Gospel: Mark 9:30-37
At that time, Jesus and his disciples were traveling through Galilee, but he did not want anyone to know because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and after he is killed, he will rise three days later.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. They arrived at Capernaum, and once inside the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent, because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Then Jesus sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Then, taking a child, he placed him among them, embraced him, and said: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not only me but the one who sent me.”

Fruit: Accepting the life plan that God has for me.

Guidelines for reflection:
“Taking a child, he placed him among them,” this simple gesture comes after the recommendation with which the Master had urged his disciples not to desire power, but to seek service.

1. An incomprehensible plan
Jesus takes advantage of a moment of cordial closeness with his disciples to teach them something difficult to understand: He, the Messiah, must die crucified. What kind of plans are those? Is the Teacher losing his mind? However, it is a teaching that is repeated several times and narrated by the four evangelists. How true Isaiah is when he says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). A Messiah who comes to suffer? A Savior who dies on a cross? A Redeemer victim of the cruelty and hatred of the Jews? These are paradoxes we do not understand, which go beyond “human logic.”

2. A divine plan
Let us continue listening to the prophet Isaiah: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). Although God’s ways often seem incomprehensible and absurd to us, the prophet affirms that his divine plans surpass ours, they are higher, wiser. Beyond human logic, so evident at first glance, there exists a “divine logic,” a divine plan, a Providence. The apostles did not understand God’s plan for the Messiah, they did not dare to ask, but it was God’s plan, who knows everything. Based on his divinity, it is not absurd to accept plans we do not understand. Does a small child understand why bitter medicine must be taken? No, but he knows that his mother loves him and will not give him anything bad: “Even though the medicine is bitter, something good must be hidden behind it, so that my mom gives it to me.”

3. A mysteriously loving plan
Thus, we arrive at the mystery of God’s love, a total love for my soul that passes through suffering. It is not that God wants to see me suffer; God wants my happiness, but sometimes the path to it passes through pain, matures, and becomes strong by overcoming suffering. God does not rejoice when he sees his Son crucified; on the contrary, his heart as a Father suffers seeing the pain of the Son. But he knows that great blessings will flow from there for all humanity. Salvation for all men, the Church, and all the immense good that has been accomplished over more than twenty centuries will be born from the cross.

Purpose: I will accept with inner peace the contradictions or sufferings that come my way. I will ask God for his light to discover his plan amid them.