Message from Father Daniel  Dear Parishioners,           Each year a lot of young men aspire to become football players.  But only a few will find their way onto the high school or university teams.  Every year a coach challenges the hopefuls explaining the cost involved:  “Your muscles will ache from calisthenics.  We'll run you till you think you can run no more.  We will drill you and drill you, then drill you again, every day, after school.  There'll be no drugs, no alcohol.  Only if you work hard will you make the team.  If you don't, you won't.”  The personal, economic, and emotional cost of becoming an Olympic or professional athlete is still higher.  Young children spend hours a day practicing their skills and submitting themselves to rigorous programs of diet and exercise to become great gymnasts or dancers.  Others accept the cost of dedicating years to study and hard work to become outstanding doctors or lawyers or scientists or writers.  In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges his would-be followers to recognize the cost in following him accept the pain and suffering involved in following him as true disciples.           Remember, Jesus was enormously popular with the crowds as a great healer, brave teacher and miracle worker.  Looking at the cheering masses, however, Jesus frankly put before them the strenuous conditions for discipleship.  Real discipleship demands true commitment to the duties entrusted to us by life, circumstances, the community or directly by God Himself, and by loving acts of selfless, humble and sacrificial love offered to all God’s children around us.  All this is possible only if we rely on the power of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.   In Christ,   Fr. Daniel, dleonard@christthekingdenver.org