Presider: Fr. Justin Lopina
Parish: St. Joseph
Choir: St. Charles
TEXT FROM THE GOSPEL & HOMILY
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Mark. Glory to you, o Lord.
Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, "The son of man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the son of man will rise." But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him. They came to Capernaum and once inside the house, he began to ask them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "if anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all." Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me."
The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
With our gospel today we hear Jesus explain that the first shall be last and the last shall be first and whoever receives a little child in my name receives me. So when we show kindness, dignity, and compassion to the least of all people, we are honoring the king of the universe himself. So in essence it's the classic teaching that in the eyes of God there's not really any difference between honoring the greatest and the least. So don't worry so much about the greatest. You can focus on the least. In the eyes of God that's pretty much the same thing. So for today I just want to offer a very sensible word of warning. Avoid living out the opposite of this gospel. And by that I mean avoid living out a fixation on being the first, being the greatest, and in a way worrying about the first and the greatest. There's an attitude in the world today. Very, very, common in the modern world and some people have labeled it the "If you can't help everyone why bother helping anyone?" syndrome. So it's referring to people who look out into the world and they see the problems and they fall into despair. They become dejected and they say to themselves the world is too broken to fix. Why bother volunteering at a homeless shelter when war is raging all around the earth. Jesus says to receive a little child in my name. What good am I doing by being kind to the neighborhood children when human trafficking is a thing? You know there are people who are so fixated on the big issues, the big problems, the things that will make you greatest if you solve them, essentially that they've lost a sense of the good that they can bring into the world in their lives. So I know the cynics of the world will disagree with this but the world is changed for the better when people, good, decent, people in spite of their sins and shortcomings, Lord knows we all have them. When good decent people do good little things in their lives every day with great love. Jesus never asks us to personally save the world. That is his job. He does not ask us to be personally responsible for solving the biggest issue of our era of history. He asks us to do little good things every single day with great love. When we do that in a thousand different ways, that is receiving a little child in your midst and therefore it is receiving the king of the universe himself. In the eyes of God there is no real difference between serving and honoring the greatest of the world and the least of the world. If you can do little good things with great love you serve the king of creation himself.
Entrance: O Bless the Lord My Soul
Text: SM; James Montgomery, 1771-1854, alt. Music: New Universal Psalmodist, 1770; Aaron Williams, 1731-1776, alt.
Psalm 54: The Lord Upholds My Life
The English translation of the Psalm Response from the Lectionary for Mass © 1969, 1981, 1997, ICEL. All rights reserved. Music Copyright © 2014 by GIA Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Preparation: God Be In My Head
© 1999, Grayson Warren Brown. Published by OCP. All rights reserved
Communion: Humbly, Lord, We Worship You
Text: 75 75 with Refrain; © 1973, Jeanne Frolick, SFCC. Published by OCP Publications. All rights reserved. Music: Mode V; Paris Processional, 1697.
Sending Forth: Make Us True Servants
Susan G. Wente Irish folk song Text © 1978, WLP
Mass Setting: Mass for Sister Thea Bowman
Text: © 2010 ICEL Music: Mass for Sister Thea Bowman, Aaron Mathews, © 2021 GIA Publications, Inc.
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this liturgy obtained from ONE LICENSE, License No. A-718591.
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