Ostium Catholic

Nahum's oracle stands at the end of a city's history as the prophetic verdict on what accumulation produces. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria - the empire that scattered the northern tribes of Israel. It controlled more territory, more wealth, and more military force than almost anything in the ancient world. Woe to the bloody city, full of lies - stripped, abandoned, corpses. The principle that more is more, held to its conclusion, arrived at nothing that lasted.

Deuteronomy's poetic voice from Moses: see now that I alone am God. I kill and I make alive. No other power outlasts the one who made everything. The structures that look permanent from inside the accumulation look like rubble from outside it.

This is the context in which Jesus makes the statement he makes: whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. He has just told his disciples he is going to Jerusalem to die. He is describing what he himself is about to do, and asking whether they will follow.

The early adult years in a culture organized around accumulation - credentials, experiences, options kept open, the self preserved against premature commitment - carry their own version of the Nineveh temptation. Not evil, just organized around the wrong mechanics. The question is whether the life being built is one of following or one of saving, and whether those feel as different as they are.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow. The cross that is yours is probably not dramatic. It is probably the specific daily cost of doing what you know is right in the situation you are already in.

What is the specific cross you have been finding ways to avoid? Not a hypothetical one - the actual one in your life right now. Name it. Then take it up today and walk one step further in the direction you know you are supposed to be going.

Lord, I know what the cross is. I have been looking for a way around it. Help me pick it up. The finding is worth the losing. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. Amen.