Transcription
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. A reading from the holy Gospel according to Saint Mark. At that time, Jesus and his disciples were on their way up to Jerusalem. And Jesus went ahead of them. The disciples were surprised, and the people who followed him were afraid. He took the 12 aside again and began to tell them everything that was going to happen. You see that we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles. They will mock him. They will spit on him, flog him, and kill him. But on the third day, he will rise again. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus. "When you are in your glory." Jesus replied, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized?" They answered, "Yes, we can." And Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink the cup that I am going to drink, and you will be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized. But to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to grant. It is for those for whom it is prepared." When the other 10 apostles heard this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus then gathered the 12 and said to them, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It must not be so among you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." The Gospel of the Lord. We begin ordinary time again. I really like ordinary time. I always like to clarify that just because it's ordinary time doesn't mean it's the most ordinary of times. Because if it's such a long time and it's ordinary time, we tend to think it's not a strong time. How strong Easter or Lent or Christmas are. And yet, it is in ordinary time where we will see Jesus walking with the disciples, and walking with the disciples, what he is preparing them for and telling them is immense, and from there we serve ourselves, right? We nourish ourselves from what Jesus is saying to the disciples. In the first reading of today, taken from the letter of the Apostle Saint Peter, there is a phrase that if we knew how to understand it, if we printed that phrase and put it in your room on a small sheet of paper, you would fix many things. All mortals are like grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, and the flower falls. So, how much time do we waste for nothing. We don't realize the finiteness of human beings. The word says, we are like grass that dawns in the morning and in the afternoon the sun dries it, and the head of the flower, and we see them go like this, *snap*, and they fall. So, you and I don't realize that we are finite. What does finite mean? That we end, that we wear out. And then you see that the wear and tear we have is because I want everything to be this way, that everything be like this, I want to achieve that, I want triumph, I want the other. And we want to remain as if this were eternal. And this is not eternal. This is the part that passes. Eternity is after death. That's it. This is the little bit that passes. The little while you are here. Some come for a few minutes. Minutes, because either they die at birth or they are killed even before minutes inside the womb. Others come for twenty-something years, others come for fifty, others come for seventy, but no more than a hundred, almost never. Consider yourself blessed if you reach a hundred or a hundred and one. The question is, what do we wear out those hundred years on? What do you wear out your time on? Don't you realize that you too are like a piece of grass that dries up, that withers, that wears out and also falls? But no, more and more society, more and more the reality in which we live tries to fit you in so that you don't feel the limitation. So, I want to be eternal here. I don't accept my limits, my weakness. I don't accept that time is passing. Today I had to share this with someone. I remembered Pope Francis, who spoke about this beautifully. The culture of knowing how to age. Do we accept knowing how to age? It's a more complex topic, I'm not going to talk about it here because it would be too scandalous, but sometimes that doesn't happen here. So, the reading comes to connect with today's Gospel. What happens when I don't accept limitation? What happens when I don't accept finiteness? What happens when I don't realize that everything is passing, that everything is going to change, that life is a process, that not everything is the same? Ah, brother, what you want is to try more and more to cling to structures and things to stay up, to achieve triumphs of things. And it turns out that Jesus today, nothing more and nothing less, calls the disciples to tell them, "Come here." He called the two of them and put them aside there and said to them, "Look, they are going to kill me. And they will grab me and spit on me and hit me and crucify me, and on the third day I will rise again." The response of two of his disciples. Look at what the master is announcing to you that they will do to him. Where were the disciples' heads? Can you grant me to sit at your right and the other at your left? Power. What was a structure? What were they thinking? That Jesus was going to change political power, that a new reign was coming. Remember me, eh, keep me in mind, is when you get to the top, when you are well, remember me and take me to a good position next to you. This is what they had in their heads, because imagine in a court or a kingdom where, who is next to you and who is to your right and who is to your left? those closest to you. Therefore, eh, there I can live well, I can have my problems solved, I can be next to you and everything is nice. The master is talking about death, about being spat on, about being killed, about being crucified. And what are they thinking? Living life well. Connect it to the first reading. So, eh, where are you and I going, because sometimes we want to take advantage of everything. If I'm friends with this one, if I'm friends with that one, if I have this one in my life, if I have that one in my life, the question is, for what? What do I get out of it? We always look for the verb to receive, because I love to receive. How nice to get a gift. How nice to have a gesture towards me. How nice to accompany me. How nice to invite me out. How nice to have gestures towards me. How nice that you call me. How nice that you write to me, how nice that you are attentive to my life. If it's all for me. The verb to receive, and the verb to give, Jesus says in the Gospel later, right? I have not come to be served, but to serve. I have not come to be given to, but to give. So, we adapt, like, how nice to be given to, how good to be taken into account, how good for that to work for me, how good. Well, yes, okay, it's good to be given to, but it's also good for giving to come from you. Giving. And we're not talking about giving money or giving material things. Giving oneself. Giving oneself. It's not just about being given to. I have to give myself. And ask yourself, do you give? Do we give ourselves to others? So, it's a big question because otherwise we remain like the disciples wanting to look for the opportune moment, looking for the chance, as we would say, right? For Cubans, they say "el chance," looking for the chance, the opportunity to sneak in, to be the first, to have an advantage for this. And that's how we often are, I don't even want to have advantages in the church. I'm the one who talks to the priest, I'm the one who does this and that. I'm the one who leads this group, I'm the one who leads that group, I'm the one who is always there in front, I'm the one who does this and that. This is not yours, this is his, not mine, this is his. So, eh, we don't realize that, right? So we need human applause, recognition, the spotlight to be on us, a diploma, a signature here. Let's recognize you as these. No, recognize me, that I sit at your right, at your left. It's like a recognition. And Jesus says to him, "Are you clear, are you prepared to assume the baptism that I am going to assume?" Jesus said, "You will go through what I am going to go through." Well, thank God, that was resolved. Because of this Gospel, it's not so negative in the end, right? It was resolved because they looked at him and said, "Yes, we are capable." Glory to God. They were, because these two ended up as martyrs too and died. Therefore, they did not sit at his right or his left, but they learned the lesson and gave their lives. Now, do we give our lives or do we not like to give our lives much? We are afraid, right? Like giving ourselves, giving our lives, wearing ourselves out, right? Wearing myself out for the other, for those, for mine, for this person, for that. Let's ask the Lord for that, right? That we don't forget. I'm going to read it again. Look for it in the first letter of the Apostle Saint Peter, chapter 1, verse 18. Interesting. If you want, print it, put it there because it will help you a lot, right? Mortals are like grass, and their glory is like a flower. The grass withers, and the flower falls. We will fall. And the worst thing is not that we fall. And the worst thing is not that we wear out. And the worst thing is not that we will arrive. The worst thing is that we ignore it until the end. And we want to keep being the same. And we want to keep doing the same thing and we don't accept our limitations. And I don't accept that I can't do this, and I don't accept that I can't get there, and I don't accept, and I impose myself, and I impose myself, and I impose myself. And I was telling someone this morning, even if you don't want to, even if you prevent it, even if you are wearing yourself out to prevent it, there is one thing you cannot stop here, what is it? Time. You will never stop time, and even if you don't want to, you will arrive, and the flower will fall even if you don't want to. Therefore, it is better that when the flower is about to fall, it is better that when we wear out, it is better that when life passes, we have that in mind, capable of building and capable of organizing things to be able to get there. Not to be caught by surprise, not to be taken by surprise. Let's ask the Lord for that. In the end, what he invites us to is to realize the finiteness of man, that we are finite, that we end, that the little while we are going to be here, what is the point of the fight, that, the other, the problem, I don't know what. So, don't try to seek positions, don't try to seek, like these two, one to the right, another to the left. Securities of things. We love securities, and life is not about security, I mean, eh, life doesn't ask for your permission, life often forces you to assume realities that you are not even ready for, but it pushes you and you have to assume it. Let's ask the Lord for that today, that he give us the grace to remain, to give our lives, to give ourselves, not only to receive, but to be able to give something, right? To be able to give something, to give a little to others. And there is more joy in giving than in receiving.