Seminarian Reflection
A Reflection on Mark 9:38-43

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus teaches His apostles a great lesson about scandal: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines scandal as “an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death” (CCC 2284). The Catechism explains that scandal “takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized” (CCC 2285). The Catechism then gives more details that scandal “can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion. Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to ‘social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible.’ This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger, or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values” (CCC 2286). Therefore, those who have an obligation to teach and educate others should always be a great example for others to follow. 

Reflecting on the lesson of scandal in this Sunday's Gospel, we should ask ourselves: “Have I ever scandalized others that led them to do evil? If yes, did I change my bad examples?” This Sunday's Gospel is a very useful lesson for you and I. Let us remember that each of us is partly responsible for creating a divine environment in the areas where we live or go to school or work. Therefore, we must avoid bad deeds that cause our neighbor’s temptation. We should learn that everything we have such as money, property, positions, friends, relatives, careers, and so on are only means to build temporary happiness, but if those things cause us to sin or others to sin and risk losing the eternal kingdom of heaven, we must be ready to give them up because “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life.” (Mt 16:26)

Yours in Christ, Vinh Nguyen