Raising a gaggle of children in this day and age seems impossibly hard. The way of things right now is so anti-family and anti-virtue and (oftentimes) even anti-common sense that it’s a wonder we all don’t just up and move to a hidden valley and start growing our own food and living off-grid. It’s a wonder.

But then again, would it be any easier? The way of Christ is riddled with crosses and contradictions. It is a hard road. As the disciples claim in the Gospel today, This saying is hard, who can accept it? They are talking about Christ’s claim that to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. While we may not fully comprehend the mystery surrounding the doctrine of Transubstantiation, we at least have a small understanding of the Eucharist. And so we can relate the disciples’ grumblings to a myriad of other examples. 

How about that second reading? That may be a bit grating on the ears. Wives be submissive to your husbands as to the Lord. As to the Lord? That seems a bit much. And yet, we’ve heard this a million times—that our husbands must love us the way Christ loves the Church. He died for the Church. So our husbands must die to themselves for us. That’s not easy for them to hear either. So, what to do with all of this hard?

First, we need to look to the second reading where it says that in a marriage the two become one flesh. So all of this submission and dying to self and sacrifice is done together. One flesh. We are one, and we live and love and suffer as one. 

Secondly, we have a choice to make. In the first reading Joshua states, If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve. What a heavy decision. Our answer hangs in the balance. Whom will we serve? This God of the cross, of dying to self, of love and mercy and goodness and truth? Will we decide to taste and see the goodness of the Lord as it says in the psalm today? Or will we serve ourselves, just ourselves, in all of our sin and brokenness? 

May we always have the courage to live out in faith, and at every moment of every day, declare, As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.