Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s gospel challenges all we know about Christ’s message of love on Earth. How can Christ come to cause division? We know Jesus to be a teacher of love and peace, not division. We are called to recognize the deeper message of this Gospel.
When you think of the people that you know best, are most loyal to, and would sacrifice anything for, who do you think of? For me, I think of my family. There is no one in this world I love more than my family. But Jesus challenges this sentiment. Jesus is calling us to think of how deeply we love our family and to go deeper. He is asking us to recognize that our love for God and for Christ needs to be even deeper and stronger than this. How can this even be possible?
When I reflect on the Gospel in this way I am reminded of my sister. My sister is a Dominican sister – a fully habited nun with the Nashville Dominicans. She lives a life of obedience, poverty and chastity. She is beautifully living out her vocation.
Looking back though, I did not always see her vocation in this beautiful and amazing way. For a long time I saw her vocation as a source of division and separation. When I think back to my sister’s initial decision to join the Dominicans I was reluctant to support her and scared of how our lifelong friendship would change. Selfishly, I wanted to keep her to myself and I did not want things to change. My sister has been my best friend since birth. When she first joined the convent she was told that she could not contact us for an extended period of time. We were only allowed to write to her, and she could only receive these letters during certain parts of the liturgical year. In order to fully enter into this time of intense discernment she needed separation and distance from us. I did not see this as a chance for her to really spend time with God and discern her call. I saw this as division – as my sister being taken from my family. I was angry and upset – if this is a call we are all to support why does she need to be separate and removed from us?
And now, reading this Gospel, so much of it makes sense. My sister was so deeply and fully committed to Christ and to saying yes to his call that it did cause division in our family. She needed to be able to choose Christ above all else – above our parents, above my relationship with her, above any desire to one day have a family of her own. It was only then that she could fully commit to being a bride of Christ. Since then, her choice to become a sister has brought our whole family closer together, and in many ways has brought she and I closer together. But first we suffered division and anger because of her decision to follow Christ.
I admire my sister and the conviction with which she lives. I admire that she has chosen the path less-taken. I admire how beautifully, seriously and obediently she lives out her vocation. I admire how she is able to choose God above all else on this Earth, without reservation or hesitation. I pray that I can live out my vocation of wife and mother as beautifully and intentionally as she lives out her call to the religious life. Amen.
- Amanda Grimm