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A Love that Believes Completely

7th Tuesday in Ordinary Time
Feast of Saint Crispin of Viterbo

TODAY'S GOSPEL (Mark 9.30-37) recalls moments in Galilee when Jesus told His apostles of His impending death, and how that death should let them understand what faith is all about. When they came to Capernaum, the Lord noticed that His apostles had argued about something along the way. And they told Him about it, He said: If anyone wishes to be the first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all. And then He proceeded to illustrate to their faith: Whoever receives this child in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.

There is a single thread that ties together the death of the Lord, the greatness found in servanthood, and the acceptance of a child in a culture that treated a child as nothing of value. That thread is the humility of soul flowing from total submission to the will of God in an environment of total love and devotion.

The Lord will eventually submit into death as willed by the Father in total humility as a sacrificial lamb for the restoration of our sanctifying grace. The Apostles will have to live the doctrine of servanthood that the Lord wants them to live. More than that, only the child can teach grown people the childlike trust that Jesus had to His Father. In fact, a child who lost this inherent capability to completely trust is a broken child.

The Lord is telling us that only total humility, only total submission to the will of the Father, can fan into flame our love for God. And only that love for God will ever give us the necessary condition to trust in Him completely.

FATHER, thank you for showing us the perfect way to love you and entrust our lives to you completely and without reservation wherever these lives are led to. Thank you for giving us the gift of a child as a model of such a total faith, and that of your Son as the ultimate example of following your will in our lives.

LORD, thank you for the perfect way that you opened for us to follow in your own life, a life that unreservedly subjugated to the will of your Father. Teach to be like you. Teach us to let our lives to a reflection of that complete trust in the will of the Father whom you made ours, too. Amen.
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