Monday of the 13 week in ordinary time (memorial of St. Irenaeus)

Mt 8:18-22

“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus, I will always love you. Lord, I will never forget about you and will be faithful to you. Perhaps you too have made similar promises in the past, just to realized later, that those were merely empty promises. When life got tough and full of disappointments, you may have forgotten about Jesus. Or maybe you got so busy with your work and taking care of your growing family that you just pushed Jesus a little bit aside. In the Gospel reading we hear about many people who wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus is warning them that if they do, they will need to make many sacrifices in this life. Jesus is very clear today. He tells them and tells us today that we need to be ready to give up almost everything if we want to follow Him. We can’t just follow or accept Jesus partially, or from time to time. It is easy to make promises, but much more difficult to fulfill them.