarded with heaven.
In todays Scripture Jesus is telling us to Take up the cross and follow him, and to listen to him, pray to him. Jesus wants us to follow him so we can spend eternal life with him
I think God is saying that we should give up everything to be with Him. He is the light in our live’s and we should follow the light at all times.
If we truly believe in Jesus we need to actually believe in him, instead of following because we are told to. We need to make our own choices instead of having people make those choices for us.
In todays gospel God is telling me that we need to give ourselves up to God no matter what. If we live life to please ourselves then there is no point in living. God created us to serve Him in life and in death. We are only in the world for a short amount of time, very short.
I think the point of this Gospel is that we need God to get through life. He is the way of life and we need to follow him to get to our ultimate goal. Heaven.
As humans we want recognition from others that they think we are cool or anything like that. But in reality the only people that we need recognition from is Jesus. If we want to go to heaven we need to give up ourselves and not care about what others think. Because if people judge you for having a relationship with Jesus, then we need to not care because we will get to heaven and that is all that matters.
What I got from the gospel today is during this Lenten season we need to put our trusted in God. And we need to learn how to become better servants of God. We are human and quickly forget what we are here for and why we are here.
Today Jesus says one of my favorite lines in the whole bible. “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” One of my favorite parts of this is the word Daily. He says to take up his cross daily and follow him. Everyday we have the inclination to sin. And everyday we are tempted to. We must accept this cross, this brokenness, and follow him. Every sing day.
Basically Jesus is saying that if we live cowardly, instead of for Jesus, we will go to hell. If we seek to preserve our lives, we lose them. We need to live under Jesus, not under this world.
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Give yourself completely up to God let him take control of your life. That is what God wants you too do. You have to kill your ego so God can take over.
I think that this Scripture passage is telling us a message that we hear a lot but it is great to hear again. The main message of this reading is that it is very hard to follow Jesus and be holy. We are going to be called weird and many other names like that just because we believe in Jesus. When Jesus was walking down the road to Calvary he was enduring pains that were thousands of times more extreme than the pain of name calling and being outcasted, so we need to endure it and “pick up our cross” and follow Him.
In today’s Scripture it’s saying that we can’t deny Jesus. If we deny Jesus we end up further away from Him, even though He’s still truly with us. Once we start really needing Him that when we can quite denying and give Him a chance. He’ll always be waiting for you to come be with Him.
We are overly confident. Why should we get to believe that everything that God has given us, we are to thank for it? God is who should be thanked for all of the things in our life. We need to listen to God when He says,”If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” We can’t live our lives thinking that we are worthy of God’s love because we are not. We need to be humbled. We need to ask God to help us with this.
We need to give our self to God. Not the world. God is the only way to live and gain eternal life. We do not need worldly things we need God and the word of the Lord.
Sin is a constant battle in our lives. This causes us to fall way from Jesus. We offer up our pain and sorrowfulness for Him for what? So he can save us yet again. He has always been there for us and will always be. We can grow in our faith if we have grace, like the reflection said it’s impossible to be holy without God’s grace.
We must give ourselves to God. We can not deny Jesus and we NEED Him. If we want to go to Heaven we must give our soul to Him.
I think that in today’s Scripture Jesus is telling us that we need to leave all of our earthly possessions behind. There will be no use for them in Heaven and also we needed to be rejected on Earth and that will help us in Heaven. Jesus outright tells us that our life on Earth will not be easy but He can help us live a good life while we are here.