Stop Clinging, Go and Tell

3 September 2025  Luke 4:38-44

“When they came to Him, they tried to prevent Him from leaving them.”  

Luke 4:32

Jesus didn’t say, “Hold on to Me.” He said, “Follow me.”

Very often, after interacting with crowds, Jesus would go off “to a deserted place” to pray (cf. Luke 4:42). Crowds could get clingy and possessive – one time a crowd wanted to seize Jesus, carry Him off, and make Him a king (John 6:15). After a whole evening of healings and exorcisms, this crowd wanted Jesus never to leave – they tracked Him down when He had gone to his accustomed deserted place, and tried to keep Him from leaving. “Stay and be our chaplain. Stay and be our doctor.”

They weren’t paying attention, or they didn’t understand that He had never said, “Hold on to Me.” He said “Follow Me.”

It wasn’t just crowds that tried to prevent Jesus from leaving – sometimes it was his closest friends and disciples. When the Risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, He had to push her away: “Stop holding on to Me,” He said, and then added, “Go to my brothers and tell them” – and Mary became, in a sense, the first apostle: “Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and what He told her” (John 20:17-18). Even apostles had to be told rather bluntly that discipleship is not about holding on, but about going and telling.

Disciples are still trying to “hold on” more than “go and tell.” In parish after parish believers are told to come to Mass, daily if you can, bring your kids to CCD, come to Bible Study on Friday morning, come to Confession, come pray the rosary on Wednesday nights, come and sing in the choir. In parish after parish discipleship is confined to the Church building, and prayer is trapped in the area in front of the Tabernacle. There isn’t anything wrong with any of those things – they are good and holy, even necessary. But they are all “inside,” and Jesus isn’t just “inside.” If He couldn’t be kept on a cross, He certainly can’t be trapped in a tabernacle or tied down by a rosary.

He never said, “Hold on to Me.” He said, “Follow Me.” He said, “Go and tell.”

In the famous novel, Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz relates the apocryphal story contained in the so-called “Acts of Peter” where Peter the Apostle and his companion Nazarius were fleeing Rome during the persecution of Nero, moving along the Appian Way toward Campania. Startled by a bright light that became a vision – Peter saw Jesus on the road coming toward him. He fell to his knees, and reached out to grasp the Lord’s feet, saying, “Quo vadis, Domine?” Where are you going, Lord? “But to Peter’s ears came a sad and sweet voice which said, ‘If you desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time.’”

Peter was leaving his apostleship behind on the Appian Way. He was abandoning his calling by trying to hold on to Jesus on the road.

But Jesus never said, “Hold on.”

He said, “Follow me.”

He became Peter the Apostle again when he turned around.

Go and tell.