(Vatican Radio) In our journey through the Gospel of Mark, last Sunday we entered
into the second half [of the Gospel], the last journey towards Jerusalem and towards
the culmination of Jesus’ mission. After Peter, on behalf of the disciples, professed
faith in Him, recognizing Him as the Messiah (cf. Mark 8:29), Jesus began to speak
openly about what would happen in the end. The Evangelist reports three successive
predictions of the death and resurrection, in chapters 8, 9 and 10: in them, Jesus
proclaims ever more clearly the fate that awaits Him and their intrinsic necessity.
The passage for this Sunday contains the second of these announcements. Jesus says:
"The Son of Man,” – an expression that designates Himself – “is to be handed over
to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will
rise” (Mark 9:31). But the disciples “did not understand the saying, and they were
afraid to question him” (v. 32).
In fact, reading this part of the story of
Mark, it is clear that between Jesus and the disciples there is a deep interior distance;
they are, so to speak, on two different wavelengths, so that the discourses of the
Master are not understood, or are understood only superficially. The apostle Peter,
after having shown his faith in Jesus, was permitted to reprove Him because He predicted
that He must be rejected and killed. After the second announcement of the Passion,
the disciples began to discuss who was the greatest among them (cf. Mk 9:34), and
after the third, James and John asked Jesus to be able to sit at His right hand and
at his left, when He was in glory (cf. Mk 10:35-40). But there are several other signs
of this distance: for example, the disciples were not able to heal an epileptic boy,
that afterwards Jesus heals with the power of prayer (cf. Mk 9:14-29); or when some
children were presented to Jesus, the disciples reproved them, while Jesus, indignant,
made them stay, and affirmed that only those who were like them could enter into the
Kingdom of God (cf. Mk 10:13-16).
What does all this say to us? It reminds
us that God's logic is always “other” with respect to our own, as God Himself revealed
through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts /
nor are your ways my ways” (Is 55:8). For this reason, following the Lord requires
of every person a profound conversion, a change in his or her way of thinking and
living, it requires an opening of the heart to listen, in order to allow oneself to
be enlightened and interiorly transformed. A key point in which God and man are different
is pride: In God, there is no pride, because He is absolute fullness, and is completely
given to love and to give live; in us, on the other hand, pride is deeply rooted and
requires constant vigilance and purification. We, who are little, desire to appear
great, to be the first, while God, who is truly great, does not fear to humble Himself
and make Himself the last. The Virgin Mary is perfectly “in tune” with God: Let us
invoke her with confidence, that she might teach us to faithfully follow Jesus along
the way of love and humility.
After the Angelus:
Yesterday,
in the French city of Troyes, the priest Louis Brisson, the founder of the Oblates
of Saint Francis di Sales, who lived in the 19th century, was declared
blessed. I joyfully join in the thanksgiving of the diocesan community of Troyes and
of all the spiritual sons and daughters of the new Blessed.
To the English
speaking pilgrims: I greet all the English-speaking visitors present at
today’s Angelus prayer. In the Gospel today, our Lord reveals to His disciples
that He will be delivered unto death and rise again for our salvation. As we reflect
on the call to be “last of all and servants of all”, may Christ’s supreme act of love
on Calvary always be our true measure of greatness. God bless you and your loved ones!
Listen: