Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
21st May 2024 (Tuesday)
Psalter: Week 3
Reading of the Day
First Reading: James 4:1-10
Beloved: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Psalm 55:7-8, 9-10a, 10b-11, 23 (R. 23ab)
R/. Entrust your cares to the Lord, and he will support you.
Gospel Acclamation
V/. Alleluia
R/. Alleluia
V/. Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
R/. Alleluia.
Gospel : Mark 9:30-37
At that time: Jesus and his disciples went on from the mountain and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
Daily Gospel Reflection
Tuesday – Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
Guidelines: Greatness is a natural desire and aspiration of everyone. There is nothing wrong in itself. But the problem is when it is wrongly understood and wrongly pursued and acquired through false ways and means
1. In the gospel, the disciples were engaged in a discussion about who was the greatest. Today we are invited to reflect once again a little deeply and sincerely about our own concept, pursuit, and means of gaining that greatness. Jesus dispels the wrong notions of greatness and clarifies what it means to be truly great and how to become rightly great.
2. In the first place, real greatness is not something material. It does not consist in money and material possessions. Real greatness is not something merely social. It does not consist in power and position, status and prestige. Further, real greatness is not merely intellectual. It does not consist in great intellectual calibre, academic excellence, achievement, bundles of knowledge or reckoning honours of educative contribution.
3. Then what is true greatness? How does one obtain it? The gospel and the other readings make it clear. True greatness consists in not desiring to be placed over others, dominating and bossing over them. It is not eager to be first in power and position but first in service.
4. True greatness is commitment to God’s will and mission. Subsequently, it also implies the readiness and courage to face the consequences, to go through the ordeal of the way of the cross, even to the extent of death. This is what Jesus did. This is what we find in the lives of the prophets, the righteous exemplified by the suffering servant of Yahweh.
5. True greatness is receiving even children, that is the vulnerable, the uncountables and negligibles in the society. It accepts and respects them. This is contrary to the mindset that one becomes great by association with big people. This is why often we find that great people may have their own “social circles”, or “privileged elite”. They create an aura around them that there is an air of inaccessibility, unconcern and uninvolvement.
6. Further, true greatness consists in receiving the example of a child. Among numerous qualities of a child, are purity and guilelessness of heart, total trust and dependence on God, love for God and always seeking to please Him.
7. The second reading from the letter of James offers us some more pointers to true greatness. It is to be free from all greed, selfish ambition and arrogance. It is to be free from all disorder and every vile practice. True greatness essentially consists in “enmity with the world and friendship with God”.
Practice: In the ultimate analysis, to be truly great is to consistently nurture spiritual tenacity and productivity and to lead a righteous and forbearing life
