Word of the Week

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Greatest: Meizon (Gk.): meaning “elder”, “greater”, “greatest”, or “more”
 
Greatness is charity, the most supreme of all the theological virtues (CCC, 1826). Placing faith and hope at its service, charity is the greatest virtue because it is the social commandments that demands we lose ourselves for the sake of the gospel (CCC, 1889, 2055). Greatness is achieved when God is the goal of all our desires (CCC, 2550).

The above Greek term can be found 45 times in the New Testament with 29 coming from the gospels. This study will focus in on Mark’s usage of greatest. The first use of greatest can be found in Mark’s parable of seeds, where he illustrates that the Kingdom of God’s greatness, in its size and volume, will blossom forth out of the most humble beginnings (we see this in the calling of the first twelve) (Mk.4:32). After already introducing the term greatness and tying it with simplicity, Mark forges on with the same theme in his most explicit statement on true greatness: that to be like a child, trustworthy and arms open wide, ready to be counted last to be counted first, is to achieve true greatness (Mk.9:33-37). Lastly, Mark concludes his threefold treatment of “the greatest” by giving it a practical definition: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk.12:31) (cf. CCC definition). Our entire faith-based lifestyle ought to be a living commentary to this one great commandment.

This 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time places the whole discussion of being great at the heart of true wisdom. Such wisdom finds its ingenuity by living under the authority of another to gain insight by discipline and law. Only when we live in the poverty of status and prestige do we become great like that of a little child, being obedient to parents. Christ places the child at the center of the Kingdom of God structure to remind all believers that the powerless will always be closest to God’s heart, because by nature, the child is lenient upon their parents for all things. So let us claim the revolutionary categories of greatness that Christ prescribes for us in today’s gospel: not wanting in the categories of power and prestige, but wanting in the categories of service and humility.

“There is a great man that makes every man feels small, but the real great man is the man who makes every man feels great.”

G.K. Chesterton

Primary Texts Consulted

1. Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.

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