Illustration: Mary Salome and Zebedee with their Sons,
James the Greater and John the Evangelist,
by Hans von Kulmbach, c. 1511
Pope Francis previous homily for 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark (10:35-45)
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached Jesus. ‘Master,’ they said to him ‘we want you to do us a favor.’
He said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ They said to him, ‘Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.’ ‘You do not know what you are asking’ Jesus said to them. ‘Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I must be baptized?’ They replied, ‘We can.’ Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I must drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I must be baptized you shall be baptized, but as for seats at my right hand or my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted.’
When the other ten heard this they began to feel indignant with James and John, so Jesus called them to him and said to them, ‘You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No; whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all. For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’
Pope Francis Homily 2021
Dear brothers and sisters,
The Gospel of today’s Liturgy (above) tells us that two disciples, James and John, ask the Lord to sit one day next to him in glory, as if they were “prime ministers”, something like that.
But the other disciples hear them and become indignant.
At this point Jesus, patiently, offers them a great lesson: true glory is not obtained by elevating oneself above others, but by living the same baptism that He will receive, shortly thereafter, in Jerusalem, namely, the cross. What does this mean?
The word “baptism” means “immersion”: by his Passion, Jesus immersed himself in death, offering his life to save us.
His glory, the glory of God, is therefore love that becomes service, not power that seeks to domination. Not power that aspires to domination, no! It is love that becomes service.
That is why Jesus concludes by saying to his own and also to us: “Whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant” (Mk 10:43). To become great, you will have to go down the path of service, serving others.
We are faced with two different logics: the disciples want to emerge and Jesus wants to immerse himself. Let us stop on these two verbs.
The first is to emerge.
It expresses that worldly mentality by which we are always tempted: to live all things, even relationships, in order to feed our ambition, to climb the steps of success, to reach important positions.
The search for personal prestige can become a sickness of the spirit, even masquerading behind good intentions; for example, when, behind the good we do and preach. We really seek only ourselves and our affirmation, that is, to get ahead, to climb …
And we also see this in the Church. How many times, we Christians, who should be the servants, try to climb, to move forward. Therefore, we always need to verify the true intentions of the heart, to ask ourselves: “Why do I carry on this work, this responsibility? To offer a service or to be noticed, praised and receive compliments?”
To this worldly logic, Jesus contrasts his own: instead of rising above others, coming down from the pedestal to serve them; instead of emerging above others, immerse yourself in the lives of others.
I was watching in the program “In his image” that service of Caritas so that no one lacks food: worrying about the hunger of others, worrying about the needs of others.
There are many, many needy today, and after the pandemic more.
Watch and lower yourself in service, and do not try to climb for your own glory.
Here then is the second verb: to immerse oneself.
Jesus asks us to immerse ourselves. And how to immerse?
With compassion, in the lives of those we meet. There [in that Caritas service] we were seeing hunger: and we, do we think with compassion of the hunger of so many people?
When we are in front of the meal, which is a grace of God and that we can eat, there are so many people who work and cannot have enough meal for the whole month. Do we think about this? To dive with compassion, to have compassion. It is not an encyclopaedia fact: there are so many hungry people … No! They are people. And do I have compassion for people? Compassion for the life of those we meet, as Jesus did with me, with you, with all of us, he approached with compassion.
Let us look at the Crucified Lord, immersed to the end in our wounded history, and discover God’s way of doing things. We see that He did not stay up there in the heavens, looking down on us, but lowered Himself to wash our feet. God is love and love is humble, it does not rise, but descends downwards, like the rain that falls on the earth and brings life. But how can we put ourselves in the same direction as Jesus, to pass from emerging to immersing ourselves, from the mentality of prestige, the worldly one, to that of service, the Christian one? Commitment is needed, but it is not enough. Alone it is difficult, not to say impossible, but we have a force inside that helps us. It is that of Baptism, of that immersion in Jesus that we have all received by grace and that directs us, urges us to follow him, not to seek our interest but to put ourselves at the service. It is a grace, it is a fire that the Spirit has kindled in us and that must be nourished.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit today to renew in us the grace of Baptism, the immersion in Jesus, in his way of being, to be more servants, to be servants as he was with us.
And let us pray to Our Lady: although she is the greatest, did not try to emerge, but was the humble servant of the Lord, and is all immersed in our service, to help us meet Jesus.