Fr. Jordan DeGuire, OP

In today's Gospel, Jesus challenges the crowd that those who wish to become his followers must be willing to lose their lives in the process so that they might find life. This new life in Christ will be worth the struggle and the sacrifices. What are we willing to sacrifice for it?

In today's Gospel, Peter is reminded that God's ways are not our ways when he confesses that Jesus is the Christ but then rebukes Jesus when Jesus says that he will be rejected and killed for it. When God is doing something we don't expect or even want, it is time for us to trust that God has greater plans than our own. This can be disturbing, but it ultimately leads to a greater blessing.

At the wedding feast at Cana, Mary sees a problem and solves it—getting Jesus to perform his first miracle of changing water to wine. We can turn to Mary to petition her son to solve the problems or "untie the knots" in our own lives, but we then have to trust that God hears and do what Jesus says.

Today we hear the call of Levi. Jesus said "Follow me" and he left everything and followed. That is the heart of discipleship. May we follow our own call by God.

In our first reading from the Song of Songs, we encounter lovers who thrill to be in each other's company, and we remember God's love for his people, and Jesus' love for each of us. In the Gospel, Mary, full of love, rushes out to help her cousin Elizabeth, not worrying for herself. God loves each of us, and if we allow ourselves to be touched by that love, we respond both to God and to the world in overflowing love. Are you a lover? What would it take for you to become one this Christmas season?

King Ahaz refused to listen to God's plans to defend Israel, prefering to trust the fate of the country to his own plans. In contrast, upon hearing of God's surprisings plans for her, Mary said "let it be done unto me according to your word." Do we prefer our own plans for our life, or God's, and what does it cost us?