Gospel (Mk 9,30-37) - At that time, Jesus and his disciples were passing through Galilee, but he did not want anyone to know. In fact, he taught his disciples and said to them: «The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him; but once killed, after three days he will rise again." However, they did not understand these words and were afraid to question him. They arrived in Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them: "What were you arguing about in the street?". And they were silent. In fact, on the street they had argued among themselves who was bigger. Sitting down, he called the Twelve and said to them: "If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." And taking a child, he placed him among them and, embracing him, said to them: «Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but the one who sent me."

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

«The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him». It is the second time that Jesus confides to his disciples the results of his journey towards Jerusalem. However, once again, none of the disciples understand the heart and thoughts of Jesus. In fact, upon arriving at the house, Jesus asks them what they were discussing along the way. But "they were silent", notes the evangelist. The silence is a sign of shame for what they had discussed. It was good to feel ashamed: it is the first step towards conversion, it is the awareness of the distance that separates us from Jesus and the Gospel. Without this word, we remain prisoners of ourselves and of our very poor securities. The evangelist writes: «Sitting down, he called the Twelve» and began to explain the Gospel to them once again. Every community must gather around the Gospel and listen to the Lord: we are corrected and made available to receive the feelings and thoughts of Jesus as a gift. "If anyone wants to be first, let him be last of all and servant of all" (Mc 9.35), Jesus tells us, overturning the logic of the world. He is the one who serves first, not the one who commands. To make us understand this perspective well, Jesus took a child, hugged him and placed him in the middle of the group of disciples: he was a center not only physically, but of attention, of concern, of the heart. That child - that is, the little ones, the weak, the poor - must be at the center of the concerns of the Christian communities, because "whoever welcomes just one of these children in my name welcomes me", explains Jesus himself. In the little ones, the defenseless, the weak, the poor, the sick, in those whom society rejects and distances, Jesus is truly present, indeed the Father himself.