Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Mark (9: 41-50) in which Jesus says, “If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, they will most certainly not lose their reward”.

Fr Paul says, if Jesus is to be taken literally here we would all end up maimed and half blind. If he is not to be taken literally, are we in danger of watering down any biblical passage which seems to us too severe? Here the interpretation of the Church must play its part, and the Church does not seem to have taken it literally.

Some help may be taken from the Semitic languages. In Aramaic, the language of Jesus, there is no comparative or superlative words like ‘smaller, smallest, taller, tallest’. The language itself is absolute and unyielding. The contrasts are always absolute: ‘small, big, tall, short’. So, throughout this passage Jesus is stressing the absolute value of the Kingdom and the absolute horror of diverting anyone from it.

Our every action is seen and noticed. The force of example is devastatingly strong, and we can never know the extent to which our actions have encouraged or discouraged others in their pursuit of the values of the Kingdom of God.

For our reflection today, Fr Paul invites us to ask ourselves, ‘What sort of example do I set?”