Today's Gospel has Jesus telling us that "unless you hate father, mother, wife, children and your very life" you cannot be his disciple. Hate is a strong word. The homily given by an Indian priest helped me to realize what Jesus meant. Since we are following tennis these days, he said that whenever Serena and Venus play each other, there is a moment of "hate" in the sense that they want to win badly and are going after the other with intensity and no love is evident at that moment. As soon as one wins, they are able to show their love for each other. The idea is that when Jesus calls, one puts everything else in second place. In the same Sunday Gospel Jesus tells us that each must take up his or her own cross and follow him or we cannot be his disciples. Then, a third time he tells us again that we cannot be his disciples if we do not give up all possessions. I think that Jesus is emphasizing the the Kingdom of God comes first and we follow him without clinging to anything.
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