Christian Way of Life : A Call to Discipleship

As a prelude to this article, I wish to commence by referring to the words spoken by the Archbishop of Colombo, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjit during the homily delivered at the 125th Jubilee Mass in St. Anthony's shrine, Dalupotha, Negombo which needs to be reflected upon, wherein he said, "A Christian is a person who journeys with the cross and lives a life according to his or her faith. Christ life was a sacrifice. To be a true follower of Christ is not easy. It is difficult and it is also a sacrifice."

These words, no doubt are based on the words of our Blessed Lord from Sacred Scripture wherein He says, "If anyone wishes to come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. Whoever losses his life for my sake will find it." (Lk 9 : 23 - 24) and in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship "The cross is laid  on every Christian. The first Christian suffering which every man or woman must endure is to hearken  to the call to abandon the attachments and to forsake the values of this world. It is that dying  to that 'old man' which is the result of the encounter with Christ as we embark upon  this journey as disciples of Christ, "we are called to surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death, we give our lives to die in Christ, thus we begin the Way of the Cross in union with the sufferings of Christ.

Christian life is not easy. In the words of Rev. Mother Mary Angelica, the foundress of the Eternal Word Television Network "Heaven does not come cheap, only hell does." Christian life entails a life - long commitment to Agape love as personified in the life of Christ who loved us unconditionally even to the point of enduring an excruciatingly agonising and tortuously cruel and humiliating death on a cross. It was all undertaken lovingly for our salvation without expecting anything in return. It was to show us the way to respond to the call to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect who makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust and Jesus' call on His disciples to love even their enemies and pray for those who persecute them so that you may be children of your Father who is in Heaven (Matthew 5 : 43 - 48).

We as Christians are called to experience perfect Joy in suffering and as exemplified by St. Francis of Asisi by his life he manifested this joy in bearing with the contempt of this world and he pointed out to brother Leo, his confrere  with the exhortation, " Above all the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ gives to  his friends is that of conquering oneself and willingly enduring suffering, insults, humiliations, and hardships for the love of Christ,  for we cannot glory in all the marvelous gift  of God as they are not ours but God's  as the apostle says "what have you that you have not received?" But we can glory in the cross of tribulations and afflictions because that is ours and so the apostle says, "I will not glory save  in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."