Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

Sunday October 20 2024

29rd Sunday During the Year – Year B

1st reading: Isaiah 53,10-11

Psalm: 32 (33), 4-5, 18-19, 20.22

2rd reading: Hebrews 4,14-16

Gospel: Mark 10,35-45

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The apostles definitely have a hard time with Jesus. After the first announcement of the Passion, Peter had told Jesus that things were not going well at all and he had been called Satan (Mk 8,27:33-9,30). After the second announcement of the Passion, the apostles were afraid to question him and then they argued among themselves about who was the greatest (Mk 34:XNUMX-XNUMX). And after the third announcement of the Passion, as if Jesus had said nothing, James and John try to position themselves.

It is interesting for us to notice this. It means that we can therefore be like the apostles… and we can then listen to Jesus better.

Jacques and Jean's request: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and the other at your left, in your glory.” may seem out of place, proud. They want to have primacy over the other apostles; we can state many reasons to find this request out of place. But we can also see in this request the desire to be in Heaven with Jesus. And that is beautiful! Do we have the desire to go to Heaven, enough for this desire to have concrete consequences in our daily life? Do we have the desire to be with Jesus in Heaven and therefore to be with Jesus today, every day, every moment? And if so, what means do we take to be with Jesus?

Jesus shows us a path. It is apparently a question of “drinking the cup that he is going to drink”, of “being baptized with the baptism in which he is going to be immersed”. We can understand that he is evoking here in a symbolic way the mystery of his Passion and his crucifixion, of his death on the cross. When James and John answer him that they can, they probably do not fully appreciate what they are answering or rather the implications of their answers. The same goes for us: we do not really know what our desire to be with Jesus, to follow Jesus, really leads us to. And as soon as we encounter the test of the passion and the test of the cross, whatever way this test presents itself, we need an increase in faith, very often, to recognize there the path by which Jesus leads us.

But Jesus goes further. First, the other apostles are indignant with James and John. Perhaps they regret not having had the idea first! Jesus' response shows us the path we can take to go in the direction of Heaven, to be able to sit with him in glory.

"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of nations lord it over them; those who are great make them feel their power. But among you it must not be so. Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be slave to all." Why ? “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” So this is an imitation of Jesus.

We can note in passing that Jesus does not despise the fact of wanting to be great and the fact of wanting to be first. He does not contest this desire at all: he indicates the path by which we can become great and by which we can be first. This path is that of the servant and even of the slave. This path is the one that Jesus himself took. Basically, when we contemplate the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we understand well that the path that led Jesus to the Resurrection and the Ascension is the Passion and the Cross. And we can thus understand that the path that leads us to the fullness of life is the path of the Passion and the Cross. It is useless to dream of another path, since it is this path that the Word made flesh took, the only Son of the Father, born before all ages, who became man. for us men and for our salvation.

Thérèse understands this well. She understands that love must humble itself. She says it thus, in manuscript B:

For Love to be fully satisfied, it must lower itself, lower itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire… MsB, 3v

In a letter to Father Roulland, she wrote:

Our only desire is to resemble our Adorable Master whom the world did not want to recognize because He annihilated Himself, taking the form and nature of a slave. O my Brother! how happy you are to follow so closely the example of Jesus…

And she dwells on a detail that she interprets as an imitation of Christ:

Thinking that you have put on the Chinese costume, I naturally think of the Savior putting on our poor humanity and becoming like one of us in order to redeem our souls for eternity. LT201 Yes, it is indeed a question of imitating the Lord in his humiliation, of imitating the Lord who makes himself the servant, of imitating the Lord who goes to wash the feet of his disciples, of imitating the Lord in daily life by making ourselves the servant of our brothers. This is the path to Heaven. The path to Heaven is that of concrete charity lived out of love for Jesus and out of love for our brothers; out of love for Jesus, knowing that, in serving our brothers, we serve Jesus. But also out of love for Jesus, knowing that in serving our brothers as Jesus serves them, we give them to understand how Jesus loves them, and we become by our love concretely lived witnesses of the merciful love of God which is given to us in Jesus.

Christ always reveals himself in one way or another when fraternal charity is authentically lived. But sometimes, when one renders a service, one receives no gratitude from men, no thanks, no attention. Mother Agnes points this out to Thérèse when she is already ill. And Thérèse replies:

I too, I assure you, experience the feeling you are talking about; but I am never caught, because I do not expect any reward on earth: I do everything for the good Lord, like that I cannot lose anything and I am always very well paid for the trouble I take to serve my neighbor. CJ May 9, 1897

Saint Peter, in his first Letter, invites us to offer ourselves as a sacrifice. Saint Paul also invites us to do so. Saint Peter reminds us that we are a holy priesthood and, in the liturgy of baptism, through the anointing that is done for those who are not yet confirmed, especially the newborn, they are reminded that, through this anointing, they share the dignity of Christ, priest, prophet and king. We heard in the second reading how Jesus is our high priest. “He is the great high priest, a high priest approved in all things, according to our likeness, except sin.”. As a member of the Body of Christ, we also have to offer this world with Him, through Him, in Him. To offer this world where we are, starting with ourselves, by associating our offering with that of Christ; or we can say it the other way around: by entering into the very offering of the Lord.

The Lord thus shows us the path of life. At every moment, in everything we do, we can direct our life toward Heaven by making ourselves the servant of our brothers, by lowering ourselves for the service of our brothers. But this lowering is not just anything. Saint Therese will have the responsibility of being practically mistress of novices, she speaks about it at some length in manuscript C, and at the moment when she explains that there are great differences between souls and that we must adapt to each one, she says:

With some souls, I feel that I must make myself small, not fear humiliating myself by admitting my struggles, my defeats; seeing that I have the same weaknesses as they, my little ones confess to me in turn the faults they reproach themselves for and rejoice that I understand them by experience. With others I have seen that on the contrary, to do them good, one must have great firmness and never go back on something said. To lower oneself would not then be humility, but weakness. MsC 23v

And this brings to mind the words of Pope Pius IX: “The wickedness of the wicked feeds on the weakness of the good.”

Yes, the service that is asked of us, the humiliation that we must live following Jesus does not consist in tolerating everything and anything, but consists in making ourselves the servant of the good of our brothers. And making ourselves the servant of the good of our brothers sometimes requires a firm attitude and a clear word.

I invite you, if you have time, to go and look at prayer #20, the prayer to ask for humility that Thérèse wrote. This prayer begins like this:

O Powerful Monarch of Heaven, yes my soul finds rest in seeing you clothed in the form and nature of a slave, humble yourself to the point of washing the feet of your apostles. I then remember these words that you spoke to teach me to practice humility: “I gave you the example so that you yourself would do what I did, the disciple is no more greater than the Master…. If you understand this you will be happy practicing it. » I understand them, Lord, these words coming from your gentle and humble Heart, I want to practice them with the help of your grace.

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine