Daily Catholic Lectio
Wed, 29 May 2024
Eighth Week in Ordinary Time – Wednesday
1 Peter 1:18-25. Mark 10:32-45
Greatness instinct
Sigmund Freud identified two main instincts as those that drive human behaviour: (a) Eros (Life Instinct): Represents the drive to survive, create, and experience pleasure. It encompasses sexual urges, self-preservation, and the desire for connection. (b) Thanatos (Death Instinct): Thanatos suggests an unconscious drive towards self-destruction, aggression, and the return to an inanimate state. It manifests in destructive urges and violence.
An instinct that is closely related to ‘death instinct’ is ‘greatness instinct’. It begins with a positive note that ‘I must be the first, the important, and the attractive’, but turns to be authoritative over others, and leads us to a sense of entitlement.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus predicts his passion, death, and resurrection for the third (final) time. As earlier, now also the disciples misunderstand him. James and John, the sons of Zebedee – Matthew records the name as ‘wife of Zebedee’ to save the face of the apostles – come to Jesus with an appeal to allot their places on the right and the left when he comes in glory. Jesus, clarifying their misunderstanding, instructs them that greatness lies in serving others.
This greatness instinct begins as something positive – i.e., the apostles’ desire to be near Jesus – but turns out to be authoritative, exclusive, and makes them feel entitled. This power instinct makes them alienated from the rest of the apostles. Power necessarily alienates or differentiates human persons.
Jesus transforms their understanding in three ways:
(a) The apostolic greatness lies not in partaking in Jesus’ glory but in participating in Jesus’ passion.
(b) Ruling over others or being power-mongering is an attitude of the Gentiles; Jesus’ disciples must keep this at arm’s length.
(c) Greatness comes on account of one’s service to others, not from service by others.
Jesus places himself as a model for this. The Son of Man “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” This is what Peter calls the greatest price paid for our salvation (first reading).
The greatness instinct is natural to us, but the service instinct needs effort, sacrifice, generosity, and courage. In order to neutralise the greatness instinct, we must cultivate the service instinct. In service, we don’t place us at the front, but we place others. When each of us respects the greatness of others, we become close to each other through love instead of being distant through power. In the same vein, Peter writes, “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (first reading).
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Today we commemorate Pope Saint Paul VI, who promulgated the Four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council, which we read now as preparation for the Jubilee 2025. He is lauded for his encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae (of Human Life). Pope Francis canonised him on October 14, 2018. (Jubilee A. D. 2025, bite 110).
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
Missionary of Mercy
# Be M.er.cy.Fool
Yesu Karunanidhi 
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