2026/06/28 SCRIPTURE REFLECTION

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

- Joanna Krynski, Communications Manager

I admit, I find the beginning of this Gospel to be challenging to digest. Jesus' words seem to draw a line through some of the most sacred human relationships: parents and children. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

As a parent, I find myself resisting the passage. How could my deep, unconditional love for my children diminish my relationship with Jesus? Family is often the first place where we learn trust, sacrifice, and belonging. Against this backdrop, Jesus' words can sound jarring, as though divine love demands a rival to earthly love.

Yet the longer I sit with this passage, the more I discern that Jesus is not asking us to love our families less, but to love God first so that we can love our families rightly. Every parent knows the temptation to protect, direct, and hold on. We want to spare our children from disappointment, shape their choices, and keep them close. But love is not ownership. The deepest love ultimately releases rather than clings.

While Jesus speaks specifically about parents and children, perhaps the deeper question is not whom we love, but what we cling to. What am I unwilling to place in God's hands? Where do I resist surrender, preferring certainty and control to trust?

Perhaps this is what Jesus means when he speaks of taking up our cross and losing our life in order to find it. The life we "lose" may be the smaller self that seeks to hold tightly to its own plans, preferences, and sense of security. The cross can take many forms: trusting a child to follow a path we would not choose, accepting that those we love belong first to God and not to us, or surrendering our own plans when God calls us elsewhere.

What strikes me is that after speaking of crosses, sacrifice, and surrender, Jesus ends with welcome. A prophet, a righteous person, even someone in need of a simple cup of cold water is to be received with generosity. The path of discipleship is not only about what we surrender; it is also about the love we extend. When God becomes the source and center of our lives, our love for others does not shrink. It expands.

I still don’t love the sharp phrasing in the first part of the Gospel. Yet perhaps that discomfort is part of the invitation to reflect further. Jesus is not setting God against family. Rather, he is reminding us that every human love points beyond itself. The love of a parent for a child is powerful precisely because it reflects something larger and more enduring. Like sunlight streaming through a stained-glass window, it is beautiful not because it originates in the glass, but because it comes from a deeper source.