Year B
Discover the deeper meaning and connections found in this week's readings, through these great commentaries written by our priests.
Explore this week's readings and hear what God is saying to us through His Word.
Find out more about how we can mark this special day in our liturgy.
See our music recommendations for the liturgy.
“What were you arguing about along the way?” Jesus asks them. “But they were silent for they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” Jesus didn’t get an answer to his question, only silence.
Their argument happened on a public road, out in the open. His question, however, is asked in the privacy and interior space of a house. This is about more than a change in physical location. Jesus is moving the conversation inward. He’s not gathering information for himself but inviting the disciples’ self-reflection on what it means to be ‘great’. He’s presenting the disciples with an image and the reality of their better selves, and he’s doing so for us too.
Jesus is not saying that we should not or cannot be great. He never says that. Rather, he is asking us to reframe our understanding of greatness. What does it mean and look like for you and me to be great in today’s world? That’s the question.
Jesus answers that question by taking a little child in his arms and saying to the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” He’s talking about what the child represents. We’ve so romanticised and sentimentalised children and childhood in today’s culture that it can be difficult to understand what Jesus is getting at. The child is a symbol for something else. The child is a symbol of vulnerability, powerlessness, and dependency. The child in Jesus’ day had no rights, no status, no economic value. The child was a consumer and not a producer.
Greatness, Jesus says, is in welcoming and receiving into our arms one like this, regardless of his or her age.
Greatness is found not in what we have accomplished and gained for ourselves but in what we have done and given to “the least of these”, the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned; the symbolic children in each of our lives.
‘Greatness’ never puts itself in a position of superiority over another. It is not about me; my nation, my people, my religion, my politics, my bank account, my house, my job, my accomplishments, my reputation, my status. Our greatness is revealed in our service and care of others regardless of her or his ability or willingness to pay, repay, or return the favour.
When Jesus talked about loving others even when they don’t love you, doing good to those who do not do good to you, lending without expectation of repayment, and inviting to supper those who cannot invite you back, he was describing greatness.
Greatness comes to us when we share with others who have nothing to share with us.
Greatness comes when we forgive one who has neither asked for our forgiveness nor changed his or her behaviour. Those who refuse to carry bitterness or envy toward another are great.
When we respond to the needs of others, when we refuse thoughts and actions of hatred or prejudice then greatness comes.
Our refusal to objectify the opposite/or same sex or to join in jokes about minorities or foreigners is an act of greatness.
When we overcome fear, tear down walls, and make room for one who is different, vulnerable, in need, then we are great.
Greatness is not something to be achieved or earned. It is a quality that arises within us when our lives are in balance, and we step into our better selves.
That’s the life Jesus offers us. That’s the life I want to live. I want to be great, don’t you?
This kind of greatness happen in the simple, ordinary, and mundane. It often goes unnoticed and unnamed but it’s there. Greatness is always a choice set before us.
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
In the study of the sacred liturgy we have a Latin saying – lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi – it can roughly be translated into ‘as we worship, so we believe, so we live’. This emphasises the close and reciprocal nature between worship, our belief, and our life. All three together are important to consider. Our liturgy is not optional to our Christian beliefs, for liturgy reveals what we believe. At the same time, it gives us insight in our relationship with God and with each other. Today’s Collect is a good example of this. God founded the commands of the sacred laws, based upon love of himself and love our neighbour. The two golden commandments of our Christian faith. We pray or petition God that we may keep these precepts or to live out the commandments in our daily lives in our words and actions, in order to attain eternal life, or fullness of life, which starts here-and-now. Our participation in the liturgy, or our renewal in the sacrament of the Eucharist, as we hear in the Prayer after Communion, allows us to experience the redemption of Jesus Christ in the mystery of the liturgy, but importantly, to live it out in the manner of our life in our words and actions. When we gather in the name of the Lord to worship, we do so, not to run away from our daily lives, but to hear his Word and to break bread, in order to go out, to live our faith through the commandments of love, so to eventually attain fullness of life.
Prayer of the Faithful
For the ministers of the Church – that their patient endurance, in the face of hostility and suffering, may be a sign to all Christians of the ultimate triumph of the Resurrection.
For those who work for peace throughout the world – that they may be prepared to pay the price of peace, and endure the loss of friends and even imprisonment, because they speak up against violence and injustice.
For refugees from war-torn countries – that they may find safe refuge and welcome in their new homes, and have the courage to start their lives afresh, putting aside all bitterness and hatred for their oppressors.
These hymns have been chosen from the Laudate Hymnbook:
Diverse in culture, nation, race (L841)
Praise to the Holiest in the height (L788)
Blest are the pure in heart (L908)
Servant song (L924)
O God, our help in ages past (L955)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
