"None of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns."

Today's Gospel reading is very challenging as Jesus lays down the criterion for being his true disciple. Jesus says "unless one hates his father and mother he does not become my true disciple", but we should not take this in a literal sense. Jesus is not teaching us to hate our parents. These words of Jesus must be interpreted with a great caution. They need to be understood in the spirit of the Gospel. By telling us to hate our father and mother, Jesus means that we should love God more than our kith and kin and all that is dear to us, our wealth, relations, and so on. There should not be any hindrance between us and God. We should solely and totally make God our only belonging and nothing else should divert our heart and mind from God. Our relationship with God and commitment to Him must take precedence over any other priority in our lives. Only then will we be able to be called true disciples of Christ.

Becoming a disciple of Jesus is a challenging task. Jesus invites us to follow him radically in our daily lives.