Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Luke (14: 25-33), in which Jesus says,’ whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’.

In this gospel Jesus does not pull his punches, and here he delivers a series of devastating body-blows to anyone who is looking for easy discipleship. All through this journey up to Jesus’ own death at Jerusalem the cost of discipleship has been a recurrent theme and so there is no doubt about the absolute demands made on the disciple. When Jesus made these demands, he knew what lay ahead of him, and was only asking his disciples to follow his own course.

So, we too must count the cost before beginning to build the tower. Many of us have already started to build the tower. Despite the demands we have started to try and be a disciple.

Therefore, today we might pray for the courage and loyalty to continue to be a disciple.