THURSDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY - Deut 30:15-20; Luke 9:22-25

Many of us desire success, health, happiness, a good family and even God.  However, as Moses says in today's first reading, whatever we choose to desire, we ultimately are left with just two choices-- "life and prosperity [or] death and doom."  I imagine most of us wish to choose "life and prosperity."  But how, exactly, can this be done?  In today's Gospel reading, Jesus tells us precisely how it can be done:  we must deny ourselves, take up our cross an follow him.  Jesus does not simply say to us that we "can" or that we "could" do so, but that we "must" in order to be with him -- there is no other option.  And all of those smaller "musts" in life, even if we despise them, help us to do so.

Luckily, we are not alone.  Like us, Jesus had a desire: to save us.  Like us, he had to "suffer greatly and be rejected." Like us, he had to deny himself.

And the beauty is that he did all of this for us.