September 23^rd  2018. Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Mark 9, 30-37

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL: Mark  9, 30-37

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,
but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.
They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus teaches his disciples the fundamental Paschal mystery: he must be handed over to be killed, but he will rise again after three days. The disciples do not understand, but still do not bother to ask the Lord to explain. We prefer not to enter into the crux of life! We prefer to remain on the surface and live our Christianity in a superficial way. This is highlighted by what happens next: the disciples start to argue about which of them is the greatest! Jesus is telling them about the life that comes through the cross, but they are fixated with the “life” that comes from their own egos! The glory we obtain from being “greater” than others is shallow and limited compared to the glory of the children of God that comes from following Jesus. In response, the Lord places a child in the midst of the disciples and embraces him. This gesture of welcome is the key to the faith. In fact, the word “welcome” is repeated by Jesus four times. We must welcome what the Father is sending us. We must embrace it and value it. The key to the Christian life is not our activities and initiatives but our openness and welcome of the crosses that God sends us.

Jesus teaches his disciples the fundamental message of the Paschal mystery

This Sunday, Jesus imparts some private teaching to his disciples. “The Son of Man is to be  handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” This is a fundamental description of the Paschal mystery. It is the central reality of the mission of Christ. And what a dark and terrible revelation it is. He is to be handed over to men and killed. But the message also contains the statement that he will rise after three days. Life is not about avoiding problems but encountering God through those very problems; to discover the power of God in the absurd and to find the fullness of life in the very place where life seems to have been taken away. When our hearts are ready to receive this message then what a difference it makes to our lives. Everything becomes much more constructive and a moment of growth.

The disciples do not understand Jesus, yet they do not bother to ask him to explain. Too often our wisdom is of a superficial sort. We skate along on the surface of life and understand things in a trivial way. We do not want to enter into the deep nature of things, which is best understood from the perspective of someone who is committed to following Jesus in an authentic way

The disciples did not understand these words but they were afraid to question him. It is normal for a disciple not to understand, but at that point we would expect him to ask the Lord for clarification. The disciples do not want to question Jesus, and this is the great problem of our relationship with the wisdom of God. We prefer the superficial; we prefer to remain on the threshold of things not understood. Without any doubt, one of the gravest problems we have in the Church nowadays is the problem of the formation of consciences, the theme of bringing people to an adult life as children of God. Often our “wisdom” is instinctive and uncultured, not rooted in the faith of the Church and mature discipleship. We are not talking about erudition here. Rather, it is the contrast between being cultured in human terms and being cultured in the Paschal mystery, in things that lead us to the resurrection. Instead we skate along on the surface of Christianity, relating to the elements of the faith in a sentimental way, attached to immature devotional habits. This kind of faith does not cause us to enter into the central crux of life, which is death, and a love stronger than death which is able to confront the void. The disciples are afraid to question him because they do not want to cross that threshold. We do not want to admit to the Lord that perhaps this negative thing is a grace for me, a moment of growth and development, a place in which I can become my authentic self.

The mentality of the disciples is rooted in this world. They seek glory from their own egos instead of the glory of the children of God that comes from following the Lord.

In the second part of the Gospel reading, we see the mentality of the disciples. When they arrive at the house in Capernaum, Jesus asks them what they were arguing about. The trivial nature of their discourse is to be expected. They did not want to question him and they returned to the banal level of this world, to the logic of mundane things and the preoccupation with our own works. As the book of Ecclesiastes says, all the works of man on earth are nothing but envy. The disciples on the road have been infected with envy and competitiveness. They have been asking themselves who among them is the greatest at the very time that Jesus is speaking of giving his life and rising again! We do not want anything to do with this particular way of finding life! Our question is: “Who is the greatest?” We seek glory from our ego, our individualistic search for dignity, our attempts to steal glory from others, whereas the glory of the children of God is given by God. The glory and the advantage that we acquire by placing ourselves over others is very limited and small!

Jesus places a child in the midst of the disciples and embraces him. This gesture of welcome is the key to the faith. In fact, the word “welcome” is repeated by Jesus four times. We must welcome what the Father is sending us. We must embrace it and value it. The key to the Christian life is not our activities and initiatives but our openness and welcome of what God sends us.

Confronted with this mentality, Jesus places a child in the midst of them. This is the elite group of disciples that has been especially elected by the Lord and he places a child in the centre of them! At that time, there would have been much less respect for children than is the case now (at least in theory). Children would have counted for little then, but Jesus took the child and embraced him. What is the meaning of this affectionate paternal embrace? “He who welcomes one of these little ones welcomes me, and he who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”. The verb “to welcome” is repeated four times in this sentence. Jesus’ act of embracing the child is a gesture of welcoming him. “Welcome” is the action that is the key to the faith. Many people, even inside the Church, continue to emphasize their own capacities, their own initiatives, the creativity of humanity, completely lacking in any transcendent element. They organise projects for the youth and include things that have no connection with the faith. Such efforts are nothing more than banal human techniques. The key to new life, rather, is to welcome reality and its cross with open arms and appreciate it for what it is. This, in the end, is more creative than some of the strange pastoral methods that we attempt. We must welcome what God is sending us and value it. We must learn to welcome the power of the liturgy and the word that the Father is sending us.