This Sunday we hear these shocking words from our Lord: “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.” How can we even understand these words? Hate? This is not what we are used to hearing from Jesus. In fact, He calls us instead to love, even our enemies. So why the hate? Does Jesus really want us to hate our relatives? Not exactly. So, this Gospel reading starts with the following statement: “Great crowds were traveling with Jesus.” And then He stopped, turned, and addressed them, warned them -- if you want to follow me and become my disciple, remember that there will be sacrifices that you will need to make. Jesus doesn’t want us to hate each other but to ‘hate’ anything that would make us love anything else more than Him. If you are Jesus’ disciple, then the love of Christ must be first, above any other relationships of this world. We must ‘hate’ everything that would separate us from the love of our Lord.
