HOMILY WEEK 08 03 – Year I
Following Jesus Through Sacrifice and Service:
Optional Memorial of St. Philip Neri
(Sirach 36:1-22; Ps 79; Mk 10:32-45)
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“Jesus and the disciples were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them.”
The readings today invite us to follow Jesus through sacrifice and service.
The sentence that begins today’s gospel is graphically significant. Jesus and the disciples are on the road, on a journey. They are headed for Jerusalem, probably for the last time, as Jesus predicts what will happen there – his passion and death.
It is in Jerusalem that Jesus would make the ultimate sacrifice of his life given as a ransom for the world. When Jesus gave us the commandment to “love one another as he has loved us,” this is what he was alluding to – the willingness to follow him in sacrificing our selfish desires for the sake of others. To follow Jesus is first and foremost to be enter into a sacrificial love for all.
It is Mark who of all the evangelists most often mentions the slowness of the disciples to understand who Jesus is and his teachings. That is painfully apparent here as two of the disciples, James and John, ask something of Jesus that is totally the opposite of what he had just told them. Instead of sacrificial love, they were focused on the way of the world, namely, the four false gods of possessions, prestige, power and pleasure, symbolized by their request for seats at the right and left hand of Jesus in his glory.
The response of Jesus is to teach them the other side of the coin of love – and that is a life of service. Just as Jesus came to serve and not to be served, his disciples must follow him in a life of service, of giving their lives away, rather than accumulating possessions, prestige or power. This lesson Jesus taught his disciples in a dramatic fashion just before his passion, as he humbled himself and washed the feet of his disciples, the task of a slave, setting them an example that they might emulate.
That is a lesson this world and the church desperately needs to learn, as there is all too much jockeying for positions, striving for power, prestige and control within our society, work places, and church meeting rooms.
Today the church invites us to honor St. Philip Neri, who serves as an example for us of a life of sacrifice and service. Philip was born in Florence in 1515 and educated by the Dominicans. Philip experienced conversion at the age of 18 and left for Rome, where he lived a life of seclusion and poverty. He studied philosophy and theology for three years before choosing to re-evangelize Rome, where Christianity had declined and was in need of reform. He spent his days talking to people about God’s love, and his nights in prayer. In 1548 he helped found a confraternity of laymen to minister to needy pilgrims, leading to the establishment of a now-famous Roman hospital, Santa Trinità dei Pellegrini. In 1551, his confessor insisted Philip be ordained. As a confessor himself, Philip Neri is the patron of home missions, supported in Canada through Catholic Missions In Canada.
The Eucharist is a humble meal that makes present the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. May our celebration empower us to lead lives of humble service, as did St. Philip Neri.
