(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 09.22.2024).- At midday on Sunday, September 22, Pope Francis appeared from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square to pray the Angelus with around 20,000 people. Before doing so, the Pontiff delivered the Sunday address, which we now offer in English.
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Today the Gospel of the liturgy (Mk 9:30-37) tells us about Jesus who announces what will happen at the culmination of His life: “The Son of man”, says Jesus, “will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He is killed, after three days He will rise” (v. 31). The disciples, however, while they are following the Master, have other things in their mind and also on their lips. When Jesus asks them what they were talking about, they do not answer.
Let us pay attention to this silence: the disciples are silent because they were discussing who was the greatest (cf. v. 34).
They fall silent out of shame. What a contrast with the words of the Lord! While Jesus confided in them the meaning of His very life, they were talking about power. And so now shame closes their mouth, just as pride had closed their heart earlier.
And yet Jesus responds openly to the conversations whispered along the way: “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (cf. v. 35). Do you want to be great? Make yourself small, put yourself at the service of all.
With a word as simple as it is decisive, Jesus renews our way of living. He teaches us that true power does not lie in the dominion of the strongest, but in care for the weakest. True power is taking care of the weakest – this makes you great!
This is why the Master calls a child, puts him in the midst of the disciples and embraces him, saying: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (v. 37). The child has no power; the child has needs. When we take care of man, we recognize that man is always in need of life.
We, all of us, are alive because we have been welcomed, but power makes us forget this truth. You are alive because you have been welcomed! Then, we become dominators, not servants, and the first to suffer as a result are the last: the little ones, the weak, the poor.
Brothers and sisters, how many people, how many, suffer and die for power struggles! Theirs are lives that the world denies, as it denied Jesus, those who are excluded and die… When He is delivered into the hands of men, He finds not an embrace, but a cross. However, the Gospel remains living and filled with hope: He who has denied, is risen, He is the Lord!
Now, on this beautiful Sunday, we can ask ourselves: do I know how to recognize the face of Jesus in the smallest? Do I take care of my neighbour, serving generously? And do I thank those who take care of me?
Let us pray together to Mary, to be, like her, free of vainglory, and ready in service.
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