Today, Jesus tells His apostles about His impending suffering and Death and Resurrection. Whenever we read about anything happening in His life as narrated in the Gospels, we need to get used to understanding that that is what God wants to happen in each of our lives. This is so by virtue of the fact that each of us received the life of Christ via grace when we received Baptism. This influx of more grace through all the sacraments we receive in our lives. We need to learn to see and hear in the reading of the Gospel stories of what happened to Christ to also happen in our lives. He prophesied His death. Then, we too will die. Surely, we will perish at the end of our time on earth. But we don't need to wait that long because we need to die to ourselves many, many times each day. We need to kill instances of pride or selfishness or lust or envy, etc., all the time. We also die to ourselves when we are frustrated, disappointed, etc. Furthermore, we literally die to ourselves. Therefore, we need to be ready for them, and we need to appreciate what is happening to us by the Hand of God. We are given opportunities for Jesus to grow in us.
