Originally published at National Catholic Register
User’s Guide to Sunday, Sept. 22
Sunday, Sept. 22, is the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Mass readings: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; Psalm 54:3-4, 5, 6 and 8; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37.
In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus asks a crucial and probing question: “What is most central in your life?”
The Gospel text opens: “Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee.” This will be Jesus’ final journey through Galilee. He is heading south, unto his passion, death and resurrection. Our own lives are a kind of procession, as well. We, too, are making a journey through this life, our first and only journey. With every step we take, we move closer to death and, we pray, resurrection with the Lord.
The text then says: “He was teaching that 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.” Jesus is telling the disciples some of the very difficult things he will go through. Yet they are dealing with their own issues. They seem to draw back and become quiet. The text says that “they
