God that makes me free. And a few words to charismatics

Read Time:7 Minute, 24 Second

Consideration for XXIV Sunday in Ordinary Time, year B1

Jesus is fucking annoying in today’s Gospel. It even brazenly reveals our ideas about ourselves and about Him. It just bares our hearts for which the last thing they strive for is holiness. Hearts that fear their own weaknesses and dream of greatness.

There is a reason why Jesus asks his disciples who he is while they are on the way. First, so that they respond spontaneously, without further reflection. After all, it is known that a man and what is inside him are best known when he has to react immediately. Second, they had been walking with Jesus for a while. They saw miracles, they heard His words. They also had some life experiences, their own desires and dreams. They had ideas of what they would get out of being in Jesus’ team.

The last thing the Master needed was to know what the multitudes, or even less the disciples, had him for. Well, but he asks them. I imagine the pose in which she does this. He must have been very serious, although I think he had a slight smirk of irony on his lips. In response, he hears that the crowds think of him as John the Baptist, Elijah, as a prophet, and Peter breaks free and says that Jesus is the Messiah. In other words, an anointed king who would free Israel from Roman slavery. A king who will restore the state to its former glory, and who speaks and does well at the same time.

These answers say nothing about Jesus. Or otherwise, they say, because it is true, Jesus is the Messiah. But they are more about students. Or rather, what is in them. And the sitting thing is that they want to be somebody. They want some jobs and influence in this kingdom. They follow the guy that crowds love. It probably gave them a lot of satisfaction. They want to lead an easy and light life. They were fed up with fishing! They want to mean something, to be considered great people, people who changed the country. They want to live the road from zero to hero. They want to be, as it has recently caught my eye, “giants of life”. And that’s how it is with us, with me. I want to be someone, a “giant of life”, to mean something, to do something great. I want to be adored. I want it to be easy, light and pleasant for me.

Here is the meatball. Jesus begins to talk, as Mark writes openly, about the fact that he will be rejected (“not accepted” in the original). He will have to suffer a lot and be killed. The words about the resurrection, I don’t think anyone heard, because Peter takes Jesus aside and tells him: “Master, no, it can’t be like that. What are you talking about, how is that possible? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. What does that mean for me? ”

It just means that Jesus tells me outright: “Forget it! Because my way is different and you are different too. You are not great and you are not a giant of life. You’re not doing anything big. From the outside, this may seem good, but what you really want to do is tickle your ego. You are proud, vain and selfish. And the best thing in your life is to sin and carefully hide this sin. You have many flaws and weaknesses. You screw up on many issues, nothing meaningful in your life has come out for you. You haven’t achieved anything. You are sick, physically, mentally and spiritually weak. You are also rejected, excluded, not accepted. Nobody loves you and nobody loves you. You are a loser… for the world and maybe for yourself, but not for God! ”

God says today through Isaiah, “Take it, accept it. Don’t fight with yourself and with people. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You don’t have to be someone. Be yourself! A weak, sinful, sick, abandoned, lonely life failure. For me, God, the most important thing is that you are! I myself care for you and you are close to me! I love you as you are! You are precious to me! I support you and I love you most when you are in the dark valley! Therefore, be free! Besides, listen to the end, Peter. They will kill me, but after three days I will rise again! My dear mission, it will bring you and the whole world a new life! ”

Isaiah, unlike Peter, is a damn free man. They beat him, accuse him, beat him, reject him, and he remains with God and with his mission. People don’t have to love and accept him. It is enough that God loves him and accepts him. Piotr was dependent on the opinions of others, on his own ideas and on himself. It must always be good for him. Every oppression was a cause for concern.

And so it is with us. We have a Peter in us who does not accept any weakness or sin in us. Peter, who fights against windmills. Peter, who hates failure and is very dependent on what others say about him.

And God presents to us Isaiah, a free man who fully understands the words: “Whoever wants to come (accompany me), let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” For whoever wants to save his life (in the original “life of the soul”) will lose it, and whoever loses his life because of me and the Gospel will keep it.

To take up your cross means to take yourself. This little man, selfish, proud, sinner, rejected loser.

To deny yourself is to stop being a dreamer of greatness and conquest. It come down to earth. It is to be here and now. It is living everyday life and daily chores. And it’s fucking hard!

To follow Him is to believe that He is risen. It is to believe that His death brought me life. It is to believe that where death is in my life, there is life! It is a memory of the fact that the best in life happened to me because I am sick and nobody loves me! Because it is in these places that I have produced the most beautiful fruit!

To follow Him is to walk through life with a sense of meaning, to love God the Father, ourselves and our neighbor as ourselves. Otherwise you will suffocate yourself, your pits and your problems, because that is what it means that if you want to save your life, you will lose it. If you allow yourself to die and give this dying back to God, if you give Him everything that is good for you (it is even easy), but also what is bad (and this is very difficult, because we have an image of God that we must master) then you will live!

And others will keep talking to you anyway. They will take you aside. They will say, “Take care. You are nobody! Change yourself! Adapt to us! ” I want to laugh when all these charismatics, Catholic or Protestant, want to pray for my healing without any reflection. Obviously, none of these prayers “work” and I am still years old until I am 40.

But it’s not like that, folks. It’s not like that. I am not sick of your anger, but to show you how God keeps disease out of control over me. Satan is defeated, and although he sometimes overcomes my flesh, he will never overcome my spirit. Nobody can take away my smile and serenity.

And I also want to laugh when I talk to all those “friends” or haunted “preachers of immediate change” (an alternative name for charismatic) about my loneliness. You know I hope this isn’t different and stuff. It will change someday. Just believe it. If it does not change, it means that you have no faith, etc. It is strange that after my second unsuccessful attempt at the convent or seminary, the first people said that it was not the way to go and that I had to give up. Okay, let’s not get past it.

To sum up, yes, that’s not my way. Also, marriage is not my way. They are simply the consequences of accepting my person in full. So also that I have PNO. This is my life. This is my way. This is my mission. And blessed are its fruits. Does it hurt? Like hell. Sometimes you howl, you have doubts, you want to thank God, turn around and walk away. But I think about God’s things, I try to see it the way He does. And finally “who wants to follow me …” You know it!

Be free!