Wednesday of the eighth week of Ordinary Time, Year II, offers a memorial of Saint Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604), the Benedictine monk Pope Gregory the Great sent in 597 to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons. The day's Gospel — the third announcement of the Passion, followed at once by James and John's request for places of honour — is the text his mission, in retrospect, was a long commentary on.
"Now they were on the way ascending to Jerusalem. And Jesus went ahead of them, and they were astonished. And those following him were afraid. And again, taking aside the twelve, he began to tell them what was about to happen to him: 'For behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be handed over to the leaders of the priests, and to the scribes, and the elders. And they will condemn him to death, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him, and spit on him, and scourge him, and put him to death. And on the third day, he will rise again.' And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, drew near to him, saying, 'Teacher, we wish that whatever we will ask, you would do for us.' But he said to them, 'What do you want me to do for you?' And they said, 'Grant to us that we may sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your glory.' But Jesus said to them: 'You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink from the chalice from which I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized?' But they said to him, 'We can.' Then Jesus said to them: 'Indeed, you shall drink from the chalice, from which I drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism, with which I am to be baptized. But to sit at my right, or at my left, is not mine to give to you, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.' And the ten, upon hearing this, began to be indignant toward James and John. But Jesus, calling them, said to them: 'You know that those who seem to be leaders among the Gentiles dominate them, and their leaders exercise authority over them. But it is not to be this way among you. Instead, whoever would become greater shall be your minister; and whoever will be first among you shall be the servant of all. So, too, the Son of man has not come so that they would minister to him, but so that he would minister and would give his life as a redemption for many.'" (Mk 10:32-45)
Mark sets the scene with deliberate physical drama. Jesus is walking ahead; the disciples follow at a distance, afraid. He stops, gathers the twelve, and for the third time he names what is coming. The third announcement is the most detailed: condemnation, mockery, spitting, scourging, death — and resurrection on the third day. And the disciples' answer, in the same paragraph, is to ask for thrones.
The collision between the two registers is not, in Mark, a moral failure of two brothers; it is the structural problem of the apostolic life. Jesus does not rebuke them. He asks them a question of his own: "Are you able to drink from the chalice from which I drink?" They say yes. He takes them at their word: "Indeed, you shall drink." Then he names the only correction needed — not less ambition for greatness, but a different shape of greatness. "Whoever would become greater shall be your minister; and whoever will be first among you shall be the servant of all." The Greek behind "servant" here is diakonos; behind "servant of all", doulos, the slave. The hierarchy is real; only its direction is inverted.
The first reading from Peter writes the same thing from the angle of the price. "You have been ransomed... not with corruptible things... but with the precious blood of Christ, an unblemished lamb" (cf. 1 Pet 1:18-19). The disciple's whole life is now lived as one who has been ransomed; what he gives, he gives downstream of what he has received.
Augustine of Canterbury crossed the Channel afraid. His monks turned back once, and Gregory had to send them on a second time. They were aiming, by everything they knew of British weather, language, and Anglo-Saxon kings, into a fog. What they carried was not eloquence but a Gospel they had heard in Rome and a rule of life they could keep among strangers. They served the people they met — slowly, by example, by small fraternities planted in unfamiliar geography — until the people they served began, themselves, to ask for baptism.
In the spirit of Bethlehem, this is the missionary inversion the Gospel asks of every age. The Son of Man did not come to be served (Mk 10:45). Neither, then, does the apostle. A small fraternity that learns to wash feet before it learns to plant flags is recognisable, century after century, as the Church's own way of being in the world. The cup remains; we are still asked if we can drink it.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, you went ahead of your disciples on the road to Jerusalem, knowing what awaited you, and you offered them the cup you yourself would drink. Teach us to follow you in that order — your service first, our service after — and to recognise, in every place we are sent, that we have come not to be served, but to serve. By the example of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, give us the courage of small fraternities crossing into unfamiliar lands. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Meditation
- Whose places of honour do we still ask Jesus to give us, without saying so?
- Where in our life are we serving — and where are we still expecting to be served?
- What unfamiliar shore have we been afraid to cross, even when sent?
