Just The Two Of Us

In today’s gospel it says that Jesus embarked on a journey through Galilee with His disciples that He did not wish for anyone to know about. It seems that He was going to start revealing higher-level teaching or more importantly a deeper glance into His heart with His inner circle and the masses would not necessarily be ready for its content. This captured my heart today because it mimics how Jesus longs for intimacy with each one of us so that He can reveal deeper truths to us based on our personal capacity for receptivity. He wants to love each one of us in our secret hidden place set aside for time spent just with Him so that whispering can happen without scandal, nose-to-nose time can be a thing without spectacle, and that He can possibly go to some sensitive and perhaps difficult places with us in private. This is time that He doesn’t wish for anyone else to know about so that the two of us and the two of you can be the most present to just each other. Isn’t that such a wonderful invitation?  Shhhh, let’s get together, just the two of us and have a heart to heart. Jesus wants to journey alongside each one of us so He can reveal His heart. 

He noticed that there was some arguing taking place as they journeyed and so He asked about it, not with condemnation on His mind, but for an opening to teach. And this teaching was for an even smaller group, just the Twelve. Again, Jesus knows where we are in our spiritual receptivity and He knows exactly how to love us there. He knew the Twelve would need a bit of extra attention if they were to face the trial ahead and so He took the time to be with them. I hear tenderness in His voice and He pulls them aside to teach them that humility will be necessary for an Apostle to endure the trials that would come. He knew that receiving the lowly in the Name of Jesus was the higher-level lesson they would need to be able to evangelize the world, and He knew that He needed to reveal that they would need the presence of God front and center in their lives in order to do any of it. “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.” Jesus noticed. This is crucial because He notices you and me also and He tenderly pulls us aside to show us what we need to carry His presence with us. Again: the intimacy, the whispering, the just the two of us. 

I’m not sure if anyone else would read this gospel with these things in mind, but obviously, my heart is focused on intimacy with Jesus, meeting Him in a secret place, learning about His heart as He reveals it in our time together, and letting Him notice me so that He can show me what my next level upgrade needs to be. He does this all with tenderness and for my good. It is well with my soul. 

Reading 1 JAS 4:1-10

Beloved:
Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.
You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly,
to spend it on your passions.
Adulterers!
Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?
Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world   
makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose that the Scripture speaks without meaning when it says,
The spirit that he has made to dwell in us tends toward jealousy?
But he bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says:
God resists the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.

So submit yourselves to God.
Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you of two minds.
Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep.
Let your laughter be turned into mourning
and your joy into dejection.
Humble yourselves before the Lord
and he will exalt you.

Responsorial Psalm 55:7-8, 9-10A, 10B-11A, 23

R.    (23a)  Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
And I say, “Had I but wings like a dove,
I would fly away and be at rest.
Far away I would flee;
I would lodge in the wilderness.”
R.    Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
“I would wait for him who saves me
from the violent storm and the tempest.”
Engulf them, O Lord; divide their counsels.
R.    Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
In the city I see violence and strife,
day and night they prowl about upon its walls.
R.    Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
Cast your care upon the LORD,
and he will support you;
never will he permit the just man to be disturbed.
R.    Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.

Alleluia GAL 6:14

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
May I never boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel MK 9:30-3

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,
but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,   
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,   
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“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.”