12-Sep-2009 Dear Friend,
We do not find too many people volunteering for service today. Yes, people are ready to serve when they will be noticed and acknowledged. They will rush to serve the high and mighty because it will be an honour and privilege, but service of the poor and the weak and the little ones has no perks or fringe benefits! We want to be associated with the bold, the beautiful and the powerful. Jesus came to be with the weak and small people. Let’s have a grateful weekend celebrating the God of small things and small people! Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: Twenty-fifth Sunday of the year ‘What you do to the least……!” 20-Sep-2009 Wisdom 2: 12-20; James 3:16- 4:3; Mark 9: 30-37; Today’s verses from the Book of wisdom climaxes the Old Testament thought on the suffering of the righteous man at the hands of the wicked. The ‘righteous’ are those who hold on to their faith in God and obey his commandments. This passage has been seen in Christian tradition as anticipating the hostility suffered by Jesus, the suffering just one, par excellence. Why do the God-less plot his ruin? because his blameless life is a reproach to their sinful ways. As believers our lives should confront people with the values of Christ and his Gospel. Persecution of the Just Elie Wiesel, Jewish writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner tells a disturbing story in one of his books about Auschwitz. As soon as children arrived by train at Auschwitz, together with the elderly and the sick, they were immediately selected for the gas chamber. On one occasion a group of children were left to wait by themselves for the next day. A man asked the guards if he could stay with the children during their last night on earth. Surprisingly, his request was granted. How did they spend that last night? He started off by telling them stories in an effort to cheer them up. However, instead of cheering them up, he only succeeded in making them cry. So what did they do? They cried together till daybreak. Then he accompanied the little ones to the gas chamber. Afterwards he returned to the prison yard to report to work. When the guards saw him they burst out laughing. -The story has most of the ingredients of our reading. In it we see the brazenness of the evil-doers, the persecution of the innocent, and the apparent triumph of evil, which is the subject of the first reading. The man’s heroic act of service towards the little ones shines out in the darkness of Auschwitz. He risked his life to befriend the little ones. He had no answers to give them, no salvation to offer them. All he could do was suffer with them and accompany them on their last journey. Though he was an ordinary person with no rank or status of any kind, he was undoubtedly the greatest person in that sad place on that sad occasion. What made him great was his goodness. Flor McCarthy in ‘Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies’ As Christians we are called to live in peace and harmony with one another. In today’s second reading James, points out that jealousy, ambition and self-seeking lead to disharmony and fighting because they are the result of evil in us. Whereas gentleness, reasonableness and mercy lead to peace and are the fruit of the spirit of wisdom from on high. The Kind of Person One is When Nelson Mandela was a student lawyer in Johannesburg he had a friend whose name was Paul Mahabane. Mahabane was a member of the African National Congress and had the reputation of being a radical. One day the two of them were standing outside a post office when the local magistrate, a white man in his sixties, approached Mahabane and asked him to go inside to buy him some stamps. It was quite common in those days for a white person to call a black person to perform a chore. Paul refused. The magistrate was offended. “Do you know who I am?” he said, his face turning red with anger. “It is not necessary to know who you are,” Mahabane replied. “I know what you are.” The magistrate boiled over and exclaimed, “You will pay dearly for this.” And then walked away. -The white man was convinced that he was superior to Mahabane simply because he was a magistrate. And it is clear that it had become second nature to him to expect others, especially if they were black, to serve him. We tend to define and evaluate a person in terms of the job they do. The mistake the apostles made was to put the job or the position first. In their eyes the greatest person among them was the one who had the highest position. Jesus corrected this false notion. Flor McCarthy in ‘Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies’ In today’s gospel we have the second prediction of the Passion that Jesus will have to undergo and once again the disciples do not understand and do not accept its implications in their lives. Jesus had just finished telling them that he was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die there but they refused to listen and believe his word. They are busy arguing among themselves about who is the greatest in the kingdom of God, who is going to get what job, and power they will wield in the kingdom that Jesus has come to establish. It is not ambition itself that is condemned but false ambition, which involves a desire to rule and control others. False ambition creates division and disunity in the community. True ambition on the other hand is the desire of serving others. Jesus desires to correct the false ambitions of his disciples and so he takes a little child, embraces the little one and points out that the purest kind of service is that which is rendered to the little ones, the most insignificant in the community. It is easy to serve the great and we vie with one another to be of service to the great and the powerful because we feel honoured through our association with them, and there is a better chance of recognition and reward for our service. Jesus shows his disciples where true greatness is to be found: not in being masters of others but in being of service to the least from whom there is no possibility of getting any reward. The ‘child’ stands for the weakest members of the community, who are most needy. Service rendered to the least is the best service of all. Jesus himself set an example. Though he had authority from God, he did not use his authority to dominate others, rather, he put aside his authority and was ready to serve the poor and the meek and the least important people. His followers must do the same. What You Do to the Least You Do Unto Me There is legend told about Abraham in the Mideast. According to the legend, he always held off eating his breaking each morning until a hungry person came along to share it with him. One day an old man came along, and, of course, Abraham invited him to share his breakfast with him. However, when Abraham heard the old man say a pagan blessing over his food, he jumped up and ordered the old man from his table, and from his house. Almost immediately, God spoke to Abraham. ‘Abraham! Abraham! I have been supplying that unbeliever with food everyday for the past eighty years. Could you not have tolerated him for just one meal?’ We are all children of God. God has no grandchildren! Jack McArdle in ‘And that’s the Gospel truth! “Jesus, the Son of Man, is on the way that leads to his passion. As they journey to Jerusalem the disciples are arguing among themselves. ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ Jesus must surely be aware of their lack of understanding. They are arguing about which of them would be greatest in this temporal kingdom which they hoped for. Men of lowly condition, they dream of such advancement as will procure them prestige and power, and promote them to positions of command. ‘You wish to be the first?’ says Jesus, ‘well then, make yourselves the last! You wish to be great, then make yourselves servants.’ A paradox founded, not on theoretical consideration, but on the concrete example which the suffering servant never ceases to give. As for us, what do we discuss on the road of our lives? We too might be rather embarrassed if Jesus asked us this question. When we speak of what is closest to our hearts, each of us reveals the depths of our being. Do you dream of authority and power? Ask yourself in what way you can best serve others, how you can best assist those who have need of help. Should not parents, as if by instinct, put all their authority at the service of their child, and put the child’s welfare first? So it should be with each Christian man and woman, anxious to mould themselves into the way of life of Jesus – let them welcome, as messengers of Jesus, the weak and the little. There is no better way of joining Jesus as, in secret; he makes his way through Galilee with his disciples.” -Glenstal Bible Missal Welcoming the Little Ones…. There is a woman in Dublin who in 1988 started short-term fostering –she works for a Catholic Adoption Agency. She received the baby when he/she is two or three days old, and usually has the baby for three months. Then the baby is taken back by the natural mother, or adopted, or goes to long-term fostering. This dear woman, by no means well-off, has to date fostered over forty babies. She says, “It can be hard work at times, but I enjoy it.” She enjoys it because she does it with love. “Any one who welcomes one of these little children, welcomes me”, would be a fitting epitaph of her life. Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sundays and Holy Day Liturgies’ May our lives be of service to the littlest ones, rather than the greatest! Fr. Jude Botelho [email protected] PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. These reflections are also available on my remodelled web site www.netforlife.net Thank you. Love Cricket? Check out live scores, photos, video highlights and more. Click here http://cricket.yahoo.com
