Foreign Today we read the Gospel from the Thursday after Ash Wednesday. It is from Luke 9th chapter 22, 25th verse. Jesus said to his disciples, the Son of man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be be raised. Then he said to them, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit himself? Jesus had something authenticity, integrity. He was exactly who he was. And we as humans fall into a trap we might call the Persona. Putting on a way of being, a way of being seen that we feel will make us more attractive or perhaps less attractive or less talented goes in both directions. So let us ponder on this image of what it means to find your true self and to be connected to it with an intention that goes to our core.

And through that intention we resonate a kind of power to the world. The closing prayer Free us from any kind of limitation that keeps us from truly entering into who we are and using it as you intended it to be used to bring life to others. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.