'Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.' Sunday Reflections, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

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(6 April 1901 - 4 July 1925)
Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
In the first week of June I went on a pilgrimage from Ireland to northern Italy with members of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. On our first morning there we visited the Shroud of Turin. When we entered the cathedral proper I saw on one of the side-altars to my left a portrait I was familiar with, that of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
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