From: Matthew 16:21-27
Jesus Foretells His Passion and Resurrection
[21] From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. [22] And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to You." [23] But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men."
[24] Then Jesus told His disciples, "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. [25] For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. [26] For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? [27] For the Son of Man is to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay every man for what he has done.
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Commentary:
23. Jesus rejects St. Peter's well-intentioned protestations, giving us to understand the capital importance of accepting the cross if we are to attain salvation (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:23-25). Shortly before this (Matthew 16:17) Jesus had promised Peter: "Blessed are you, Simon"; now He reproves him: "Get behind me, Satan." In the former case Peter's words were inspired by the Holy Spirit, whereas what he says now comes from his own spirit which he has not yet sloughed off.
24. "Divine love, `poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us' (Romans 5:5), enables lay people to express concretely in their lives the spirit of the Beatitudes. Following Jesus in His poverty, they feel no depression in want, no pride in plenty; imitating the humble Christ, they are not greedy for vain show (cf. Galatians 5:26). They strive to please God rather than men, always ready to abandon everything for Christ (cf. Luke 14:26) and even to endure persecution in the cause of right (cf. Matthew 5:10), having in mind the Lord's saying? `If any man wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me'" (Matthew 16:24) ("Apostolicam Actuositatem", 4).
25. A Christian cannot ignore these words of Jesus. He has to risk, to gamble, this present life in order to attain eternal life: "How little a life is to offer to God!" (St. J. Escriva, "The Way", 420).
Our Lord's requirement means that we must renounce our own will in order to identify with the will of God and so to ensure that, as St. John of the Cross comments, we do not follow the way of those many people who "would have God will that which they themselves will, and are fretful at having to will that which He wills, and find it repugnant to accommodate their will to that of God. Hence it happens to them that oftentimes they think that that wherein they find not their own will and pleasure is not the will of God; and that, on the other hand, when they themselves find satisfaction, God is satisfied. Thus they measure God by themselves and not themselves by God" ("Dark Night of the Soul", Book 1, Chapter 7, 3).
26-27. Christ's words are crystal-clear: every person has to bear in mind the Last Judgment. Salvation, in other words, is something radically personal: "He will repay every man for what he has done" (verse 27).
Man's goal does not consist in accumulating worldly goods; these are only means to an end; man's last end, his ultimate goal, is God Himself; he possesses God in advance, as it were, here on earth by means of grace, and possesses him fully and forever in Heaven. Jesus shows the route to take to reach this destination--denying oneself (that is, saying no to ease, comfort, selfishness and attachment to temporal goods) and taking up the cross. For no earthly--impermanent--good can compare with the soul's eternal salvation. As St. Thomas expresses it with theological precision, "the least good of grace is superior to the natural good of the entire universe" ("Summa Theologiae", I-II, q. 113, a. 9).
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.
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