In this week’s gospel, Jesus teaches, “Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.” Part of ‘losing our lives’ for Jesus means extending the self-giving, compassionate and merciful love we have received from him to others, especially the poor. As Christians, we must be prepared to accept suffering, not out of a masochistic sense that suffering is good or that we deserve it, but as a response made in love to give up anything and everything that impedes or undermines the life and love to which Christ calls us.This can sometimes mean prioritising him and the demands of discipleship over the demands of family. Consider St Francis of Assisi as an example. St Francis, in defiance of his enraged father, left his affluent home and the life his family had planned for him to live a life of radical poverty, humility, and dedication to serving the poor, in imitation of the life, poverty, and love of Jesus. St Francis is renowned as Il Poverello (Italian for “the little poor man), and as a “little Christ.”‘Losing our lives’ for Jesus does not necessarily mean we will be called to Jesus’ level of self-sacrifice. Still, our hearts need to be oriented towards this calling and open to its demands, painful and costly though that may sometimes be. But Jesus is very clear in calling us, indeed challenging us, to live the life of freedom and self-giving love for which we were created.Challenging and demanding though it is, each and every one of us is called to be a “little Christ.”