What is involved in being a disciple? Love of Jesus. That love will grow. Just as love in friendship or marriage, or love of children, that grows over time, our love of Jesus grows. It also involves obedience to his teaching as best we can. We fail many times, but we keep walking with him. Jesus says that no one can be a disciple without renouncing all his possessions. That’s a little disconcerting if we take it only at the materialistic level. St Francis lived that life of complete physical renunciation; he didn’t own anything. But that’s only one reflection of the meaning of this call to renounce all our possessions. Of course there is a material aspect to it. It will be difficult to be a disciple of Jesus and be a full-blown consumer who thinks of nothing except owning things, buying things, shopping. If that’s the only thing in our life or that’s the main priority of our life or the main way we use our leisure time as consumers, it would affect our discipleship. Or if we had more than enough and we wouldn’t share it with the poor, with those who needed it, then that would also affect our discipleship. We would be possessive, miserly.
( Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 1: Discipleship, by Laurence Freeman )
