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Then
the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus
with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for
something. He said to her, “What do you
wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two
sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your
kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do
not know what you are asking. Can you
drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They said to him,
“We can.”
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“Because
of you,” Kelly Clarkson sings, “I never stray too far from
the sidewalk;
because of you, I learned to play on the safe side, so I don’t
get hurt. Because of you, I find it hard to
trust not
only me, but everyone around me. Because
of you, I am afraid.” She goes on to
speak of how the man in the relationship had weaknesses, and how she
tried to
work with them, but she failed: “I
watched you die,” she sings, “I heard you cry every night
in your sleep. I was so young. You
should have known better than to lean on
me. You never thought of anyone else,
you just saw your pain, and now I cry in the middle of the night for
the same
thing. Because of you, I’m ashamed of
my
life because it’s empty.”
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Kelly Clarkson’s
song "Because of You"
contains the message of a person who has been hurt. The video of
the song tells a story of
marital breakdown that hurts a child. The song does not end with
any type of resolution except that the lady
in the relationship has pain because of the other in the relationship,
while
the video ends with reconciliation.
There are “hurts” in life because of our human natures, and to be sure, sometimes other people cause those “hurts,” as in the song. But the fact is that we can work with the pain. In Matthew's Gospel, the mother of the Apostles James and John knew the pain of this world, and hearing Jesus preach about his kingdom, she asked Jesus to allow her sons to experience the joy of that kingdom rather than the pain of the world. Jesus, turning to James and John, tells them that they have to work with the pain of life. He asks them, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” That is, can you work with the pain that will come about because of your desire for the kingdom? The pain that Jesus was referring to was not only the physical pain of suffering, but it included the psychological pain of change of behavior as well. "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" might be the question: "Can you change the things in your life that are holding you back from a true understanding of what you are doing?" There are pains in our lives, and others cause some of them, but many of them are caused by us--our own feelings, our own wants, our own selfishness. We can work with the pain and eventually conquer it, but it may mean drinking from the cup of change. |
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THOUGHT
What
are the most important changes that people
should make as they grow?
PRAYER Good
and gracious God, your Son challenged us to change our behavior so that
we might embrace the kingdom of
heaven. Help us understand that some of
the hurts that we suffer are caused by our own desires, and help us
accept you
and your Son more into our lives. Be
with us, we pray.
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©2007
Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |