Visitors gather in St. Peter's Square to pray the Angelus with Pope Francis at the Vatican Sept. 22, 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
While people can get caught up in the pursuit of power and greatness, Jesus teaches that true power is found in the humility of being a servant to the most vulnerable, Pope Francis said.
Before praying the Angelus Sept. 22, the pope reflected on the day's Gospel reading from St. Mark in which the disciples are discussing who among them is the greatest, a conversation they were reluctant to share with Jesus.
"While Jesus confided in them the meaning of his very life, they were talking about power, and so now shame closes their mouths just as pride has closed their hearts earlier," the pope said. Yet Jesus responds to the conversation by saying, "If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all."
Jesus asks his disciples, "Do you want to be great? Make yourself small, put yourself at the service of all," the pope said.
That teaching "renews our way of living," he said. Jesus "teaches us that true power does not lie in the dominion of the strongest, but in care for the weakest. True power is taking care of the weakest -- this makes you great!"
Pope Francis said that is why Jesus then places a child before the disciples and tells them, "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me."
"The child has no power; the child has needs," the pope said. "When we take care of humanity, we recognize that humanity is always in need of life."
All people "are alive because we have been welcomed," he said. "But power makes us forget this truth. You are alive because you have been welcomed!"
By embracing conventional notions of power, however, "we become dominators, not servants, and the first to suffer as a result are the last: the little ones, the weak, the poor," he said.
"Brothers and sisters, how many people, how many, suffer and die because of power struggles," he said, noting that they are lives "that the world denies," just as it denied Jesus.
"However, the Gospel remains living and filled with hope," the pope said. "He who has been denied is risen, is the Lord!"