Fr. Leo Pabayo THE message of last Sunday’s Gospel (Sept. 20, 2015) is very timely. It comes at this time when politicians are declaring their intentions to run for office in in next year’s election. The Gospel reading will hopefully set their minds straight on what it really means to serve. The Gospel is about ambition and the qualities of a true leader as the Lord defines them. To start to understand the message of the Gospel reading let us look into the meaning that underlies the first verse of the reading.  The reading begins with the following verse “They left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it?” (Mark 9:30-31). As candidates declare their intention to run for office the first thing that they hanker for is for is popularity. They people to know their presence in their places. To be known is the first requirement if a candidate hopes to win votes. The context of the Gospel reading tells us that at this point in his public life our Lord had more than enough of popularity. Wherever he went people came to him with all kinds of needs. They came hungry, tired, sick, lonely, etc.. The reason why the Lord did not want others to know about his presence in Galilee is that he wanted to just be with the apostles because he is going to teach them some very important lessons on leadership as they go out to serve the people. One of the things that he tells them is, “‘The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.’ But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.” The apostles were in denial about the possibility of his being captured and killed. In this verse, the Lord did not push the issue but he must have surely talked with them about the own crosses that they will carry as they go out to proclaim the good news of salvation. He said at another instance in the Gospel that the people are like sheep needing shepherds who would lead them to where needs will be met. But more than just meeting the material needs of the people the Lord hopes that the apostles  would  come to his way of thinking about the ultimate meaning of saving and serving the people. Learning this requires time for deeper reflection and more prayer. They would need space away from the people that endlessly seek their help. This applies also to one who aspires to become a political leader. A true political leader of the people would be a leader after the example of the Lord. He needs time for prayer and reflection and see his vocation as a politician in the larger context of service, the kind of service that would save the people not only from their material poverty but also from their spiritual poverty. The following verses of the Gospel say that “when they came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way on who was the greatest.” They remained silent because to their shame they realized the ambitious streak in themselves. In their long association with him they still did not yet learn his teaching about being an apostle. Behaving like a group of rebels or like a new breed of politicians who were poised to take over the leadership of their nation they were already “counting the chickens before the eggs would be hatched”.  They were already thinking about who is going hold what kind of high position in the new era that they believe the Lord would usher in. But the Lord tells them that they got it all wrong about how to serve the people. He tells them that to become a leader in this kingdom of God that he came to establish they needed to have certain qualities. The qualities that he defined for them however were totally new to them for he says, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” What follows was more puzzling. He takes a child and placed it in their midst and putting his arms around it he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.” Their proclamation of the Gospel and the kind of leadership they will exercise has to begin with knowing how to accept little children. The children first because it is in them that the message of salvation finds its most fertile ground. It has been said by one very perceptive individual, “Everything I learned I learned in the kindergarten”. This is also true with regards to faith in Christ.  Also one poet said that the child is father to the man. The kind of men and women we become all start with our childhood and the kind of truths that we were taught by our parents and teachers. What he says about receiving the child in his name here is in tune with what he said earlier, that the reason for his coming into the world is to proclaim the good news to the poor, to heal the sick, to release those in from physical and spiritual bondage, to bring joy to the sorrowful. There should be a preferential option for these in the proclamation of the good news of salvation. Verses like these in the Gospel have inspired the Church to found schools for children, to build hospitals and create livelihoods for the poor etc.. When James T. Hayes was appointed bishop of Cagayan de Oro one of the first things that he did was to found the Ateneo de Cagayan and Lourdes College and the Maria Reyna Hospital. Later on Fr. Masterson would start the Cooperative, the Ateneo College oif Agriculture and establish the Searsolin (Southeast Asia Rural Social Leadership Institute) to train farmer leaders for Southeast Asia., projects that were intended for the underprivileged. Fr. John Gordon started the first housing projects for the workers of Ateneo de Cagayan such as the Xavier compound, the Immaculate Conception and St. Ignatius village for workers, the Sacred Heart Village and school at Zayas and the independence farm for poor young people in Canitoan, etc…. In other words, the children, the poor and the sick are to be the preferred recipients of the proclamation of the good news of salvation. As we begin to evaluate the candidates for election those who have programs or platform of government that give priority to children, the poor and the sick are the truest kinds of leaders by Gospel standards. They ought to be our preferred candidates.