I want to tell you the stories of two different actors, one you’ve probably heard of and one you probably haven’t heard of. If you were alive and watching movies in the 80’s and 90’s, you’ve probably heard of Rick Moranis. He starred in such popular movies as “Ghostbusters,” “Spaceballs,” and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” You may have noticed that during the mid-90’s Rick seemed to disappear. This was intentional. Rick decided to step away from acting in the mid-90’s after his wife Becky passed away. He and Becky had two young children, Mitchell and Rachel, and Rick decided that raising them was the most important thing in his life. He said, “I’m a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage to raise my kids and to do the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it.”
The other actor I want to tell you about is named Eduardo Verástegui. While you may never have heard of him, you have probably heard of the movie in which he recently appeared: “The Sound of Freedom.” Eduardo grew up in a Catholic family in Mexico and got into acting through soap operas. Before taking on the starring role in an American comedy entitled “Chasing Papi,” Verastegui was taking language lessons to improve his English pronunciation. His tutor happened to be a serious Catholic, who impressed Verastegui so much that he decided to start living his own faith more deeply by refusing to take any roles that conflicted with Catholic teaching. This decision undoubtedly cost him many roles in Hollywood, but also allowed him to connect with people in the industry who were interested in telling stories of virtue. Eduardo ended up starring in the film “Bella” in the early 2000’s, which told a powerful story of friendship that inspired a mother to choose life for her unborn baby. “Sound of Freedom,” his most recent movie, shines a light on the scourge of human trafficking of children.
Both of these men are examples of letting a deeper love be the foundation of their lives. It would have been easy for Rick Moranis to hire a nanny to watch his kids while he continued to act, but he realized that his most important role wasn’t on the screen, but in his home as a father. The love of his kids took precedence over his love of acting. Similarly, Eduardo, while staying in the industry, chose to limit his opportunities in order to stay true to his love for Jesus and the Church. Because of this, he has been able to choose roles and stories that have a profound impact because they are founded in the Truth. He has allowed the love of Jesus to guide his love of acting and movie-making.
Jesus in the Gospel today lays down a challenge for Peter and all of us who embark on the adventure of following him. Last week, we got to see Peter at a high point, leaning into the power of the Holy Spirit to declare Jesus as the Christ. Then the Lord tells him that he will be the rock on which He builds His church. Amazing! Today we get to see what happens immediately after that. Jesus starts to speak to them about His coming suffering, death and resurrection, and Peter immediately falls on his face. He pulls Jesus aside and tries to correct Him that He should not have to suffer. But Jesus, in His usual forceful way, sets Peter straight: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” The word ‘satan’ in Hebrew means enemy, so by trying to persuade Jesus away from His willingness to suffer, Peter is making himself an enemy of Jesus. Peter’s moment of weakness affords Jesus the opportunity to tell all of His disciples, us included, what the true cost of discipleship is, what it will cost to follow Him: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
The path of discipleship is a hard one, but worth it. When Jesus bore the weight of the cross, He wasn’t just undergoing extreme physical pain. The real pain He shouldered was the weight of all our sins. He willingly accepted that weight because of His incredible love. It was the infinite love burning in His heart that enabled Him to bear the cross and then give up His life in payment for the debt of sin that we could never repay on our own. For us, following Jesus means bearing the suffering that God allows in our own life and allowing His love in us to be our strength. The foundation of everything has to be His love. If it isn’t, we risk becoming what Peter was in that moment: an enemy of God.
In our sin, we turn away from God’s infinite love as our foundation and try to build on other foundations. Sometimes we try to build on the foundation of our love of things: money, success, reputation or any other worldly thing. But ultimately, this leaves us empty, as the love of these things leaves our heart constantly frustrated. We weren’t made to stand on them as our foundation.
Other times when we try to build our foundation on other people, this too eventually fails. Other people are not meant to bear the full weight of our humanity, and we see what happens when people make other people their idols. When spouses make each other their idol, many times this ends in deep unhappiness. When parents make their kids their idol, this leads to all kinds of disorders as those kids become adults.
But the love of God is our firm foundation. Jesus doesn’t just tell us to pick up our cross, but first to deny ourselves, then pick up our cross and follow Him. So the first step is to realize that our own capacities are limited, so we have to deny ourselves and rely on Jesus. Then He helps us pick up our Cross, not in isolation, but in community with others following in His path. When we follow Him, we find that His abundant love burns in our hearts, giving us the strength to bear the crosses He has allowed in our lives. This is the paradox of finding our life by first losing it. When we offer up all of our other loves for the sake of His love, we receive them back to enjoy as a gift and we gain the strength to live as He has called us. Both Rick Moranis and Eduardo Verastegui found their lives by spending them for the sake of greater loves. Did they miss out on things the world would say are important? Yes. But they gained much more than they lost. The ultimate call for us is to build our life on the foundation of the love of God poured out for us through Jesus’ cross, to lose the false life built on crumbling foundations in order to gain the eternal life built on the foundation of God’s love! Surrendering to His love daily allows us to bear those crosses in our lives, and through them, truly live by journeying toward Heaven.
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for inviting us to find our lives by giving them to You and Your love. Jesus thank you for pouring out Your love on the Cross so that we might share in its power as we embrace our crosses. Holy Spirit, strengthen our hearts to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus today. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +