Daily Gospel Reflection
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June 28, 2021
When Jesus saw a crowd around him,
he gave orders to cross to the other shore.
A scribe approached and said to him,
“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
Another of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
But Jesus answered him, “Follow me,
and let the dead bury their dead.”
The disciple who wanted to bury his father is faced with a stark decision. Jesus tells him, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Is the disciple ready to put Jesus above obligations to his own family?
The disciple who wanted to go bury his father most likely did not have a dead body at his home that needed tending. Cultural practices then would not have permitted that. More likely, he had a father who was ill or close to death, and was asking permission to attend to his father until he died, when he would then be free to devote all of his energies to following Jesus.
I can identify with this disciple. Like him, I try to keep my ducks in a row. Because I want to give it my all, it is tempting to put off prayer or reflection or the effort to incorporate virtue into my life until a time when I have more time and energy.
Jesus refutes this logic. The demands of discipleship require immediate and total commitment. In effect, Jesus is saying that discipleship must come before everything else in life, even the commandment to honor our parents.
To make that step to put discipleship first, to put our relationship with Jesus before all else, is the only way to make sense of life. Jesus is the way to God, and following in his steps in all we do puts everything else in order.
Jesus is telling us that the only way to follow him is with all our hearts and minds and strength—to jump in the deep end. Let the dead bury the dead—this is the path to life.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, would I feel a deep sense of loss if you were not part of my life? Let this question filter throughout our thoughts and actions this day. Help us to more faithfully follow you, the Lord of life. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Irenaeus was a bishop who so thoroughly refuted a certain strain of heresy in his region that his words were used throughout the Church to guide the truth that has been handed on to us today.
He was born in 125 and was educated by St. Polycarp, who personally knew and learned from St. John. Irenaeus was sent as a missionary to what is now Lyons, France. Trading routes were leading to the development of that region, and the Church was growing there. Irenaeus was assigned to work as a priest under the bishop, St. Pothinus.
The region fell under a persecution and Irenaeus was chosen to travel to Rome to deliver a letter and speak with the pope about some matter. While he was away, Pothinus was killed, along with many of the other priests who worked with him. Irenaeus stayed in Rome until it was safe, and later he returned to Lyons as its new bishop.
He was bishop there for some 20 years, and expanded the Church in the area. He even spoke the native Celtic dialect instead of his own Greek. Certain deviations of the faith were spreading through the area, and Irenaeus was determined to refute them and guide his flock with the true faith. He learned every variation of the heresy and then explained all of the distorted beliefs in a large work that also described the true faith that came to him from the apostles and is contained in Scripture.
These heresies were from a strain of thought called Gnosticism, which seemed attractive to people because it claimed to offer them secret wisdom that was not available to everyone. Irenaeus said that he was determined to “strip the fox.” His work in defense of the faith spread rapidly and was used everywhere to refute gnostic belief, which was a major threat to the early faith.
It is believed that Irenaeus was martyred, but there is little evidence for this. He died around the year 202, and his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Irenaeus, you defended the early Church from secret sects and ensured the truth of our faith today—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Irenaeus is available for use under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Last accessed March 19, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
