Through Him, With Him, In Him

 

Deacon David Previtali · Through Him, With Him, In Him

Homily for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 17, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 10:35-345. Theme: Through Him, With Him, In Him 

In today’s Gospel, the brother-apostles, James the Greater and John, try to pull off a self-promotion maneuver behind the backs of the other 10 apostles. Having misunderstood the ancient prophecies about the promised Messiah, as did many Jews of their day, they think that Jesus is to be a Warrior-King who has come to conquer the Romans and build the new Great Kingdom of Israel. Due to their assertive and fiery temperaments these two sons of Zebedee were nick-named “sons of thunder” by Jesus himself, and apparently, they also thought quite a bit of themselves because they don’t simply ask Jesus for a favor. Instead, they demand that he do what they ask of him! 

Jesus does grant the first part of their request: to be intimately united with him in his reign in the Kingdom of God. But poor James and John had absolutely no idea what they were really asking. Jesus was to enter into glory by offering up his very life and these two brothers would be called upon to do the same. After the Resurrection, they preached Christ as Lord and Savior to all who would listen. And as a result, they shared the same chalice of suffering that Jesus endured. Like him, they would offer up their lives to God for the sake of the Gospel. St. James the Greater would become the first of the apostles to die for his faith in Christ about 20 years after the Resurrection. His little brother, St. John, would undergo torture and exile for the sake of the Kingdom, being the last surviving apostle. He died around the year 100. 

You know, James and John fundamentally had the right idea. They wanted glory with Jesus and were willing to stand with him to attain it. But they misunderstood what this meant and went about it in the wrong way at first! The two brothers seem to have forgotten that Jesus has already told them that the way to happiness, the way to reign with him in the glory of the Kingdom, was to follow his example and serve the needs of others. And so our Lord repeats this lesson in today’s Gospel and says: “Those who wish to be first must become last and make themselves the slaves of all...I have come not to be served but to serve, and to give my life as ransom for many.” 

Like James and John, this is a lesson that we all need to remember and put into practice in our everyday lives. We need to avoid their worldly ambition and be motivated by ambition for the Kingdom. We don’t have to be persons in authority or someone with an impressive position to have prestige in the Kingdom of God. Our greatness is not in what we do but in how we do it. Every human occupation and endeavor, every social level of living and working that is upright and good, is something that can make us great for the Kingdom of God! The way this can happen is by doing everything through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus. In this way we can have within us the same attitude that was in Christ. 

When we carry out our normal everyday duties through Jesus it means that we intentionally offer everything we do as a gift of love to God the Father. Our prayers and our professional duties, our joys and our struggles, are all offered to him through the pierced hands of Jesus his Son. In this way the gift of our lives becomes joined to the gift of Jesus’ life given out of love and becomes something beautiful for God. 

When we do everything with Jesus it means that we are mindful of the truth that we are not walking through life alone. We have the Lord as our companion throughout the day and can speak with him heart-to-heart. He is walking with us, working with us, praying with us and resting with us. When we join ourselves to Jesus in this way everything we do takes on a deeper spiritual meaning and becomes mystically united with all that he did when he lived on planet Earth. 

Finally, when we go through our daily routine, with all its ups and downs, all its ins and outs, we seek to do so in Jesus. This means that we consciously try to carry out our daily actions as if it were Jesus actually doing them. It means that we try to interact with others in the same manner and with the same kind of attitude that Christ has shown us. This means we strive to have an outlook of servanthood, an attitude of humility, a way of doing to others as we would like them to do to us. 

A simple way to mindfully live and offer up our daily lives through, with and in Jesus is to make a special prayer from the Mass part of our own personal daily prayer. At the highpoint of the Liturgy, the priest and deacon elevate the consecrated Gifts of the Eucharist above the altar, raising them up to God the Father. This symbolizes the unselfish act of Jesus the Servant giving up his life as a ransom for us sinners. We can make the words of this prayer our own and offer our day up to God for others by using the very same words: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.” And seeing the good intention of our hearts united with Christ his Son in the Eucharist, God the Father will surely reply to our prayer. “Amen!”