A commentary on Mk 9, 30-37 (XXV Sunday O.T., September 20th 2015)
Mark, the gospel we continue to read every Sunday of Ordinary Time, presents Jesus as an itinerant prophet who walks from village to village and from town to town preaching to the crowds and performing liberating actions as signs of God’s love towards the poor, the sick and the sinners.
But, from time to time, Mark says that Jesus “did not wish people knew He was there”. In those times of public silence, Jesus would “instruct his disciples”, given them some teachings that many (even the intimate ones) were not able to understand.
In today’s Reading Jesus announces, for the second time, his “secret”, that is, “that the Son of Man is going to be given up in the hands of men, but on the third day He will rise”.
We have heard so many times these words that they no longer impress us, though we do not understand its meaning, as it happened with the apostles: They understood nothing till they passed through the experience of His death and resurrections.
In fact, Jesus is not a brilliant but superficial prophet. Rather, He confronts death and wins over it, thanks to His radical trust in the Father. This is His great Secret. And this is the secret of many of His best disciples, who are able to confront death trusting totally in God’s secure love.
I remember, for example, St. Maximilian Kolbe, who, during the Second World War, offered himself to be assassinated in place of a father with children; Or I remember St Daniel Comboni, who, at the age of fifty, destroyed by sicknesses and enormous difficulties, while he feels he is dying, he says: “I die, but the project (of Africa’s salvation) will not die. Very few really believed that at the time, but he was right.
It’s in this line of thought that we can read the second part of todays’ gospel: “If someone wants to be the first one, let him become the servant of all”. We have read this sentence also many times and we do not really believe in it. Also this is a secret that not many understand. We all wish to be important, to be considered as the best ones; we are afraid to be despised, not taken into consideration. We feel certain “anguish” and a need to be the first ones. But Jesus says that to reach the first place we have to accept to be the last one. In my own words, I understand Jesus message in this way: “Be calm, relax, look at this little child, be grateful, think first of the God’s Kingdom and of its Justice, give out with generosity… and you will receive plenty”. It seems to me that, deep in our heart, we all feel the truthfulness of Jesus’ teaching, but we do not trust enough.
Let ask the Lord, in the Eucharist, to open our hearts, so that we can understand his “secret” and be ready to be the last ones, the servants, ready even to die to ourselves trusting in God as Jesus, Kolbe, Comboni and many others did.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Roma
