This weekend all of the readings remind us that we are coming quickly to Holy Week…the time that we remember the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The readings offer us a huge challenge. Just as Jesus offered his life for others, we too must LIVE by “dying to self” and by spending our lives giving sacrificial service. This, of course, is not an easy task. It wasn’t easy for Jesus either! The Gospel passage this weekend hints at the inner struggle of Jesus in accepting His impending suffering to save mankind. However, Jesus accepted the cross as his “hour” meaning a kind of stepping stone to his passion, death, resurrection and exaltation. This was the path that Jesus needed to walk in order to glorify his heavenly Father. It is also the way by which he draws all people…that includes you and me… into the saving action of God. So, if we accept our crosses (this doesn’t mean we have to be happy about them!) we will assure our own “glory in the Lord.” Have normal human beings been able to do this? Absolutely…no one perfectly except Jesus, but many have spent their lies totally for others. We know that the world owes much to people who have devoted their time and talents for God and for their fellow human beings. Mother Teresa, for instance, gave up her comfortable teaching career and, with just 17 cents in her pocket, began her challenging life for the ‘poorest of the poor’ in the crowded streets of Calcutta. She became, in the words of the Secretary General of the U.N., “the most powerful woman in the world.” We see similar cases in the history of great saints, scientists and benefactors of mankind in all walks of life. You can be listed among these people if you respond with abandon to God’s call to you to serve your brothers and sisters. In George Bernard Shaw’s play St. Joan, which is about Joan of Arc, Joan tells of hearing God’s messages. She is talking to King Charles. Charles doesn’t appreciate this crazy lady in armor who insists on leading armies. He’s threatened by her. He says, “Oh, your voices, your voices, always your voices. Why don’t the voices come to me? I am king, not you.” Joan replies, “They do come to you, but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the field in the evening listening for them. When the Angelus rings . . . you cross yourself and are done with it. But, if you prayed from your heart and listened to the trilling of the bells in the air after they stop ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.” Joan heard the voice of God; the king, if he heard anything at all, heard only thunder. Why? Because she was listening for that voice. Some people are so disconnected from God that they never hear God’s voice as described in today’s Gospel. GOSPEL QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Are you listening intently for the voice of God to reveal to you what He has in mind for YOU?