Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thừ Tư Tuần 31 Thường Niên.

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thừ Tư Tuần 31 Thường Niên. Luke 14:25-33
Trong bài Tin Mừng hôm nay Chúa Giêsu nêu rõ cho chúng ta thấy ba điều kiện để trở thành môn đệ của Ngài.
Trước hết: mối quan tâm chính cho cuộc sống cho những ai muốn làm môn đệ của Chúa:
-  Mối quan hệ với gia đình, người thân và thậm chí mối quan tâm đến chính cuộc sống riêng của chính mình được coi là thứ yếu. Chữ ghét ' ở đây được sử dụng như một cách so sánh của tiếng Do Thái để thể hiện sở thích.(“Thích” là thích nhiều còn “ghét” là thích nhưng ít hơn). Có nghĩa là mối quan hệ giữ chúng ta và gia đình đứng thứ hai sau mối quan hệ với Chúa Giêsu. Điều này là một sự cam kết tuyệt đối đến Nước Trời, ngay cả khi chúng ta phải liều mạng chịu chết trong cuộc tử đạo bởi mà không cói suy tính được thua thiệt cho chính bản than mình.
- Thứ hai, (V 27)  là vác thập giá của chúng ta mà theo Chúa Giêsu . Cây thập giá "là một biểu tượng của sự cùng cực, nhục nhã, tự hy sinh  mà những người theo Chúa Giê-su đặt kỳ vọng và chấp nhận số phận giống như Chúa Giêsu Kitô.
- Thứ ba ( v33 ) là sự từ bỏ triệt để tất cả của cải vật chất của chúng ta. Một môn đệ của Đức Kitô cần đánh giá tất cả các nguồn lực tài nguyên của mình trước khi theo Chúa Giêsu . Tuy nhiên, các nguồn lực vật chất thế gian, thì không thể nào là các nguồn lực thực sự cho các môn đệ của Chúa Giêsu, do đó phải từ bỏ .
            Như vậy, để theo Chúa Giêsu chúng ta đòi hỏi phải làm một quyết định dứt khoát và đớn đau. Có nghĩa là chúng ta phải loại bỏ tất cả những chướng ngại vật chất, cũng như tinh thần để làm môn đệ đích thực của Chúa. Theo Chúa Giêsu là một sự lựa chọn và phải được thực hiện với những suy nghĩ chính chắn, trưởng thành vi quyết định này sẽ có ảnh hưởng đến cả cuộc sống của chúng ta. Trên hết tất cả, vai trò môn đệ liên quan đến hành động trong tình yêu chân thành, và tuyệt hảo của Chúa Kitô và những người khác. Điều này thực sự đã được xác định trong bài đọc thứ nhất hôm nay: Trong tất cả mọi thứ, tình yêu phải là điều kiện duy nhất .  Lạy Chúa, xin giúp chúng con biết yêu thương giống như Chúa và làm tất cả mọi thứ chỉ vì tình yêu vẹn toàn của Chúa.
 
Wednesday 31^st Ordinary Time Rom. 13:8-10;  Lk. 14:25-33
Today’s Gospel reading spells out clearly the three conditions for discipleship.
The first (v26) is to make discipleship the key concern in life. Relationship with family, relatives and even concern for one’s own life are to be considered as secondary. The word ‘hate’ here is used in a Semitic way for expressing preferences. It means to make family relationship secondary to following Jesus. This is an absolute commitment to the kingdom — even to risk one’s life in martyrdom for there is no compromise.
     The second (v27) is to bear one’s own cross and come after Jesus. The ‘cross’ is a symbol of the extreme humiliating self-sacrifice that is expected of Jesus’ followers and to accept the same fate as Jesus.
     The third (v33) is the radical renunciation of all one’s possessions. A disciple of Christ should assess all his resources before following Jesus. However, the material resources are in no way the real resources for discipleship, thus to be renounced.      As such, to follow Jesus entails painful decisions. All obstacles to discipleship ought to be removed. To follow Jesus is a choice and it has to be made with mature deliberation and should affect our entire lives. Above all, discipleship involves a perfect act of love for Christ and others. This is so truly affirmed in the first reading that in all things, love must be the only condition.  Lord, help us to love like You and to do all things out of pure love of You.
 
Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time 2026
Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Luke 14:25–27
In today’s Gospel, Jesus lays down the interior dispositions required for true discipleship. He then says three times that those who fail to meet these conditions “cannot be my disciple.” This passage is part of Luke’s “Travel Narrative,” which spans nearly ten chapters and includes radical teachings and miraculous signs as Jesus makes His way from Galilee to Jerusalem. This journey is not only geographical but deeply symbolic, representing the path of self-denial, sacrificial love, and ultimate glory to which all followers of Christ are called.
The first condition is especially striking and perhaps even scandalous if not properly understood: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” In Jewish culture of the time, to “hate” referred to preference, not to emotional hostility toward family or self. Jesus is teaching that love of God must take precedence over every earthly attachment, even the most intimate ones because it is the only source of love of neighbor.
This is clearer in a parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Jesus is calling for an ordering of loves, not their destruction. He must be loved first and above all, and all other relationships must be embraced in reference to that primary love of Him. This teaching does not devalue family or self, but places them in their proper context, transforming natural affection into supernatural charity. It is a call not to lesser love, but to a greater, purified love that flows from God and returns to Him, sharing God’s love with others, which ultimately is the sole source of true unity and communal happiness.
Jesus then adds the second condition of discipleship: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” To carry the cross is to embrace the sufferings, sacrifices, and persecutions that come with faithful obedience to God’s will. In Jesus’ day, the thought of a man carrying a cross—the instrument of his own execution—was terrifying. Today, Christ’s Cross is elevated and glorified in our churches and devotional life, so it is less frightening to us, until we are called to carry it. For us, carrying the Cross is a call to renounce sin, endure mockery, forgive enemies, and remain faithful in difficulty. It’s a call to proclaim with Saint Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
The third condition is that we must count the cost before choosing to follow Christ. Jesus offers two parables to make this point. The first is about a man who wishes to build a tower but does not first sit down and calculate whether he has enough resources to complete it. If he lays the foundation and cannot finish, he will be ridiculed for beginning something he was unable to complete. In the second parable, a king plans to go to war but first considers whether his ten thousand troops can defeat an enemy with twenty thousand. If not, he wisely seeks terms for peace before the conflict begins. Both parables underscore the need for deliberate, thoughtful commitment to the path of discipleship. Following Christ requires not only initial zeal based on emotion, but endurance, perseverance, and a willingness to sacrifice all.
Reflect today on the radical demands that true discipleship places upon us. Being a disciple of Christ does not mean that life becomes easy or that we are universally loved in a merely emotional sense. It means that our eyes are forever fixed on Christ as the one and only source of grace, salvation, and charity for others. Are your eyes fixed on Christ, especially as He carries His Cross? Are you willing to take up that same Cross in your life and allow Jesus to carry His Cross in you, all the way to Calvary? Pray for the grace to understand and embrace an authentic discipleship that moves beyond feelings and resolutely chooses the sacrificial love to which we are all called.
My sacrificial Lord, You call Your disciples to love You above all, so that we may fully share in Your journey to Jerusalem, laying down our lives with You and in You—for ourselves and for others. Please live in me and grant me the grace I need to take up my cross and follow You, never counting the cost, but journeying with You into the depths of pure and holy sacrificial love. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Wednesday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time 2026
Opening Prayer: Lord God, your eternal plan of creation and salvation is truly awesome. You did not abandon us when we sinned against you, but sent your Son to save us and teach us how to be reconciled with you and live with you forever. Grant us the grace to love you above all things, embrace our crosses, and surrender whatever prevents us from following Christ wholeheartedly.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Love God above All Things: Today’s Gospel contains three conditions for discipleship. The passage opens with a Jewish idiomatic expression that contrasts hatred and love. To “hate” in this instance does not mean to scorn or despise someone, but to love less in comparison. Jesus teaches that we must not love our parents, our spouse, our children, our siblings, or even our own lives more than we love God the Father, his Son, and his Spirit. The first and greatest commandment is to love God above all things, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. To be Jesus’ disciples means committing ourselves to him above every other attachment. This does not mean neglecting our families or failing to love them. Rather, we must love them in the right order, recognizing that God is the source of every authentic love. When family expectations, personal ambitions, or our desire for comfort conflict with the will of God, we must choose Christ. Paradoxically, loving God first enables us to love others more faithfully, because we learn to love them according to his wisdom and goodness.
2. Take Up Your Cross: The second condition for discipleship is to carry our cross and follow Jesus. Discipleship is not simply admiring Christ’s teaching or enjoying the blessings that come from belonging to him. It requires us to follow him along the road that leads through suffering and death to resurrection and glory. Jesus does not promise that following him will spare us from hardship. Faithfulness may require us to endure rejection, sacrifice our preferences, resist temptation, forgive those who have hurt us, or remain committed to doing what is right when doing so is costly. Carrying our cross means accepting the sacrifices that fidelity to Christ demands rather than abandoning him when discipleship becomes difficult. We must also distinguish between carrying our cross and simply enduring every hardship without seeking help. Jesus calls us to embrace the sacrifices involved in following him, not to seek suffering for its own sake or tolerate injustice when it can rightly be opposed. Our cross is the cost of faithful love, obedience, and service. Christ himself shows us how to carry it. He did not turn away from the Father's will when obedience led to Calvary. By following his example, we learn that suffering accepted in love need not be meaningless. United with Christ, even our sacrifices can become a participation in his self-giving love and prepare us to share in his resurrection.
3. Renounce All Your Possessions: The third condition for discipleship is to renounce all our possessions (Luke 14:33). Jesus illustrates the seriousness of this commitment with two parables. The first concerns someone who wishes to build a tower and must determine whether he has sufficient resources to complete it. The second concerns a king who must decide whether his army is strong enough to face an approaching enemy. Both must consider the cost before undertaking a demanding task. At first, the parables might seem to suggest that we should accumulate the resources necessary to become Jesus’ disciples. Yet Jesus concludes by saying that everyone who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be his disciple. The apparent tension invites us to consider what we truly need to complete the work of discipleship and win the battle for eternal life. The builder must have sufficient resources to finish the tower he begins. In the spiritual life, we must persevere in the grace of God rather than begin enthusiastically and abandon our commitment when difficulties arise. The king, meanwhile, must recognize the strength of his opponent and determine how to respond. We face a spiritual struggle against sin, temptation, and everything that draws us away from God. We cannot win this battle through our own strength alone; we need God’s grace and must be willing to surrender whatever obstructs our fidelity to him. The two parables thus invite us to examine both our resources and our attachments. What do we need to complete the work of becoming holy? Faith, prayer, the sacraments, perseverance, and the help of God’s people sustain us along the way. What might prevent us from succeeding? An excessive attachment to wealth, possessions, status, comfort, or independence can divide our hearts and keep us from placing ourselves entirely at God’s disposal. Renouncing our possessions does not necessarily mean that every Christian must literally give away everything. Jesus does, however, demand a freedom from possessiveness that allows us to put everything we own at the service of God’s kingdom. We must be willing to give away our wealth when charity requires it, surrender our plans when obedience demands it, and relinquish our sense of security when God calls us to trust him. Even legitimate possessions become obstacles when we treat them as more important than following Christ. The builder and the king must make difficult decisions before their undertakings can succeed. Likewise, discipleship requires us to decide in advance that nothing will take precedence over Christ. We cannot follow him wholeheartedly while reserving the right to refuse him whenever obedience becomes inconvenient. Renouncing all our possessions means placing everything – our material goods, our talents, our relationships, our ambitions, and our future – under his lordship. Ultimately, the question is not simply how much we own, but whether what we own has begun to own us. The two parables challenge us to count the cost of discipleship honestly. Are we prepared to persevere in the work Christ has begun in us? Are we willing to surrender whatever prevents us from remaining faithful? Only by placing everything at his disposal can we follow him without reservation and attain the eternal life for which we were created.
 
Wednesday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time
Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  Luke 14:25–26
After this startling opening line from our Lord, Jesus concludes today’s Gospel by saying, “In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” Thus, at first read it appears that we are called to not only renounce all we possess but also to hate those within our own family. But is this truly what our Lord means? Let’s begin with the idea of “hating” those within our family and even our own life. Obviously, the word “hate” in this Gospel passage is not the same as the sin of hate and anger. In commenting on this passage, one Church Father explains that there are some cases when the best way to love another is through a form of hate. That is, if another were to act as an obstacle to God, working to deter us from the will of our Lord, then our “hatred” for the actions they do must be firmly expressed. But this is love. A refusal to turn from God, by rejecting another’s disordered actions, is a way of sharing the Gospel with them. Let’s take an extreme example.
Imagine that you lived at a time and circumstance where being a Christian was a crime. You were arrested and commanded to publicly renounce your faith. Instead, you renounced that command with every strength of your soul. In this case, you exercise a form of holy “hate” for the persecution the person is imposing upon you. But that is also an act of love toward them as you fully reject their action by renouncing their command.
Or consider also how you hate even your “own life.” Let’s say that you fall into serious sin, over and over. The appropriate response is not only to repent but also to have a form of holy hatred for the habit into which you have fallen. This is a true hatred for yourself in the sense that it is a hatred for that which you have become by your sin. But this holy hatred has the ultimate goal of passionately overcoming your sin and is therefore a true act of love for yourself.
The concluding line of today’s Gospel mentioned above calls us to renounce all of our possessions. In other words, we must renounce anything that we are attached to in a way that is contrary to the will of God. Of course, in God’s providence most people (except those who take a vow of poverty) are invited by God to have various possessions so as to meet the material needs of life. But even in this case, we must “renounce” all that we possess, meaning, we must not allow ourselves to become attached to anything other than God. But this is freedom in the truest sense. Even if you have many things, it must be understood that those things do not make you happy. Only God and His will can fulfill you. Nothing else. Thus, we must learn to live as if God and God alone suffices. And if it is God’s will that you obtain a house, car, computer, television and other modern conveniences, then so be it. But true “renunciation” of all of these possessions simply means that if at any time you were to lose them, then this would be fine. Therein is perfect detachment. The loss of something material would not deter you in any way from loving and serving God and His holy will.
Reflect, today, upon these radical words of Jesus. Try to hear them in the way our Lord meant them. Work to be detached from everything that is contrary to the will of God and everything that becomes an obstacle to God in your life. In the end, possessing God alone is more than you could ever hope for. And only if you fully possess our merciful God will you be able to love yourself and others with the pure heart and love of Jesus our Lord.
My demanding Lord, You call us all to a life of radical holiness. You desire that I come to love You above all with all my heart. Please give me the grace and wisdom I need to renounce all that is an obstacle to my love and service of You. May You and You alone be glorified in my life. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Wednesday 31^st Ordinary Time 2025
Opening Prayer: Lord God, your eternal plan of creation and salvation is truly awesome. You did not abandon us when we sinned against you, but sent your Son to save us and teach us how to be reconciled with you and live with you forever.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Three Conditions for Discipleship: The Gospel passage opens with a Jewish idiomatic term that contrasts hate and love. To “hate,” in this instance, does not mean to scorn, but means to “love less.” Jesus teaches that we should not love our parents, our spouse, our children, our siblings, or even our own life more than God the Father, his Son, and his Spirit. The first and greatest commandment is to love God above all things. The second commandment is to love our neighbor. To be Jesus’ disciples means first being committed to him more than our family attachments. The second condition to be Jesus’ disciple is to take up our cross and follow him. The third condition is to renounce all our possessions (Luke 14:33). This third condition requires serious deliberation and is illustrated with two parables. The first parable is about building a tower and discerning, like a good builder, whether or not you have sufficient resources to bring the project to completion. The second parable is about marching into battle and discerning, like a good king, whether or not you have sufficient troops to be successful in battle. What are the resources I need to attain the goal of eternal life? What are the troops I need to attain victory in the battle of life?
2. Love One Another: In the Letter to the Romans, Paul continues in Chapter 13 to offer practical instruction on Christian living. In Chapter 12, “Paul outlined the believer’s responsibility to love sincerely and to leave the avenging of personal wrongs to the Lord. He takes up the same themes in chapter 13, but now he moves beyond the confines of private life into the public arena. Private justice for personal injuries is not an option for disciples of Jesus. However, it is the business of God, who not only keeps account for the final judgment, but who also confers on legitimate government the authority to punish criminal behavior. In view of this arrangement, Christians must submit to civil authorities and their laws (13:1-7), just as they submit to God and his laws by the exercise of love (13:8-10). Paul finishes the chapter with an appeal to Christians to live in the daylight of gospel morality amid the darkness of a sinful world (13:11-14) (Hahn and Mitch, Romans, 226). Love has a primacy in the Christian life.
3. Love is the Fulfillment of the Law: The purpose of God’s law was to teach his people how to love. The 613 precepts in the Torah contained laws given by God and some laws given by Moses. They didn’t have equal weight. And the Scholars of the Law debated which law was the greatest and the foundation, so to speak, of all the other laws. Jesus and Paul agree that the law of love is the greatest. Thus, the law of the Old Covenant and the gospel of the New Covenant direct God’s people to the same goal: the vocation to love. Obedience to God’s law in the New Covenant, however, no longer depends on sheer human effort alone. Believers in Christ are offered the gifts of grace and the Holy Spirit, which empower them to fulfill the law of love.