Saving Rather Than Selfish Ambition, 25th Sunday (B), September 22, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity Convent, Bronx, NY
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
September 22, 2024
Wis 2:12.17-20, Ps 54, James 3:16-4:3, Mk 9:30-37

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

• Today’s Gospel will hopefully never cease to shock us. Jesus is talking for the second time about his upcoming suffering. We had the first last week, when Jesus, after Peter confessed him to be the Messiah, described what type of Messiah he would be. It’s clear not only how much his upcoming suffering and death were on Jesus’ mind but how much he wanted it on the apostles’ radar. He was about to be betrayed into the hands of those who would mock, scourge, crucify and kill him. He was about to become the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Book of Wisdom from today’s first reading, when some would beset and revile the Just One because in his goodness he was obnoxious to them, because his very being reproached them for their transgressions of the law. Just as the Book of Wisdom foretold, they were going to torture and condemn him to a shameful death, in fact, the most shameful death of all, crucifixion.
• We would have expected, when Jesus was talking about this to his twelve closest friends, who had spent the previous two years with him, that they would have been concerned about him. Instead of paying attention to what he had now emphasized twice with them, instead of consoling him, they started, rather, arguing about which one of them is the greatest. This wasn’t an isolated incident, but a disturbing pattern. Whenever, in fact, Jesus spoke about his upcoming crucifixion, it seemed always to bring out the worst in the apostles.
  • As we saw last week, when Jesus told them about it for the first time, St. Peter, the newly named rock, took Jesus aside and tried to rebuke him, earning for himself in return the worst rebuke in the Bible, the name Satan, for trying to lead rather than to follow Jesus, for thinking not as God thinks but as human beings do, for essentially denying that suffering and death, even Jesus’, could be salvific.
  • Later, when Jesus would announce yet again that the chief priests and the scribes would condemn him to death, deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked, spit upon, scourge and crucify him, James and John, two of the three closest of the disciples, came up to him and immediately asked him to do whatever they asked. What they wanted was to sit one on his right and the other on his left as he entered his kingdom — oblivious to the fact that those spots were already pre-ordained by the Father for a good and bad thief. Immediately after that chutzpah, the other apostles, recognizing what the sons of Zebedee had done, got indignant at them, not because of the way they were trying to use Jesus, but because they were not gutsy enough themselves to ask for the spots they all openly desired but didn’t have the temerity to request.
  • And perhaps the worst example of all occurred during the Last Supper. After Jesus indicated to them, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me,” the apostles got into yet another dispute over which of them was the greatest. Rather than thinking about who would be the despicable traitor about to sell Jesus out, they were more concerned to the point of argumentation about who among them would be numero uno. They did not recognize at the time that, because their flesh was weak, all of them would end up betraying him when he would be arrested. They didn’t recognize that they were alreadybetraying him during the Last Supper.
• To get a sense of the ugliness of the apostles’ egocentric jockeying for position, imagine that a father came to his children and told them that the doctor had just given him two weeks to live and, instead of consoling him, instead of even showing that he cared about him, they immediately shifted the attention to who would get the house and the car. That’s what was happening in these scenes. It’s sad, ridiculous and frankly disgusting. These were all examples of what St. James would describe in today’s second reading as “jealousy and selfish ambition,” flowing from “coveting” and “envy” that leads us obsessively to “ask wrongly” in order to satisfy our “passions.” The apostles were seeking their own interests, not those of the Lord. They were using him, not loving him. What happened with them is a perennial warning to the Church, to the disciples of the Lord.
• Jesus, however, never tried to eliminate his followers’ ambition as if all ambitious is selfish and jealous. Jesus, rather, sought to purify their worldly ambition and direct it toward true greatness. There’s a huge difference between a passion for self-aggrandizement — an ego-indulging hunger for riches, honor, pleasure and power, an insatiable desire not just to be the best but to be acknowledged as the best — and a holy zeal for the things of God and his kingdom. Saint Paul told us in his First Letter to the Corinthians, which we heard on Wednesday this week, “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts,” and said that those supreme endowments are not things like prophetic words, faith to move mountains, or heroic feats of enduring suffering; they are faith, hope and especially a charity that is patient, kind, not arrogant or rude. The patron saint of conversion from worldly ambition to holy ambition is probably Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Prior to the Battle of Pamplona, when he had his leg shattered by a cannon ball, he vainly sought worldly honor on the battlefield and in the royal courts. After convalescing for many months, studying the life of Christ and reading the lives of many saints, he was filled with a sacred ambition and asked, “Why can’t I do what” Saint Dominic and Saint Francis have done? He became, instead, ambitious to do everything for God’s greater glory. St. Francis Xavier, his former roommate and fellow founding Jesuit, had the ambition to bring whole nations to the Lord. St. Teresa of Avila had the ambition to reform the Carmelites so that it might sing forever of God’s mercy and glory. Saint Teresa of Calcutta, in response to the Lord’s request, had the ambition to satiate Jesus’ infinite thirst for souls.
• Jesus told the apostles that the path of holy ambition was that of cruciform self-giving: “If anyone wishes to be first,” he stated, “he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” To be great we must excel in loving service. And to illustrate exactly the type of selfless service he was describing, lest we interpret it according to our comforts, he took a child and said, “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.” An infant is someone who cannot reward us, with whom we cannot engage in a quid pro quo. A little child is not even able to thank us, for changing his diapers, or feeding or clothing her, or more. While it’s true that whenever we love, we receive more than we give, and that those who love children receive so many blessings in return, Jesus’ point is that we need to love those who cannot reward us. That’s the type of service we’re called to give. That’s the kind of ambition to which we’re supposed to aspire. An ambition not for the first place in the eyes of the world but the first place in the eyes of God, one in which we’re not merely not envious of others’ success but out of love try to help others succeed.
• In the Gospel, Jesus spoke several times about true greatness and described the characteristics of Christian greatness. It’s important for us not only to purify selfish ambition to sacred ambition, but to be truly ambitious for the things of the Lord, to strive eagerly after the greatest spiritual gifts. In some circles in the Church, ambition is considered per se evil, and out of a false sense of humility, some no longer set goals and fail to use their freedom and talents to try to do something beautiful for the Lord. No, the Lord created us for a certain type of greatness through the way we receive his love, respond to his love, and then try to reciprocate his love. In the Gospel, Jesus mentions the path to greatness five different times. Let’s examine the five things he urges us to do and today respond to his help to respond to this call to greatness.
  • First, Jesus wants us to be great in faith. He praised the Syro-Phoenician mother and the Roman Centurion for their great faith and longed that all in Israel would emulate it. All the more, he wants us, his followers, to have great faith. And we should aspire to it, begging him, “Lord, increase my faith!”
  • Second, Jesus wants us to be great in humility. In response to the disciples’ question, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?,” Jesus called a child over and said, “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” To be “great in humility,” though paradoxical, is not contradictory. Just as a child is totally dependent on his or her parents, so Jesus wants us to become great in our filial dependence. The temptation is for us to think we don’t need God, that we’re self-sufficient. The chief sin of the prodigal son was to treat the Father basically as if he were superfluous, or even as if he were already dead, so that he might get the inheritance now. He forgot that a far more important treasure than half the father’s wealth was a relationship with him. Jesus indicates for us that the path to greatness is to become great in recognizing our need for, and receiving with gratitude, all God wants to give.
  • Third, Jesus wants us to be ambitious in our total imitation of his self-sacrificial love. “Whoever would be first among you must be the servant of all,” he tells us today. Later on in St. Mark’s Gospel he spoke directly of the contrast between earthly and worldly ambition when he said, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:43-45). Jesus wants us to respond to his grace to grow in the desire to give our life to ransom others from slavery and death, just as he did. During the Last Supper, after he washed the disciples’ feet, he told them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (Jn 13). We have so many opportunities to become great through unselfish charity in this way. This is a particular path of greatness open to the Missionaries of Charity.
  • Fourth, Jesus wants us to be ambitious to be saints. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Jesus said during the Sermon on the Mount, echoing the prophets’ call for us to be holy as the Lord, our God, is holy, to be merciful as our Father is merciful, so that we might fully become the image and likeness of the God who created us.
  • Fifth, Jesus wants us to be great in living by his truths and passing them on to others. “Whoever keeps these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called great in the Kingdom of heaven,” he tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. He wants us to excel in sharing the faith by our example and by our words. He came to light a fire on the earth and is longing for it to be enkindled. We think of great missionaries like Saint Paul and Saint Francis Xavier, the North American Martyrs, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, and others. We think about religious sisters and brothers who taught so selflessly generations of Catholic school students instilling within them the knowledge and love of God. We think about so many catechists who patiently pass on the faith to children, teens and adults. We think about parents, grandparents and godparents, who make it their priority to pass on the faith. We think about truly apostolic friends who seek to share with those they care about the faith they care about the most.
• Are we striving to become truly great in these ways Jesus indicates or according to worldly categories? Are we thinking as God does or as human beings do? We can wear the priestly vestments or religious habits, but have the desires of our heart been as transformed as our clothing? The reality is that, just as he did with the apostles, Jesus has told us over and again that he will be betrayed, mocked, tortured, and ignominiously crucified and on the third day raised. It was ugly for them, in anticipation of what he would endure, to elbow each other for worldly advancement, ignoring the reality and meaning of his passion, death and resurrection. I would argue, knowing what Jesus has endured for us and our salvation, that it is much uglier for us now to remain only at the level of worldly desires. The Son of God became man not so that we might ambitiously seek the things of this world while just doing the minimum spiritually. He died and rose not so that we could remain inert and accomplish very little for him and his kingdom by striving to do very little. Jesus died and rose so that we might live new lives, in the world but not of it, seeking first the kingdom of God and God’s holiness, recognizing that everything else of true value will be given us besides.
• The great way we recalibrate our ambitions is to live a truly Eucharist life. In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus goes beyond what he did on Calvary. He humbles himself so much as to become our very spiritual nourishment, seeking to transform us on the inside so that with him we may give our body and blood, our sweat and tears, all we are and have out of love for God the Father and for others. When we seek what Jesus gives and teaches us each day in the Eucharist, when we receive him as he deserves and desires, God can make us great not at others’ expense but precisely through lovingly lifting them up. The Eucharist is where we learn to receive Jesus with love and in receiving him to recognize and receive him in children and everyone else he sends us. This Sacrament of Love teaches us how to love. And so, as we prepare to receive the fruits of Jesus’ betrayal, suffering, death and resurrection, let us ask our Eucharistic Lord for the grace to be filled with a hunger for what really matters and for all the help he knows we need to act on that holy ambition for the greatest spiritual gifts.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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