Mt 16: 24-28
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Affirming the Goodness in Others
As we try to discern our identities, we spend much effort interpreting how others react to us – We ask “who do you say that I am?” We embrace some, reject others, all the while rewriting the screenplay of our lives. Jesus, being like us, surely learned from reactions such as Peter’s, as he came to understand his calling.
One of the most significant acts we can perform in this life is to notice and affirm the presence of God in others. How else are we to come to be that which we profess – the Body of Christ – if no one helps us see?
Recall a time when someone powerfully affirmed goodness in you. Now it’s your turn. When, recently, has an opportunity presented itself for you to affirm someone’s goodness, their self-sacrifice, their rejection of cheap substitutes for a life of purpose and meaning? Perhaps another opportunity will come today.
—Michael Coffey is the Executive Director of Casa Romero Renewal Center, a Jesuit, urban, bilingual spirituality center in the central city of Milwaukee.
Prayer
Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance
everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly
that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through us and be so in us
that every soul we come in contact with
may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus.
Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.
None of it will be ours.
It will be you shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise you in the way you love best
by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching,
not by words, but by our example;
by the catching force –
the sympathetic influence of what we do,
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you. Amen.
—St. Teresa of Calcutta