As Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem he calls a man to follow him:
And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “[Lord,] let me go first and bury my father.” But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59-60)
Christ's words sound callous at first glance, but surely it's the business of those whose home is the world and walk according to the flesh, who are spiritually dead, to attend to the end of their condition. The disciple on the other hand is to proclaim the Kingdom of God, life itself, a proclamation which demands total "assent to Jesus' summons" to follow him as Lord and Savior.
Benedict XVI comments:
What is made clear to us here is that assent to Jesus' summons has priority and demands totality. That means it takes precedence and demands the totality of our being. One cannot simply offer a piece of oneself, a portion of one's time and one's will. In that case one has not answered this summons that is so great that it really demands and fills a whole life, but only fills it if it is offered totally.
This also means that there is a moment of Jesus Christ which one cannot put off and calculate and say: "Yes, I want to all right, but at the moment it is still too risky for me. At the moment I still want to do this and that."
One can miss the moment of one's life, and with prudence gamble away the real worth of one's life never again to be able to recover it. There is the time of being called in which the decision is present, and it is more important than what we have thought out for ourselves and what is in itself quite reasonable. The reason of Jesus and his summons have precedence: they come first. This courage to defer what seems so reasonable to us in favor of the greater thing that he is, is decisive not only in the first moment but continually on all parts of the way. It is only in this way that we really come close to him.
This courage to defer what seems so reasonable to us in favor of the greater thing that he is, is decisive not only in the first moment but continually on all parts of the way. It is only in this way that we really come close to him. Amen to that.
May God grant us such courage,
LSP
