29th.
Sunday of Year (B)
(Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews
4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45)
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This Sunday we have a matter of translation to consider
first of all, but it does quickly lead to a most serious issue concerning
Catholic spirituality which translators are not necessarily aware of:
Whoever wishes to be great among
you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you
will be the slave of all.
That is our New American Bible
Revised Version’s translation and it is a literal translation of the Church’s
official Latin Vulgate text, as also of the original Greek Gospel.
However, certain other modern
translations change the word ‘will’, future tense, to ‘must’, imperative. Why?
Obviously, it would seem because that is what the scholars involved
consider Jesus’ intention must (!) have been.
But does that then mean that -- in their view -- the evangelist himself,
or perhaps even Peter the originating source of Mark’s Gospel, did not
understand Jesus accurately enough? Or
rather, might it, in fact, be the case that those translators -- professional
and learned scholars who without doubt do great work for the Gospel – have, as
scholars sensitive to their international standing, to bear in mind such a
multitude of technical facts and human opinions that they simply do not have
the time – or the ability – to be able to appreciate and answer spiritual
questions with a like excellence as shown in their professional capacity? It is a question worth asking and
considering, because professional exegetes today produce volumes of New
Testament studies of such burdensome size, quoting the opinions of seemingly
innumerable scholars often writing in their own language, that it is hardly
possible for them to have read and understood as required all that they quote
or refer to, let alone to have carefully weighed and pondered consequences and
further issues that might be involved.
Let us therefore consider what the
Evangelist, St. Mark, says in his Gospel as we have it today:
Whoever wishes to be great among
you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you
will be the slave of all.
Notice first of all that Jesus is
speaking privately to His chosen disciples, whom He knew intimately as regards
both their individual characters and their personal love for and devotion to
Himself; men who, indeed, He is in the very process of training as His future Apostles:
Whoever
wishes to be great among you will be...
Many translators think that here
Jesus means ‘must make yourself to be…’ a servant of the others; because to
attain their object, their desire, their ambition, to be great they must (!) do something rather special … something
that distinguishes and shows them to be ‘special’! And surely we can understand that.
Yes, we can understand that
because it is a normal, worldly, way of thinking. But, precisely, here we are not considering
the thought patterns of every-day human beings firmly ensconced in an ordinary
worldly situation: we are thinking about men chosen by God, for their love of
Jesus first of all, and for their spiritual sensitivities, responsiveness, and
capabilities; and we are hearing words being spoken and training being given to
them by Jesus, the ‘Word’ of God made flesh.
The translation ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant’ demands that anyone of
them harbouring such ambitions must do something to make himself a suitable servant, worthy of such
prominence; it demands in that way a measure of self-interest, self-seeking
and, indeed, of self-appreciation. Now
that is most certainly not what
Jesus wanted in His Apostles.
On the other hand our translation ‘Whoever wishes to be great among
you will be your servant’, declares that any
one of them with – that is, any one to whom God has given -- aspirations,
hopes, prayers for such greatness, will be brought by God the Father to
serve his brethren, either in actual physical service, or in self-sacrificing
spiritual humility and fraternal commitment.
Now that is the way Jesus Himself lived in our regard: not choosing for
Himself, but being led by His Father, just as our first reading, taken
from the book of Isaiah, made so abundantly clear:
The Lord was pleased to crush Him
in infirmity;
The will of the Lord shall be
accomplished through Him.
And this attitude is
incontrovertibly shown by Our Blessed Lord at His agony in the Garden when He
said:
Abba, Father, all things are
possible to You. Take this cup away
from Me; before
adding, but not what I will but what You will. (Mark 14:36)
Let us therefore look back at the
preposterous request made (according to Mark’s Gospel which vividly records
Peter’s preaching) by James and John, sons of Zebedee:
Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever
we ask of You!!
Matthew tries to make it more
acceptable by saying the request was made by the mother of those two disciples
… but the original indignation of their fellow apostles is surely most clearly
witnessed to and justified by Mark’s account as remembered by Peter.
Therefore assuming Mark is
accurate and James and John did make such an outrageous request of Jesus, the
question arises, ‘Why did Jesus treat their request so seriously?’ And surely the answer must be, ‘Because He
had something important to teach them from it.’
He is about to show them something essential for their understanding of
themselves and of the ways of their God, His Father.
They were at that moment trying to
express, in badly chosen words -- but also quite simply and humbly before Jesus
-- what His Father was trying to inspire in them: an aspiration, in no circumstances whatsoever
to be mistaken as an ambition.
Whoever wishes to be great among
you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you
will be the slave of all.
Yes, you will be servants and slaves because My Father is trying to draw you
along, guide you on, His way for you; but His will alone will be done in
you, not your will for your own personal renown, not even your will for
His renown. His will will be done in you, and in His way.
Jesus took their preposterous but
childishly innocent request seriously because they were indeed intended to
become Apostles for the establishment of His Church and the Kingdom of God, and
this childish folly and misunderstanding, this misinterpreting of His Father’s
intentions in their regard, must and would be corrected: indeed in a certain
measure it was being corrected at that very moment, by their deeply experienced
and well-deserved embarrassment before the present company of Jesus and ‘the
ten’, their indignant fellow Apostles-to-be.
They would have learnt so much about themselves and about God’s will for
them in those words of Jesus!
Dear People of God, as we consider
the history of Mother Church past and present, we can surely appreciate the
superhuman task that faced and still faces the Twelve Apostles and their
subsequent episcopal successors: the establishment of a cohesive Catholic
Church: one in faith, morals, and obedience, throughout history and for all
mankind. They would indeed have the Gift
of God, the Holy Spirit, sent them by Jesus and abiding with them as a Body,
forming them as the very Body of Christ for the glory of God the Father and the
salvation of all men and women of good will; but what immense difficulties
would arise from many who, like James and John in our Gospel reading, would
mistake (not so innocently as James and John however!) their own ambitions for
God’s inspiration, God’s inviting and guiding grace. How many souls would and will suffer from
the overweening pride of individuals in powerful positions: be they bombastic,
arrogant, and ambitious prelates or harsh and unbending mother superiors in
tiny convents and schools or enjoying cherished power and treasured prestige at
the head of large, national or international congregations.
Undoubtedly, the most important
task in Catholic spirituality and the supreme need for the Church today is for
men and women able to assume responsibility and exercise authority yet also to
forget themselves as they seek to draw ever closer to, more centered on, and
humble before, God: living to do His will and becoming ever more able to
discern and distinguish His will from their own, and His glory from their own
reputation or the acclamation of men.
How pathetic it is to hear chosen prelates apologizing for not being
unknown Christians and Catholics, for not being women when needing to clarify
and confirm Catholic teaching on the family.
They are anointed as CHRISTS for our times, passing down what they have
themselves received: the teaching of Christ and the historically declared will
of God for mankind’s salvation!! They
are placed in the centre of the world and the Church’s attention not for their
own peaceful and popular passage when in office, nor merely for the good will
and pleasure of all, to whatever degree or however remotely, concerned. They are anointed Christs to proclaim the One
Jesus Christ, as Jesus Himself encouraged them:
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever
receives the one I send receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One
Who sent Me. (John 13:20)
Let them live up to such encouragement,
to such a glorious promise, and stop fearing for self and hedging for
popularity!
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