HOLY SEE
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SOURCE: Vatican News – English
29th Sunday of Year B
To Serve in order to Redeem
The expression “to serve in order to redeem” summarizes the essential contents of today’s liturgy. “Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all,” Jesus tells us in the Gospel. Jesus outshines us all in service, embodying within himself the figure of the servant of Yahweh, despised, the lowest of men, a person of sorrows, familiar with suffering, who gives himself in expiation (first reading). He is also the figure of the High Priest who is not incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us, who has been put to the test and is the same as we ourselves, apart from sin (second reading).
P. Antonio Izqeuirdo, L.C., Copyright © Dicastery for the Clergy
29th Sunday of Year B
Doctrinal Messages
29th Sunday of Year B
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Pope Francis
“You Do Not Know
What You Are Asking”
21 October 2018 | Saint Peter’s Square
Today’s Gospel passage (cf. Mk 10:35-45) describes Jesus who, once again and with great patience, tries to correct his disciples, converting them from the world’s mentality to that of God. The opportunity is given to him by the brothers James and John, two of the very first whom Jesus met and called to follow him. By now they have gone quite a long way with him and in fact belong to the group of the 12 Apostles. Therefore, while they are on their way to Jerusalem — where the disciples anxiously hope that on the occasion of the celebration of Passover, Jesus will at last establish the Kingdom of God — the two brothers take courage, approach the Teacher and make their request: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (v. 37).
Jesus knows that James and John are inspired by great enthusiasm for him and for the cause of the Kingdom, but he also knows that their expectations and their zeal are tarnished by the spirit of the world. Thus he responds: “You do not know what your are asking” (v. 38). And as they are speaking of ‘thrones of glory’ on which to sit beside Christ the King, he speaks of a “cup” to be drunk, of a “baptism” to be received, that is, his passion and death. James and John, always aiming at the hoped-for privilege, say in an outburst: yes, “we are able”! (v. 39). But here too, they do not truly understand what they are saying. Jesus forewarns that they will drink his cup and receive his baptism, that is, that they too, like the other Apostles, will take part in his cross, when their time comes. However, Jesus concludes: “to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared” (v. 40). As if to say: now follow me and learn how to love ‘at a loss’, and the heavenly Father will see to our reward. The way of love is always ‘at a loss’, because to love means to set aside egoism, self-referentiality, in order to serve others.
Jesus then realizes that the other 10 Apostles are angry with James and John, and thus show they have the same worldly mentality. And this offers him inspiration for a lesson that applies to Christians of all times, for us too. He says: “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (vv. 42-44). It is the rule of Christians. The Teacher’s message is clear: while the great people of the Earth build themselves ‘thrones’ for their own power, God chooses an uncomfortable throne, the cross, from which to reign by giving his life: “the Son of man”, Jesus says, “also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (v. 45).
The way of service is the most effective antidote against the disease of seeking first place; it is the medicine for status seekers, this seeking first place, which infects many human contexts, and does not even spare Christians, the People of God, nor even the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Therefore, as disciples of Christ, let us receive this Gospel passage as a call to conversion, in order to witness with courage and generosity a Church that bows at the feet of the least, in order to serve them with love and simplicity. May the Virgin Mary, who fully and humbly adhered to the will of God, help us to joyfully follow Jesus on the way of service, the royal road that leads to Heaven.
World Mission Sunday
22 October 2006 | Saint Peter’s Square
Today, we celebrate the 80th World Mission Sunday. It was established by Pope Pius XI, who gave a strong impulse to the missions ad gentes, and in the Jubilee of 1925 promoted a grandiose exhibition which later became the current Ethnological-Missionary Collection of the Vatican Museums.
This year, in the customary Message for the occasion, I have proposed the theme, “Charity, soul of the mission”. In effect, if the mission is not inspired by love, it is reduced to a philanthropic and social activity.
For Christians, however, the words of St Paul are valid: “The love of Christ impels us” (II Cor. 5: 14). The charity that moved the Father to send his Son into the world, and moved the Son to offer himself for us even to death on the Cross, that same charity has been poured out by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers.
Every baptized person, as a vine united to the branch, can therefore cooperate in the mission of Jesus, which can be summarized thus: to bring to every person the good news that “God is love” and, precisely for this reason, wants to save the world.
The mission arises from the heart: when one stops to pray before a Crucifix with his glance fixed on that pierced side, he cannot but experience within himself the joy of knowing that he is loved and the desire to love and to make himself an instrument of mercy and reconciliation.
This is what happened about 800 years ago to the young Francis of Assisi in the little church of San Damiano, which was then dilapidated. From the height of the Cross, now preserved in the Basilica of St Clare, Francis heard Jesus tell him: “Go, repair my house which, as you see, is all in ruins”.
That “house” was first of all his own life, which needed repair through authentic conversion; it was the Church, not the one made of stones but living persons, always needing purification; it was all of humanity, in whom God loves to dwell.
The mission always initiates from a heart transformed by the love of God, as the countless stories of saints and martyrs witness, who in different ways have spent their life at the service of the Gospel.
The mission, therefore, is a workshop where there is room for all: for those who commit themselves to bringing the Kingdom of God into their own family; for those who live their professional life with a Christian spirit; for those who are totally consecrated to the Lord; for those who follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, in the ordained ministry to the People of God; for those who in a specific way go to announce Christ to those who still do not know him.