In My Name Read the Gospel: Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 Gospel Summary The struggles in our Gospel today is about power. Bishop Barron says, if you want power be holy .. The real power is in its holiness. Bishop Barron cites Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Saint Therese as examples. They were powerful women. ,Jesus taught his disciples two different things in today’s gospel. First, when John came to him saying that someone, not one of them, was exorcizing demons in Jesus’ name, Jesus explained that anyone who was not against them was with them. If the person acted in Jesus’ name, he would not be capable of speaking out against him. The second teaching involved the way a person should respond to temptation. Not that Jesus proposed that people inflict wounds on themselves, but to make his point clearly, he suggested ridding ourselves of the parts of our bodies that lead us to sinfulness. Rather than commit sinful acts using our hands, eyes, feet, or ears, it would be better to enter heaven without those body parts than to use them sinfully and live in eternal damnation. Discussion Love is one of those things that grows in itself. The more you give, the more it grows. There probably is no scientific way to measure why love works that way, but we just know it does. The same is true with acts of kindness—which in a way are the same thing as love. Like the person exorcizing demons in Jesus’ name, the more the better. That’s how Jesus saw it, even though the disciples in their human jealousy and desire for ownership thought the person was an intruder. Parents see this in their own lives and try to pass it on to our children. It’s hard to be mean to someone who just said, “I love you,” or gave you a hug, or climbed up on your lap. As we try to get along with each other and teach each other to get along with siblings, friends, and classmates, we will make significant progress by acting and reacting in kindness and love. Bringing the Gospel into Your Family Share your ideas with one another about who some of the people are in our society that give of themselves and their resources to further God’s Kingdom. It will probably be easy to come up with wealthy people who give large sums of money to charities, but what about the people who give other resources like time, energy, talent? Ask yourselves if there is more you can do as a family to bring kindness into someone else’s life.