This Sunday Christ continues to challenge us by His asking in an even deeper way if we really know what it means to be true Disciples of Christ. Do we really know what the Lord asks of us in our daily lives?

The Gospel has Jesus sending some of His followers ahead to a Samaritan village in order to prepare for a celebration while Jesus has His sights on the long-term goal of reaching Jerusalem. The Samaritans and the Jews did not get along at all. Once in the village, the Samaritans reject Jesus’ disciples. James and John are so upset, so maddened, that they want Jesus to reign down fire upon the village and destroy them. Jesus rebukes John and James and quietly moves on. As I was preparing these readings it reminded me of today’s lack of public discourse, how “at odds” everyone seems to be whether you are talking politics, religion, race or even local soccer games. No one is allowed an “opinion” anymore—there simply may not be two sides to an issue—what we used to call diverse opinions. If you don’t agree with the “me”—you are a bigot, a racist with the intent of denying some-one their “right.” James and John were so upset with the Samaritans that their only response was to “wipe them out” with a firestorm. Maybe things haven’t changed all that much over the last 2,000 years?!

But Jesus reacts differently. He sees the Big Pic-ture and rather than get caught up in an argument in Sa-maria, He focuses on the mission ahead: salvation of the whole human race—(and He wants John, James, you and me to understand just what it means to follow Him.) The definition of true discipleship will not be found in a fight with words or fire or military weaponry, but rather in offering compassion and love, in seeing amongst our differ-ences a central reality: we are all children of God. This recognition does not mean that there are no absolute truths in life, or that some people—even good people we might know—have not fallen into “bad” or immoral ways. Re-member Christ’s words of forgiveness and truth: “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11) And the role of a true disciple of Christ is to forgive, offer compassion, and still more—to lead others to the Truth—not falsehoods or even “my mistaken interpretations” of the Truth. On His journey toward Jerusalem Christ and His disciples seem to meet up with others who truly want to follow Him but are too busy, too concerned with the ways of the world to fully connect with Christ. We must not be like them. We cannot become so wrapped-up in the attachments of the world or politics or whatever else may seem all-important so that we lose sight of the real message of discipleship. We will only learn the real mean-ing of following Him by talking to Him, by being one with Him in prayer—both privately and in the community of the Church—and letting Christ speak to us, calling us ever-closer to His Ways.

Prayer can be, for many of us, a difficult thing to practice. Time. Comfort levels. Ritual. Family traditions. Privacy issues. All of these and more are variables that go into praying—or that stop us from daily prayer—daily conversations with God. I remember when I entered the semi-nary and was called before the full chapel to lead my broth-er seminarians in prayer for the first time. Fear was over-whelming—not good for someone on track to be a parish priest. But practice along with building a relationship with God enables one to converse with our Creator. Coming this academic year our parish will embark on a series of pro-grams and events that will enable us all to learn more about prayer and to successfully enter into prayer—prayer for parents, our youth, the struggling teenager or the person in a difficult marriage; the faithful person with doubt, and so much more. We, as a parish, will be “putting out into the deep water” (Luke 5:4) and hopefully finding that comfort-able relationship with God—what a catch that will be