The Path to Glory Looks Like Synodality

Sabina Marroquin

Today’s reflection is from guest contributor Sabina Marroquin (she/her/ella), a campus minister at the University of Dayton where it is her great joy to serve the LGBTQ+ communities on campus. After graduating from Midwestern State University, she completed a year of service with the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and has worked for the church in some capacity ever since. When not at work, you can find her spending time with her Lay Marianist Community, coaching youth basketball, or enjoying a nice cup of coffee and an audiobook.

Today’s readings for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time are available here.

Practicing Ignatian contemplation, or imaginative prayer, is one of my favorite ways to pray with the Gospels. It is often easy for me to place myself in a scene where the disciples are being extremely human and a little too relatable. Waking Jesus up during a storm, questioning how they could ever find enough bread to feed a crowd, Peter not quite understanding Jesus’ teachings but trying to live them out with great enthusiasm—I can imagine myself thinking or doing many of these same things. 

Today’s Gospel reading, however, is a bit harder for me. When the Apostles James and John tell Jesus that they want him to do whatever they ask of him, I find myself taken aback at their boldness. Responding to their request for places of honor, Jesus asks if they can drink the cup of which he drinks. Jesus is giving them a chance to reconsider. Instead, James and John double down, saying they can drink from the cup. At this point, I can only imagine myself in this scene as a disciple picking my jaw off the floor. I certainly have asked for things and expressed my own commitment to God in my prayers, so why does James’ and John’s request feel so foreign to me?

For an LGBTQ+ person, the thought of asking for a place of honor might feel impossible when they are unsure if they are even invited to the heavenly banquet. Or if they know they are invited, they may feel they have to justify why they should be welcomed upon their arrival.

As someone who does not always see myself as worthy of distinguished places, the Apostles’ request is unrelatable. While a sense of unworthiness can be rooted in humility and reverence for God, the unworthiness I feel when reading this passage is not rooted in a humble prayer like Matthew 8:8 (“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed“), but from my experience of being judge and excluded. It is difficult to ask for a place of honor when most of the time I just want to be valued enough to be invited to the table – even if I have to pull up my own chair. Recognizing ourselves and others as beloved by God and as having a place in the Church is a simple yet profound truth that  James’  and John’s request can highlight. 

Unfortunately, this truth can become clouded by the painful experiences of injustice, discrimination, and judgment. Despite knowing that LGBTQ+ people might face these challenges in faith communities, we keep showing up. In a similar way, James and John knew there would be a cost to following Jesus and they still said yes to drinking the same cup as him. I am in awe of their quick answer because it took almost a decade of prayer and many tears for me to respond to that question in my own life! 

Queer people of faith know all too well that there is a cost to acknowledging and sharing different parts of themselves. Yet there is something incredibly powerful about bringing the fullness of who you are to God and coming to believe that God loves you as you are that makes it all worth it.

As an LGBTQ+ Catholic, if that affirmation was the first message I heard about faith and sexuality, I probably still would have cried, but I would have saved myself years of trying to fix something I thought was wrong with me and wondering if God really loved me when nothing changed.

No matter what your story is, we all will drink from what Henri Nouwen called the cup of joy and the cup of sorrow throughout our lives. There is no way to drink from one and avoid the other because the cup of Christ contains both. For me, having companions on the journey has made my cup taste less like instant coffee and more like a latte from my favorite coffee shop.

When we are invited into someone’s life, it is a sacred opportunity to serve them by listening deeply and receiving their joys and sorrows with the love of God. This call to service through encounter is loud and clear in today’s Gospel, but also in Pope Francis’ invitation to a culture of encounter, and the Synod on Synodality. 

James and John ask for glory and Jesus responds with a path to greatness that looks a lot like synodality. May each of us listen deeply to those we encounter in our everyday lives and be inspired by the Holy Spirit to respond with loving actions.

—Sabina Marroquin (she/her/ella), October 20, 2024