Gospel Reading :Luke 9:57-62
As they were going along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”
To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But he said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
What do the Fathers say?
St CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Although the Almighty Lord is bountiful, He does not grant to every one absolutely and indiscriminately heavenly and divine gifts, but to those only who are worthy to receive them, who free themselves and their souls from the stains of wickedness.
As St Paul says, No one takes the honour upon himself but he that is called by God. (Heb. 5:4.)
St ATHANASIUS. He dared also to match himself with the incomprehensible power of the Saviour, saying, “I will follow you wherever you go.”; for to follow the Saviour simply to hear His teaching is possible to human nature, as it directs itself towards men, but it is not possible to go with Him wherever He is; for He is incomprehensible, and is not confined by place.
St CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. In another respect also our Lord deservedly gives him a refusal, for He taught that to follow the Lord, a man must take up his cross, and renounce the affection of this present life. And our Lord finding this lacking in him does not blame him, but corrects him.
St AMBROSE. And Jesus said, Let the dead bury their dead. Since we have received as a religious duty the burial of the human body, how is it that the burial even of a father’s dead body is forbidden, unless you are to understand that human things are to be postponed in favour of the divine? It is a good deed, but the hindrance is greater, for he who divides his pursuits, draws down his affections; he who divides his care, delays his advancement. We must first set about the things which are most important. For the Apostles also, so that they might not be occupied in the office of distributing alms, ordained ministers for the poor.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. But what more necessary than the burial of his father, what more easy, seeing that there would not be much time given to it?
We are then hereby taught that it becomes us not to spend even the slightest portion of our time in vain, although we have a thousand things to compel us, we must prefer spiritual things to even our greatest necessities.
For the devil watchfully presses close upon us, wishing to find any opening, and if he causes a slight negligence, he ends in producing a great weakness.
St AMBROSE. The performance of a father’s burial is not then prohibited, but the observance of religious duty is preferred to the ties of relationship. The one is left to those in like condition, the other is commanded to those who are left. But how can the dead bury the dead? unless you here understand a twofold death, one a natural death, the other the death of sin. (Rom. 9:11.) There is also a third death, by which we die unto sin, live unto God.
St CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Or else, his father was borne down with years, and he thought he was doing an honourable act in proposing to pay the kind offices which were due to him, according to Exodus, Honour thy father and thy mother. (Exod. 20:12.) Hence when calling him to the ministry of the Gospel, our Lord said, Follow me, he sought for a time of respite, which should suffice for the support of his decrepit father, saying, Permit me first to go and bury my father, not that he asked to bury his deceased father, for Christ would not have hindered the wish to do this, but he said, Bury, that is, support in old age even till death. But the Lord said to him, Let the dead bury their dead. For there were other attendants also bound by the same tie of relationship, but as I consider dead, because they had not yet believed Christ.
Learn from this, that our duty to God is to be preferred to our love for our parents, to whom we show reverence, because through them have we been born. But the God of all, when as yet we were not, brought us into being, our parents were made the ministers of our introduction.
The Venerable BEDE.: To put one’s hand to the plough, is also, to wear away the hardness of our heart, and to open it to bring forth the fruits of good works. But if any one, having begun to exercise this, delights to look back with Lot’s wife to the things which he had left, he is deprived of the gift of the kingdom to come.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from :
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
Artwork ex Wikimedia Commons