Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Cycle B

Is 53:10-11
Heb 4:14-16
Mk 10:35-45 or 10:42-45

“Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant.” In the Kingdom of God, and therefore in the Culture of Life, even those in authority recognize that their subjects are their brothers and sisters, and that no distinction in role implies an inequality in dignity. The smallest, the weakest, the most insignificant in the eyes of the world are, nonetheless, persons worthy of equal honor, respect, protection, and service. That is because in the Kingdom of God, we recognize that we have a King, and that the smallest human person still belongs to him, and may never be disposed of.

Government officials and candidates, therefore, would never imagine for a moment that they have the authority to declare some human beings to be “non-persons.” They would never support the affirmation that some people are outside the protections of the law – as Roe vs. Wade did in regard to children in the womb.

The second reading today provides a clear basis for this respect for the very least of our brothers and sisters, and that is that our human nature has been taken to the heights of heaven. Jesus, the “great high priest who has passed through the heavens,” is a priest precisely because, while remaining Divine, he also shares our human nature – the same human nature shared by every person, born and unborn. He has taken this human nature to the heights of heaven, where he continues to intercede for us. Human life was sacred at its creation, and becomes all the more sacred as Christ the High Priest takes it to the very throne of the Father. We who acknowledge that human life has been taken to the heights of heaven can never sit idly by while it is thrown in the garbage by abortion and other acts of violence.