'To love and to serve.' This is a teaching of Jesus that we may learn from today's Gospel reading.

On their way going up to Jerusalem, when everybody is preoccupied with their own thoughts and cares, Jesus takes the twelve aside and tells them what will happen to him in Jerusalem - that he will be handed over to the high priest and the scribes, who will sentence him to death and hand him over to foreigners, who, then, will mock him and torture him and finally kill him; but three days later he will rise from the dead.

The twelve, however, being preoccupied with their respective cares and fears, do not appreciate Jesus's exposition of his vulnerability and therefore fail to keep him company in his anguish and allow themselves to be vulnerable to his pain. Moreover, they are busy jockeying for positions in Jesus' Ministry.

This moment Jesus experience is not being understood, not being supported. But he does not give up on his disciples. He teaches them that service must stem from love and humility and that he is the exemplar of Love and Service: "... whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:44-45).