Addiction

A paraphrased version of Matthew16:24-25, from today's Gospel reading, inspired by real life struggles, based on the Douay-Rheims translation because I believe it's the next best thing to reading Scripture in her original tongue:

If any man will come after me, let him deny his addictions, and take them up as his cross, and follow me. For he that will cling to his past hoping to save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose the life he knows for my sake, shall find it.

Almost 19 years ago, I wrote a post about today's Old Testament reading, You seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced. Every time this reading comes up at Mass, I am reminded if that old post. It's always held a special place in my heart, as I still appreciate the translation "seduced" as one who is familiar with seductions I know that a small voice within those moments is God drawing me to heaven. The apparent path is to use my body as a sacrifice, down a path of cynicism and despair, eventually to death. The temptation is to fight, deny, and abandon that person by the roadside. But in taking up my ugliness, embracing it, and taking it upon myself - this is finding a new path, offering my body as a living sacrifice, a spiritual worship.