Wednesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 4, 2020

The Feast of St. Charles Borromeo

Luke 14:25-33

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

What leader makes it hard for a person to follow him?  Jesus does not simply make it hard, he sets down conditions for following him that make this nearly impossible.  A person faces the dilemma of either following the Lord and having no other life at all, or of not following him and perhaps only seeing him again when he comes that way.  A leader who is trying to build a movement or an insurgent army does not make many conditions.  In fact, he might make extravagant promises to people, or flatter them, or frighten them with tales of their opponents in order to get them to join him.  We today can see how this works in political campaigns.  An earthly leader needs the backing of a multitude to attain his or her ends.  The Lord Jesus, however does not need a multitude for any reason — but the people need him.  The Lord has something that people want: the truth about God, words that alternately soothe their desires and fire their zeal, knowledge of the kingdom of God, and healing of wounds and illnesses.  Beyond these things, people feel his power, the divine power that hides in human garb.

He sets stringent conditions for those who wish to follow him.  He does this because in order for them to receive what he has to give them, their hands must come to him empty.  If our hands are full with our own goods, how can we receive another’s, no matter how desirable?  And our hands must be clean, too.  What did our mothers tell us before we sat at the table for dinner?  Wash your hands!  We wash them out of necessity, but also out of respect for our mothers who have prepared good things for us.  And so we free our hands of our “goods” — our own wills.  We give up everything and everyone in our lives in order to have Jesus.  We may receive things and people back from him, but from that point on, we know them only in that way, as allowed by him.  

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  The “cross” of Jesus is the suffering he endured in expiating our sins in obedience to the Father.  Our “cross” is the suffering we endure in preaching the Cross of Jesus and in living the life to which he calls us.

“Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?”  Here, the Lord speaks of the need for a person to seriously consider whether he or she can become a disciple — that is, whether they are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.  Many folks, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, join movements only to find, after a few weeks or months, that the work is harder than they thought, or that the reality of life as a follower does not match their daydreams of how it would be.  Disillusioned and maybe a little embarrassed, they slink home.  The Lord Jesus does not cloud the difficulty or sacrifice necessary, and insists that his would-be followers think hard before committing themselves.  No one can know exactly how it will be, but everyone can measure themselves against their calling.  Perhaps for many the answer is a sad No, or for some a reluctant Not Yet.  But for a few at least, there is the joy of a new life in Christ through his grace.

We celebrate today the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo (d. 1584).  Living during the time of the disastrous Protestant reformation, he saw the need for a new way of training priests that would educate them in theology and form them more perfectly in Christ.  Previously, the training of young men for the secular priesthood (as distinct from priesthood in a religious order) took place within a sort of apprenticeship.  Young men would live with a local priest and he would teach them what he knew.  At a certain point the priest would present his charges before the bishop, who chose whether to ordain them.  St. Charles established seminaries where young men were engaged in formal studies by priests expert in various fields.  This system led to better educated and self-disciplined men prepared to lead the worship of God, to preach his Word, and to administer his Sacraments with charity and zeal for souls.

I attended St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia for six years.  The buildings for it were built beginning in the late 1860’s, and thousands of men have have prepared for the Priesthood there since that time.  The saint’s Feast Day came as the climax of the Forty Hours Adoration at the beginning of the seminary year.  It was a great day with processions and a big Italian dinner.  It was also the day when the new seminarians first wore their cassocks, a sign of their commitment to become priests in The Priest, Jesus Christ.  Let us pray for all seminarians that they will prosper in their studies and in their love for Jesus.