27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

Twenty-seventh Sunday (Year B)            

    (Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-12)     

Our readings today are quite clearly and deliberately centred on the relationship between man and woman that we call marriage.  It is such a mysterious, yet natural, relationship -- involving deep passions which promise great joys but also occasion deep sorrows -- that it is understandable that there have been and still are many wrong ideas and false attitudes in its regard. However, by considering this difficult but fundamental relationship we can gain deeper insight into the nature of our Catholic faith, so let us proceed.

Jesus told the Jews that they had, so to speak, twisted Moses’ arm into his giving them an inauthentic attitude to both the divine purpose and the human experience of ‘marriage’; an attitude which, by making it easier to get out of arising difficulties, only served to prevent them from being able to appreciate and attain the true beauty and fulfilment of that relationship.

According to Protestant teaching the fullness of Christian doctrine is to be found in the Bible expressed in the written words contained there; and because the words are there to be seen and read by all, a devout Christian can appreciate the Scriptures as both the source of what is generally acceptable belief and practice and also as the quarry where he can discover his or her own variations.  Of course there are some difficult passages which might need explanation but, fundamentally, such difficulties do not affect the basic position which is, that what one can see and read in the Bible forms the basis of belief, and my serious belief is as good as anyone else’s because it is my personal and sincere response to what is written objectively in the Scriptures.

It has never been like that in the Catholic Church … and remember, the Christian body of believers in Jesus has always been called Catholic;  indeed, before 1054 it had no other title whatsoever, being simply known as the Catholic Church.  And so it is today, to the extent that we always consider ourselves as Catholics, members of the Catholic Church, even though others in our Christian fraternity insist on referring to us as Roman Catholics.  We are not ashamed to be called Roman Catholics, for, understood aright, it is quite true; but we are most of all attached to that title which has always been ours, Catholic.

Now, Catholics are, and always have been -- first and foremost -- hearers of the Word of God, not readers of it:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?  And how shall they preach unless they are sent?  As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!"  But they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?"  So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:14-18)

It was ever so, even in the very founding structure of the Church: preachers, as you heard, had to be sent, and those originally sent by Jesus Himself were the Apostles proclaiming the ‘gospel of peace’; and as a consequence of that original Apostolic mission those Churches were called Apostolic Sees that had either received the Gospel from such an Apostle, or had developed a specially close and proven historical connection with one, that other centres of Christianity did not have.  Such Apostolic Sees – having heard and received the Gospel from Apostolic preachers -- were accepted as the criterion for catholicity.  Churches not thus founded on or by an Apostle were regarded as members of the Catholic Body only if they were in communion with those Sees properly called Apostolic; and it was supremely the Church at Rome -- recognized as founded upon the two supreme Apostles, Peter and Paul -- that was regarded as the God-willed witness to Catholic Truth and ultimate criterion for membership of the authentic Catholic Communion.

In that Catholic Communion our initial, original, Scriptures were the Jewish Scriptures in the Septuagint Greek translation which Mother Church subsequently termed the Old Testament, because she regarded them as God’s revealed word only as read and understood in the light of Jesus.  Those Jewish Scriptures, she believes, are an imperfect revelation only because they are preparatory: they are preparing the way for the coming of Jesus and can only be understood aright when interpreted in the light of His Person, His Good News, and His history.  Our New Testament Scriptures, on the other hand, are final; and apart from the fullness of Old and New Testaments together, there is no other divine revelation to be found or to be expected.

Nevertheless, they too need to be understood, interpreted aright, for, since they are a witness to the original Gospel proclamation made by Mother Church before anything was ever written down, they are always to be understood according to the Church’s Rule of Faith which gave them birth and which they were originally meant to express, extend, and preserve. 

Therefore, in our attitude to marriage, we Catholics cannot accept the Jewish approach condemned by Jesus, nor can we adopt a Protestant attitude which allows an individual to read the Scriptures and ultimately form his own opinion about ‘my belief’.  As Catholics we receive our Christian identity and life by our faithful response to the Church’s Rule of Faith, for, we are ‘hearers’ of the living Apostolic preaching not ‘readers’ of ancient and unchanging books: for those books, supremely venerable though they are for the divine truth contained in them, are only infallible as guides when understood in accordance with, and as expounded by, the living Rule of Church Faith.

Many today seem to assume for themselves the title ‘catholic’ while having but a minimal concern with faith.  They are not ‘hearers’ of the Church’s proclamation of the Word to which they have obediently committed themselves in a response of faith; neither they are ‘readers’ of the Word, who can, at times, be so devoted to what they read that they are willing to sacrifice all except that right to personally quarry their own beliefs from the Scriptures.  Rather, they are seekers of a message of pleasant and peaceful accommodation with the world around them, along with the additional spin-off of a certain measure of personal spiritual comfort.  They don’t want to hear the Gospel, they don’t even want to read the Gospel, they prefer a gospel they can ‘feel’. 

There are others today who  are shown to be of this persuasion by their habit – perhaps unconscious – of giving their attention, first of all, to weighing up, assessing, the person of the messenger and critically studying his style of presentation before attending to the message itself: they want first impressions to persuade them to like the person of the priest or find his presentation  interesting and attractive before they attend to his message; and only if those first requirements are fulfilled will they seriously consider giving both hearing and, perhaps, even a measure of  commitment to the message thus acceptably proclaimed and presented to them.

However, for us Christians and Catholics who are hearers -- people called by God through the proclamation of messengers sent by Him -- it is the message of God’s Good News that counts.  That is precisely the nature of our vocation: we hear the word of God, and we recognize it as the word of God, thanks to the Spirit of God given to the Church and working within all whom the Father calls to faith in His Son.  And if -- once having been reborn through faith in baptism -- we are to become mature children of God, we have to be able to recognize the message proclaimed by the Church as Jesus Himself addressing us through the words of her proclamation:  He is the Speaker to Whom we attend, His alone is the message to which we respond; all that we can require of the messenger is that he has the necessary authority to back up his message, for Jesus Himself always spoke with authority.  Such required authority, however, is not to be accorded him by listeners who like his personality or his presentation, but by the Church of Christ which, able to back-up his sincerity, guarantees the authenticity of his teaching: 

We are of God.  He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us.  By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

He who is of God hears the words of God; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.  (1 John 4:6; John 8:47)

To put things very simply and somewhat bluntly, it is a matter of distinguishing between the provisional packaging and the contents which abide.  If the packaging is attractive it helps, but the contents, God’s gracious gift, are alone what matters.

The attitude of wanting, demanding even, to be superficially pleased before considering the message or receiving the gift, can have most serious repercussions even to the message of faith itself.  Take the example of the Pharisees questioning Jesus in the Gospel:

The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?" They were testing Him.  He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?"  They replied, "Moses permitted a man to write a bill of divorce, and dismiss her."  But Jesus told them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment.”

Jesus, on the other hand, taught:

From the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.  ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined 'to his wife and the two shall become one flesh'.  So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Then He went on to add the most solemn words of all:

Therefore what  God  has  joined  together,  no human being must      separate.

In our modern society, however, as the appearance of either spouse becomes less pleasing or attractive over the years, or when other difficulties inevitably surface in the course of their shared life, many -- who through selfishness and superficiality have never recognized any call to re-assert and confirm their original commitment, and who now no longer acknowledge any obligation to give as well as to receive -- abdicate their own, personal, responsibility for the permanence and beauty of the bond which they sealed before God Himself, and seek a totally pagan freedom for personal whim and pleasure, immediate advantage and seeming convenience.

The Chosen People -- a people formed and prepared by the grace of God over two thousand years to enter into and maintain a unique relationship with Him and thus to hear, recognize, and proclaim His Law of truth to all the nations -- had likewise turned out to be an unfaithful spouse, entering into illicit relationships with the gods of the surrounding nations.  Failing to hear and respond to the word of the One, Redeemer-God proclaimed by the prophets whom He had raised up from their midst, they ultimately, despite their being the Chosen People, rejected that proclamation because the Messenger – the very Son of God Himself -- did not come up to the expectations they had so sinfully indulged for so long.

Dear People of God, in Mother Church we have to become children of the truth:

Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.  (Mark 10:15)

As new-born babies, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (1 Peter 2:2-3):

As children of God, we have to long for God’s truth, we cannot pick and choose, even from such a quarry as the Scriptures, to form our own beliefs; we must embrace the Apostolic Faith offered to us by the continued proclamation and preaching of the living and universal Catholic Church. 

Mother Church, ever rejoicing in the divine truth of her Gospel message which is the word of God amongst us still, lives by the Word she proclaims, enabling us who are born of her proclamation to be born alive; let us therefore, endeavour -- in the power and beauty of that living truth -- to love the Lord at all times, to seek His blessing in all circumstances, and to praise and proclaim His glory before all peoples.

             

     

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Twenty-sixth Sunday (Year B)                          

 (Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48) 

John, characterised in the Gospel as one of the ‘sons of thunder’, said to Jesus:

Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us driving out demons in Your name.

It is easy to imagine the situation: John, a disciple, a follower, a supporter, of Jesus, came across this fellow -- who was none of those things, at least, not openly – making use of the name of Jesus and performing miracles thereby.  I don’t think John was, at that time, the sort of young man to spend time pondering on his own motives … perhaps he felt a certain measure of anger,  annoyance, and -- not impossibly -- even a little envy and frustration, and all together these feelings, whatever their exact nature, seemed to provide ample justification for him -- young as he was -- to peremptorily tell the man to stop what he was doing:

and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.

Even though John himself did not spend time looking, introspectively, at all the various motives pushing him to act in such a way, nevertheless, we who are later and lesser disciples than the holy Apostle, and who are now seeking to learn from him how we might progress in the ways of Jesus and in obedience to His Spirit, should endeavour to penetrate those hidden causes more deeply in order to profit from what we may find.

As we start out we should first of all call to mind -- so as never to lose sight of it -- that John was an apostle in the making, and, though still a novice, to the extent that he might apparently come out with the first thing that entered his head:

we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us,

nevertheless, we might well find that such an apparently simply explanation of his own and of his brothers’ conduct will prove, ultimately, to be the best explanation.  We may be able to profit from other insights but probably none we can provide or discover will go deeper than what just seemed to ‘burst out’ from John lips, for, by our very make-up, we human beings are moved most immediately by self-interest, and above all, by fear for self.

John probably felt that the mysterious miracle-worker was somehow a threat to his own and his fellow apostles’ standing.  Notice his words: he did not say for example, ‘we tried to prevent him because he does not follow You’, or, ‘we tried to prevent him because he does not follow You together with us’; no, his words were:

            we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.

His meaning, intention, is clear enough, but his actual words do tell us something about his, their, feelings at that moment.  John, together with his brother James, was an apostle, and if anyone was performing miracles in the name of Jesus in those circumstances it should have been them, being known as close disciples of Jesus, and indeed, two of the twelve specially chosen by the Lord!

We know that John and his brother – ‘sons of thunder’ remember – were inclined to favour striking gestures (Luke 9:51-54):

Jesus resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and He sent messengers ahead of Him.  On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for His reception there, but they would not welcome Him because the destination of His journey was Jerusalem.  When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do You want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?"

They were also easily drawn into ‘apostolic’ disputes about personal standing:

An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the   greatest.  Jesus, realized the intention of their hearts and took a child and placed it by His side and said to them, "Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me receives the One who sent Me.   For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest." (Luke 9:46-48)

And this penchant for extremes, this vain, yet very human, desire not only to protect but also to promote self, seems to have remained with the apostles almost to the very end, for even after the Last Supper we are told:

Jesus said: Behold, the hand of the one who is to betray Me  is with Me on the table; for the Son of Man indeed goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"  And they  began to debate among themselves, who among them would do such a deed.  Then an argument broke out among them, about which of them should be regarded as the greatest.  He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are addressed as 'Benefactors'; but among you it shall not be so.  Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the  servant.  (Luke 22:21-26)

Indeed, it would seem that this desire for precedence and greatness had been given James and John along with their mother’s milk, for St. Matthew (20:20-22) tells us that:

The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did Him homage, wishing to ask Him for something.  He said to her, "What do you wish?" She answered Him, "Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at Your right and the other at Your left, in Your Kingdom."

Finally, remember how the apostles were very sensitive about what people expected of them:

A man came to Jesus, knelt down before Him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire and often into water.  I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him."  Jesus said in reply, “Bring the boy here to Me.”  Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him; and from that hour the boy was cured.  Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, "Why could we not drive it out?" (Matthew 17:15-19)

And there, People of God, we come to the kernel of the matter.  John, and all the other apostles were, in their student days so to speak, very solicitous about their own image.

Take now the example of Moses, as we heard in the first reading:

A young man quickly told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp."  Joshua, son of Nun, who from his youth had been Moses' aide said, "Moses my lord, stop them!"  But Moses answered him, "Are you jealous for my sake?  Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets!  Would that the LORD might bestow His Spirit on them all!"

Or again, call to mind the words of St. Paul, who, chained up in Rome, discovered the depths of human spitefulness:

Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, out of selfish ambition; not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment.  What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.  Yes, and I will continue to rejoice. (Philippians 1:15-18)

Both Moses and Paul were dead to self and therefore fully alive to their Lord and God; John and James with their fellow Apostles, on the other hand, were, at that time, very young and inexperienced, and far too concerned about their own image: about what they could be seen to be doing for the Lord, or about what impression they were giving the people.

Jesus was most understanding and simply told them:

Do not prevent him.  There is no one who performs a mighty deed in My name who can at the same time speak ill of Me.  For whoever is not against us is for us.

We can now discover something of what Jesus’ words involved, something the Apostles would themselves later come to appreciate, namely, that the calling, the vocation, of an apostle, does not, in the final assessment, require the performance of miracles, he is judged by one supreme and yet simple criterion, that of his one-ness with Jesus:

He who is not against us is for us. 

The miracle worker had received a gift from God, a great gift indeed and one that gave glory to Jesus in Whose Name miracles were being performed.  However, the incomparably greater gift is that of being, and becoming ever more and more, personally one with Jesus.  The miracle worker is not against us; he is, indeed, for us, on our side; yet, for all that, the miracle-man, is not included in those two words, ‘us’ and ‘our’, and that makes all the difference.

That key to apostleship, -- one-ness with Jesus -- was, at that time, not sufficiently appreciated by the apostles, especially John; they were beginning to live it, but not yet fully recognizing it they could not as yet live it to the full; later they would, and thereby would become models, guides, and protectors for Mother Church the whole world over and throughout all ages.

One-ness with Jesus is a reciprocal relationship in which love, originating in Jesus (‘You did not call Me, I called you’), demands love in return; one-ness with Jesus is a relationship in which love is given with the supreme object of provoking, calling forth, a return of personal love and total commitment.  The gift of miracle-working provokes, of itself and at the best, gratitude.

In our materialistic Western society there is so much emphasis placed on doing things for Jesus; doing things – in His Name – for people; trying to present Him and His message in a popular light.  These can be acceptable, even laudable, aims, but nothing short of the spontaneous flowering of a total and loving commitment to the Person of Jesus Himself will be of enduring worth.  Such love for Jesus, such one-ness with Him -- alone-ness with Him alone -- has no need for anything other to justify it, being itself the pearl of great price, the supreme adornment and fulfilment of human possibilities, and the treasure hidden in the field of Christian life and doctrine which is the Church called to become the beautiful Spouse of Christ.

John’s youthful honesty and sincere love of Jesus have led us to realise a most beautiful truth of Catholic Christian life: let us endeavour to follow him yet more carefully and humbly to the maturity of his unique relationship of one-ness with Jesus:

The disciple whom Jesus loved and who leaned on His breast at the Supper.  (John 21:20)

25th Sunday in Ordinary time (Year 2)

         Twenty-fifth Sunday (Year 2)     

                  

 (Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16 - 4:3; Mark 9:30-37)

Jesus 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.

The words of Our Blessed Lord were clear enough, People of God, but the disciples seemed not understand what He was saying.  Why?  Surely it must have been because they did not want to accept that suffering should come into the life of  Him whom they acknowledged as the Christ of God, the glory of His People, Israel, and their own, much-loved, Lord and Master.

It is still the same today: so many people are unwilling to accept that suffering can have any salutary place in their own lives as Christians, thinking it totally incomprehensible and wrong that anyone living, or trying to live, a good life as a disciple of Christ, should have to experience what they regard as unjust and undeserved suffering; and consequently, when some such suffering comes into their lives they are easily scandalized and not infrequently turn aside from their former practice of discipleship to a greater or lesser degree.

This they do because they have become worldly in their thinking, as Jesus had reproached Peter:

Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.  (Matthew 16:23)

And having become worldly in their thinking, in practice they soon come to love, not the Lord so much, as themselves and the world, in which success -- in its many variations ranging from personal vanity and pleasure to criminal power and plenty   -- is the only fruit of life that is considered as acceptable and admirable.  In that way having begun as just weak Christians, fearful and tremulous at the very thought of any cross, they end up as sordid participators in what is commonly  regarded as life’s rat-race.

Saint Augustine has a remarkable sermon which touches on this subject, let me quote you something from it:

A sheep is weak, that is, it lacks courage, with the result that it may give way to temptations if they come upon the sheep when incautious and unprepared.  The negligent shepherd does not say to a believer of that sort: ‘My son, when you come to serve God, take your stand in righteousness and fear, and make ready your soul for temptation.’  One who speaks thus, strengthens the weak and makes him strong instead of weak, so that when he has found faith he will not hope for this world’s prosperity.  For if he has been taught to hope for this world’s prosperity, he will be corrupted by the prosperity itself: when adversities arrive, he is wounded, or perhaps utterly crushed.  One who so builds is not building him on a rock, but setting him on sand.  ‘The rock was Christ.’  Christians must imitate the sufferings of Christ, not seek for pleasure.  What kind of men are such shepherds who, fearing to hurt (or displease) those they speak to, not only do not prepare them for imminent temptations, but even promise the happiness of this world, which Christ did not promise to the world itself?

Christians who would avoid all suffering either lie low throughout their lives, or else, like the disciples, they dispute on the way, wanting -- so very intensely -- to protect and justify themselves at all times but most especially in adverse circumstances.  Because of their fear that criticism and suffering -- real or imaginary -- might be coming their way, they will easily, secretly, malign others: questioning their intentions, distorting their words, and decrying their actions.   And thus, whenever circumstances actually do impinge upon their own lives, they tend to lose hold of objectivity and truth in their anxious search for self- justification and protection.  Such disputes, however, unlike that of the openly vain and childish disciples along the way, are conducted ever so secretly, with  confidential whispers and, often enough, under a veil of self-denigrating piety, so that, if at all possible, not even the Lord Himself would overhear them let alone accuse or reprove them.

Let us now return to Jesus and learn how He persuaded His disciples to overcome their fears and change their ways:

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. 

Jesus, however, knew what had been going on, literally behind His back, as He and His disciples had walked along, and:

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.”

In the ancient world children were thought little of and frequently much abused.  Therefore when Jesus took one such person, so insignificant and singularly unimportant in the eyes of the world, and said:

Whoever receives one child such as this in My name, receives Me,

He thereby gave His disciples a picture that was so surprising and familiar as to be unforgettable, and yet at the same time one that offered them teaching of inexhaustible riches.

For those so well-disposed and well-intentioned as to have become small in their own conceit, even the slightest work they do for love of Jesus brings down upon them His loving approval.   To be appreciated by the world one has to be, or try to make oneself, noticed, significant: either by cravenly repeating what is politically correct and walking only along socially well-trodden paths or else by outrageously disregarding normal decency and defying customary opinions and practices.  Such endeavours for personal recognition and renown are, however, of no advantage whatsoever in the Christian life, for God exalts the lowly and humble of heart, while pride -- inevitably and invariably -- separates from the Lord those who pursue it.

Again, dear People of God, observe what sort of relationship the disciples had with Jesus.  We hear it said today: “Why are our churches so quiet?  We should be practicing Christian charity by greeting our friends and openly praising the Lord there!”   Notice the disciples with Jesus in our Gospel passage:

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, He began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

They had walked the way to Capernaum, but, quite obviously, they had not been walking like a group of mates chatting idly on the way, because, on their arrival at the house, Jesus had asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  He would appear to have been walking ahead and alone, and they had been following as a group.  Why?  There was, obviously, something very different about Jesus, nobody walked alongside Him, shoulder to shoulder, as His equal or special companion, not even Peter or John.  There was a distance between the disciples and the Lord: not, however, one of separation, but rather, one of reverence.

We can see the same attitude in another detail mentioned in the Gospel reading; for, though the disciples did not understand His teaching concerning His future Passion and Death:

they were afraid to question Him.

Now this was not a fear such as we usually have in mind when we use the word:  for it was a fear which in no way hindered them from following Him wherever He went.  It was such a fear as rises in every humble human heart in the presence of  someone far greater than themselves.  And for the disciples,  that greater One was Him of Whom Jesus spoke (Matthew 12:6) when referring to the splendid Temple in Jerusalem which was the pride and joy of the Jewish nation, a Temple known and admired far and wide in antiquity and whose very stones even today still fill modern engineers with admiration and amazement:

I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the Temple.                        

Before such a One, only the blindness of hired soldiers and a stirred-up mob, or the devilish pride of the self-serving religious authorities, could have rendered the disciples incapable of feeling and of appreciating an instinctive fear in Jesus’ humble yet most august presence.

Let us look again, and more closely still, at Our Blessed Lord, that we may learn.

On entering the house (Jesus’ own house in Capernaum, or Peter’s, is not known for sure) He sat down -- note that, a magisterial position -- and calling His disciples to Himself said:

            If anyone wishes to be first, he shall (will) be last of all and servant of all.

Many most reputable translations change the words will be, to must be, or even to, must make himself (to be):

“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all”;

“If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.”

Those changes are an easily understandable but not precisely correct translation; the original Greek and the authoritative Latin translation are perfectly clear and, following them closely, our modern English translation (along with others) is more truly accurate.

The difficulty for our modern appreciation is Jesus Himself, the Jesus the disciples loved so much but also reverentially feared; and in this instance we can appreciate why they had such feelings in His regard.   The words of Jesus are, first of all, and most literally, a statement of fact, and as such a warning for those He most specially loved: He was not commanding yet neither was He just offering teaching for their consideration and, of course, subsequent acceptance; His words were, first of all -- I repeat -- a warning for immediate attention, retention, and adoption:

            If anyone wishes to be first, he shall (will) be last of all and servant of all.

Of course there is also most beautiful teaching in those words for His disciples and all subsequent Christians; but the Twelve were in the immediate presence of Jesus, they had Personal experience of Him, and there was that about Him (Divinity), which made Him -- a man like themselves – somehow also ‘other’ and ‘above’.  They loved Him to death (quite literally) but always with reverential fear…. What did His words mean??   ‘Last’ is clear enough, and nobody wants that.  But what about, ‘last of all’?  Last of all the Twelve?, last of all the disciples?, or ‘last of all …’???

Next He took to Himself a child, apparently already in the house with them. Whose child, whose relative perhaps?  He then, quite simply and most movingly, put His arms around the child and setting him in the midst of them all said:

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.

Oh! The beauty, the mystery, the majesty, and the attraction of Jesus!!  Love Jesus with all your mind and heart, soul and strength, indeed; but always – never forget  it – with reverence and fear.

People of God, we should never be ashamed to fear the Lord, for it is proof of the authenticity of both our appreciation of Him and our knowledge of ourselves.  However, let it be a fear like that of the disciples on the way, a fear which, far from repelling them, drew them after Him, irresistibly, wherever He went; pray that you too may progress along their way of discipleship, experiencing a like, reverential, compulsion to follow Jesus ever more faithfully, ever more closely even though it might lead to our sharing in His sufferings. 

Finally, may your appreciation of the glory of the Risen Lord in His temple which is Mother Church lead you to shun all worldly attitudes of mind and heart in her regard.  May you treasure a most respectful reverence for her understanding and proclamation of His truth, for her ministration of His grace; such a fear, such a reverence, that may grow within you until it becomes a totally consuming love which can find its truest and fullest expression here on earth only by devoting and sacrificing your own self to her service of and for His glory:

Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that the world may know that I love the Father.  As the Father gave Me commandment, so I do.   (John 10:17; 14:31)