On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the Scripture Readings (Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2; Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18), we were called to turn away from a sinful path toward destruction to return to God, whose mercy is waiting for our contrition and reconciliation. So, we will be cleansed of our spiritual filth from sins and renewed for the original purity. And, we were also reminded by Jesus from the Gospel Reading of the importance of not practicing our Lenten virtues of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to draw attention to ourselves. To make sure that we do this right, being free from public attention, we need to overcome our ego-centric disposition.
To build further on his teaching on keeping our egos
out of Lent from Ash Wednesday, Jesus further
teaches us, in fact, commands us, on self-denial, to make our Lenten
journey truly salvific. So, let us
explore the Scripture Readings for the day after Ash Wednesday.
The Scripture readings for Thursday after Ash
Wednesday (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6; Luke 9:22-25) give a
juxtaposition of our Lenten journey of 40 days, punctuated with 6 Sundays, to the
40 years of Exodus in the wilderness. It was Moses, commissioned by God the
Father, to lead the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land of milk and
honey. And, it is Jesus, the Son, sent by God the Father, who shepherds us on
our Lenten journey from the state of sin to the state of salvific beatitudes.
In the First Reading, Moses tells the Israelites
that they have a choice: to faithfully follow God’s Commandments to be blessed
in the promised land or to turn their hearts away from God and go on their own
way to get lost.
Moses said, “I
have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life,
then”(Deuteronomy 30:19).
Choose life over death, choose the blessing over the
curse.
The Responsorial Psalm reflects what a life of the
blessed is like.
He
is like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in season;
Its leaves never wither; whatever he does prospers
(Psalm 1:3).
And, it is also projected in our ultimate and eternal
promised land at the end of time.
Then
the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of its street.
On either side of the river grew the tree of life that produces fruit twelve
times a year, once each month; the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for
the nations (Revelation 22:1-2).
Reflecting our wise choice for life over death and
the blessing over the curse, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus asks us if we are
willing to follow him on our journey by our self-denial and carrying our cross
every day.
If
anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but
whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one
to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?
(Luke 9:23-25).
We must deny ourselves and take up our cross every
day to be disciple of Jesus, the incarnated Theos-Logos.
And, this is a commandment that has come out of the mouth of God the Son.
Are we willing to follow this commandment of Jesus,
our Lord?
So, why we are to follow Jesus by denying ourselves
and carry our cross daily?
Jesus explains our reason to follow him in this
paradoxical statement: whoever wishes to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
Basically, Jesus reminds that we cannot save
ourselves by ourselves. Not even by any worldly means. Only following his way
can save us. This is just as only those who listened to Moses and follow the
commandments of God in the Torah made it through the 40 years of Exodus to the
promised land. And, our Lenten exodus
from the state of sin to the renewed state of purity with the risen Christ is
shepherded by Jesus, and he is now asking if we are willing to follow him – his
commandment of self-denial and carrying our daily cross, to be saved.
To deny ourselves and to willingly lose our lives
for Jesus demands not superficial ascetic life or even a heroic self-sacrifice
but our total submission of ourselves to him all the way to his Cross.
In other words, Jesus is asking us now through the
Gospel Reading:
Are you willing to lose yourselves in me and journey
in me to the Cross, sharing the Paschal Mystery with me to death and
resurrection to be saved and to inherit
the ultimate promised land, the Kingdom, envisioned in Revelation 21-22?
Why self-denial is so important?
Remember Jesus’ teaching for our commitment to the
Lenten virtues: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in the Ash Wednesday Gospel
Reading (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)?
Our practice of these Lenten virtues would be in vain if we do to gain
attention to ourselves. And, there is always a temptation for attention,
especially in doing righteous deeds. So, Jesus has also given similar teaching
on guarding ourselves against this temptation in Matthew 23:1-12 when he was in
Jerusalem nearing the day of his death on the Cross.
If think it is better to save your life and rather not to follow Jesus so that
you can gain the whole world, then you may fool yourself like the rich fool in Luke
12:13-21.
There was a 12-year-old Japanese boy, whose name is
Ludovico (Luis) Ibaraki, back in the 1590s.
He worked as a volunteer in the Franciscan hospital in Kyoto,
established by Frey Pedro Bautista, a Spanish Franciscan priest-prier from the
Philippines. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the chancellor-regent ruler of Japan at
that time, ordered Christians in Kyoto and its vicinities to be arrested for
execution, both Ludovico and Frey Pedro, along with 22 other Christians in the
Kyoto-Osaka area, were arrested, cut their left ears cut off, and dragged
around Kyoto. Then, they were forced to march nearly 800 kilometers (500 miles)
from Kyoto to Nagasaki, except a sea route over the Kanmon Straight and the Ohmura
Bay. And, two more Christians were added to this march for the execution, when
the 24 arrived in Shimonoseki on their way to Nagasaki, thus, making the number
26 from there on.
Also en route, Ludovico met the official in charge
of the execution, and the official took pity on such a little boy and told him:
“Ludovico,
your fate, your life, is in the hands of mine. Why you have to die in haste
now? Why don’t you become my son? I can adopt you as my son. And you will grow
to be a great samurai warrior. So, you can be saved”.
To this tempting offer from the official, Ludovico
first consulted his confidant, Frey Pedro Bautista. And, this Franciscan
priest-friar told Ludovico:
“You have no
need to be in haste to die. So, you may consider that option to be adopted by
the official. However, on one condition. And it is to keep your faith in Christ”.
Ludovico replied to Frey Pedro:
“I
understand. Of course.”
And to the official:
“Sir,
thank you for thinking of me. I would like to take up your kind offer to adopt
me as your son. You know, however, there
is no way I let go of my faith in Christ. So, I will remain to be Christian.”
The official said to Ludovico:
“No, no! I
cannot accept that you remain to be Christian. You must let your belief in
Christ go. If you do so, you can do
whatever you wish. But, you must abandon your belief in Christ!”
Then, Ludovico smiled, pointing to heaven, and said
to the official:
“Then,
in that case, I decline your offer. I will go to paraiso with my Lord Jesus
Christ”.
But, the official still wanted to “save” this little
Christian boy from the scheduled execution by his administrative power and
said:
“Ludovico,
think again, you are still young. You
have at least 50 more years to live. If you become my son, you can eat what you
want, you can wear what you want. And, you can walk in town with your own
swords as a great samurai.”
In response, Ludovico rather looked at the official
sternly and said:
“Sir,
what could we gain for living 50 years in this world by losing the eternal life
given by Christ? I rather desire to go to paraiso with Christ. Sir, why don’t
you also go to paraiso with me, believing in Christ?”
With these words from 12-year-old Christian boy,
Ludovico, the official no longer was able to look at him.
And, both Ludovico and Frey Pedro, together with 24
other faithful, including Paul Miki, Gonzalo Garcia, Felipe de Jesus, Antonio
(13-year-old Japanese Christian boy), were executed on February 5, 1597, on the
Nishizaka hill of Nagasaki, and they have been known as the 26 Martyr Saints in
Japan.
They say that Ludovico was not so well-educated as
he was not from a wealthy family. Because of this, perhaps, Latin could have
sounded like “Greek” and the Bible and the doctrine in catechesis were not easy
to understand. Nevertheless, as you can see from the above words of Ludovico in
response to a worldly temptation to “save” his life at the cost of forfeiting
the eternal life given by Christ, this 12-year-old Japanese Christian boy
really understood the command of Jesus in today’s Gospel.
As reflected in the above words of Ludovico and as
in the Gospel Reading, Jesus wants us to follow him by submitting our total
selves to him and journey with him to the Cross so that we can enjoy all the
benefits of the eternal life given by him in paraiso, which is envisioned in
Revelation 21-22.
We have a choice to make.
To follow the command of Jesus to submit our total
selves to him all the way to the Cross and beyond, as Moses wanted the
Israelites to follow God’s commandments to settle in the promised land in
Canaan, and as San Ludovico Ibaraki chose above the tempting option to “save”
himself for his gain of a “good life” on earth.
And, we must make our decision as we proceed forward on our Lenten
exodus journey.
San Ludovico Ibraki not only carried his daily cross but really embraced it before he was lifted up to paraiso - being free from egocentric gravity and attachment to life on earth. Lent shall transform us to be like San Ludovico Ibaraki as we follow Jesus on our Lenten journey.
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