Main news for 3 October 2009

As always with Jesus, it is said paradoxically. And even shockingly for the listeners. Does He really want us to part with all our relatives and abandon them for the sake of His Kingdom, in which He promises us a larger number of children, brothers and sisters, wives, and parents? By the way, why would we need more parents?

No; whatever else may be said, Jesus did not say foolish things. He wants to draw us out of our complacency, out of the thought that everything is normal with us: we have families, relatives who love us, children who will continue us... He wants to say that all this is only a shadow of what can be, that all our relationships built by ourselves are weak and short-lived. But if we give up these our relationships for the sake of God's Kingdom, for the sake of His headship among us, for the sake of those relationships that He can build between us, then we will not only avoid losing all these neighbors of ours, but will truly gain them. Then we will truly love one another, not possess one another. And what arises between us here, "in this time," will no longer be subject to time and death, but will pass with us into eternal life.