What are we to make of the Lord’s very challenging words to his disciples today?  He seems to state that our love of him will lead us to hate all other things, including very good things like family, possessions, even life itself.  Well of course we know that this cannot be the case.  Christ after all is the Lord of Life, the King of the world, and the unseen guest and true joy of every Christian family.  And yet, he does say these things, and we dare not dismiss them due to our own discomfort.  Our Lord is a master of rhetoric, and he knows how to get our attention.  More to the point, he knows how to stir our hearts and provoke our minds to consider what Christian discipleship truly means.  He wants us to know what we’re getting ourselves into when we choose to follow him.  He wants us to have prudence, and a spirit of vigilance and realistic preparation. 

Our Lord provides these powerful images for us: images of careful planning, of thinking ahead, of preparation.  The prudent builder does not begin his construction until he knows he has the resources to finish it.  A king does not ride into battle without considering his strategy and judging the real tactical possibility of victory.  Likewise, we ought not enter the great campaign which is the Christian Life unreflectively or with our eyes shut.  The truth is, Christian discipleship can at times be like a battle: our friends and family may not always accept the change of heart and behavior that our Faith gives us.  The forces of the world will resist us.  And we will do battle within against our own weakness.  But Our Lord has already won the victory, and we need not worry about the outcome of this war: but we still have to fight the battles, and these skirmishes will continue until the end of time.  The spiritual life is also a process of building, of constructing for ourselves over time a great edifice of faith and virtue.  This takes persistence and hard work, and it takes the necessary tools and materials, just like constructing a great building.  Again, the Lord has provided these means for us and we need not grasp blindly in search of our own salvation.  The Lord provides the plans, and the tools, and brick and mortar of the great spiritual building we are all called to construct: in the sacraments, in prayer, especially in the Holy Mass.  But he wants us to know that it is indeed a struggle, it does take effort to pursue holiness, and we should expect that, plan for that. 

In these two images: the builder and the soldier-king, the Lord calls us to be pro-active about our life of Faith.  He wants us to be ready in case our Faith comes with a cost.  He wants us to be ready in case our friends and family are unable to accept what we believe and how we act in accordance with the Gospel.  He wants us to be ready in case we come under physical or moral attack for our Faith.  And finally, he wants us to ready when we inevitably encounter difficulties in our spiritual life: when we fear, when we are discouraged, when we are fatigued, when the cost becomes real.  Our Lord calls us to a spirit of joyful preparation for whatever difficulties we might encounter in our lives.  Too often we wait to pray until crisis has already come.  We wait until we are desperate and have nowhere else to turn.  God of course does want us to turn to him in these times of our greatest need.  But he also wants us to store up for ourselves the treasure of grace in advance: through our prayers day in and day out, through receiving the sacraments, making frequent confession and communion.  Entrusting ourselves to our Lady through her rosary.  Developing a daily, weekly, monthly plan for our spiritual life so that we are tending to our relationship with God regularly and with great attention.  That way, whatever might come, we are not caught off guard.  We are prepared.  Let us embrace a spirit of watchfulness and preparation, so that our house may be built on rock, ready to withstand whatever storms might come, and so that our Faith can always be for us a source of joy, comfort, consolation, and most importantly, when all is said and done, eternal life with God.