Daily Reading

First Reading

Sirach 2:1-11

My child, when you come to serve the Lord,
    prepare yourself for testing.
Set your heart right and be steadfast,
    and do not be impetuous in time of calamity.
Cling to him and do not depart,
    so that your last days may be prosperous.
Accept whatever befalls you,
    and in times of humiliation be patient.
For gold is tested in the fire,
    and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.
Trust in him, and he will help you;
    make your ways straight, and hope in him.

You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy;
    do not stray, or else you may fall.
You who fear the Lord, trust in him,
    and your reward will not be lost.
You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
    for lasting joy and mercy.
Consider the generations of old and see:
    has anyone trusted in the Lord and been disappointed?
Or has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord and been forsaken?
    Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected?
For the Lord is compassionate and merciful;
    he forgives sins and saves in time of distress.

Psalm

Psalm 37:3-4, 18-19, 27-28, 39-40

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
    and their heritage will abide forever;
 they are not put to shame in evil times,
    in the days of famine they have abundance.

Depart from evil, and do good;
    so you shall abide forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
    he will not forsake his faithful ones.

The righteous shall be kept safe forever,
    but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
    he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and rescues them;
    he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
    because they take refuge in him.

Gospel Reading

Mark 9:30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus presents a child as the model for his disciples who want to be the most important. Jesus lays out for his disciples what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem, how he will be rejected, tortured, and killed. Oblivious to this, the disciples are discussing who among them is the most important. For Jesus, the path to greatness lies on the road to Calvary, to self-forgetting love; for the disciples—and for most people of most ages—it lies along the road to ego inflation. 

What is the antidote? A child is proposed as a kind of living icon to these ambitious Apostles. We notice first how Jesus physically identifies with the child, sitting down at his level and placing his arms around him. It is as though he is saying that he himself is like a child. How so? Children don’t know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest nature. 

Why was this story of Jesus’ identification with children preserved by all of the synoptic Gospels? Somehow it gets close to the heart of Jesus’ life and message.