Sunday June 19th: Give it all away!

“For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.”

Luke 9:18-24

Jesus announces one of the great paradoxes of Christian life, to lose is to gain and to gain is to lose. A great figure in the American Civil Rights movement once wrote “You only begin to live, the moment you are ready to die.” Money, popularity, position and power are possessions which ultimately entrap us and make us unfree. This beautiful saying invites us to a kind of freedom that can only be grasped through our willingness to “give it all away.” The freedom of Pope Francis or the Dalai Lama comes from the fact of their truthful commentary on the human condition without setting themselves up with an “image” they will later have to defend. This is the source of their freedom.
Lord, grant us the freedom of the Son of man who was willing to lose his life for others.