Leave-taking of the Feast of the Holy Theophany; Our Venerable Fathers Massacred in Sinai and Rhaithu (c. 370); the Repose of the Holy Equal-to-the Apostles Nina, Enlightener of Georgia
Hebrews 11:8,11-16; Mark 9:33-41
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat
Read Mark 9:33-41
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Are you as great as a child?
The disciples were embarrassed by Our Lord’s question today in the gospel as they had been arguing about which one of them was the greatest. In order to illustrate how He was to be received, Christ put a child before them. Children in that culture were political non-entities. They could not trade, buy, sell or work. They could be an investment for help later in life but for the time being they were another mouth to feed.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot come to God on our own terms, but only ever on His terms. When we slip into the temptation of believing “we are really something” we miss the ultimate truth that we don’t have anything that wasn’t already given to us by Him. The only real way to accept God is fully, totally and desperately. A child knows he must be taken care of to survive. Do we have that understanding?
In commenting on this passage, St. John Chrysostom writes:
If you are in love with precedence and the highest honor, pursue the things in last place, pursue being the least valued of all, pursue being the lowliest of all, pursue being the smallest of all, pursue placing yourselves behind others.
The Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily 58.