29 receive a hundred times more, including persecutions (see: Mk 10, 28-30). To James and John who directly requested to be seated at His right and left in the Kingdom of Heaven, He says: “You do not know what you are asking” (Mk 10:35). It is very signifi cant that the topic of following, coming from Jesus’ lips, appears in a particularly clear manner in the context of the cross. In the commissioning of the Twelve, Jesus says: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:38). Having predicted His Passion for the fi rst time, He utters these words: “Whoever wishes to come after me 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 fi nd it” (Mt 16:2425). A few days prior to His Passion, in His conversation with the Greeks, Jesus prophesizes His elevation on the cross, and then adds: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be” (Lk 12:26). In the Gospel according to St. Luke, we encounter the scene describing Jesus’ meeting three candidates for discipleship, one of whom wishes to follow Him on his own accord, while the two others are called to it. It is very meaningful that this incident took place at the very beginning of Jesus’ road to Jerusalem, in other words—to the cross. Talking with Peter at the Sea of Galilee after His Resurrection, Jesus assigns to him the authority to tend His sheep; and then come the words: “‘Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.’ He said this signifying by what kind of death He would glorify God. And when He said this, He said to him: ‘Follow me.’” (Jn 21:18-19). Here, we once again see the theme of coming after Christ appearing in the context of the cross. For St. Paul and other authors of the Letters, to follow Christ means to become like Him in the mystery of His death and resurrection. As St. Paul tells us in his Letter to Romans, we’ve been predestined from eternity “to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the fi rstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29). The path to becoming conformed to Christ begins at baptism, by which we are immersed in His (Rom 6:3), it deepens through our continuous imitation of Christ by voluntarily uniting with Him in His Passion, during which the power of the Resurrection is being fully disclosed. We are “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body” (2 Cor 4:10). “… Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps” (1 Pt 2:21). Just like the Apostles who had to grow in comprehension of the following of Christ as the participation in His Passion, so have the Christians who yield to the
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