Today’s reading show what it really means to have faith and put into to practice.  For some faith is a commodity.  Faith is only there when everything is going well in life, but when there is a trial, the claimed faith is out the window.  In the Gospel reading we see that for Jesus, faith is not only about ascribing to him good and worthy titles.  Yes, he is the Messiah, the Son of God but so what? It is interesting that in the narrative of Mark, Peter does not get any reward or any promise just because he declared Jesus the Son of God. It is like if Jesus skips over all that wonderful declaration and challenges his disciples to embrace the cross.  Peter did not get reassurance for what he said, there is dead silence.  Jesus may have thought they finally got it and now will tell them what is going to happen to them.  They too had to endure trials.  The passion is a shared experience.  Many people in the life of the church are good with just calling Jesus fancy titles, but it is only empty words. There is no follow-up with actions.  And many people in the life of the church, only have faith if they have titles.  What is meant, if people give them titles, and accolades, and they feel they are being treated with such niceties, then they faith. They stay in the church.  Jesus shows that although he rightly deserves all those titles given to him, he is not making a big deal about them. Jesus acknowledges them and then moves on. The same should be with those in the church.  They should not seek recognition, but just move one to the work of evangelization.  The second part of the reading Jesus lists a whole bunch of religious types in whose hands he will suffer, and the disciples as well in due time.  Jesus does not promise the glory [at this point] to his disciples only the way of the cross. These religious types: the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes will reject the Son of Man, and kill him.   Jesus bravely moves in the direction of the cross.  True faith is tested in tribulation.  What happen to Jesus is bound to happen to true disciples.  Those who have true faith will endure even amid persecutions. And those persecutions are not only going to come from those foreign to the faith, but precisely from those from within who claim to have faith.  It was the religious types who persecuted Jesus. It is the religious types of our times: the ministers in the church such as the Eucharist Ministers, the Lectors, the Sacristans, etc. who may be doing the persecution.  This is not a secret, it is out there in the open, the people who do most damage to the faith of other people are those who claim to serve God [big question mark] for a while.   This is what is called an inside job.  However, a big however, even when the attacks to the faith come from within, those who have true faith will endure them because eternal salvation is worth it.  These does not justify the behavior of these people who are false disciples, false religious, but in every place and time there are bound to be problematic people, but this does not mean it’s okay to abandon the faith.  In the first reading there is a messianic prophecy, and it mentions how the messiah would be treated. He would be buffeted, spat upon, and his beard plucked.  If this happen to the messiah but can be expected to happen to those who want to be his true disciples.  This again is not condoning negative behavior from within the church. But many people say, “I am no longer going there or anywhere.”  The question is: where is the faith they claimed to have? Faith is tested in tribulation. Faith is shown in endurance. Faith is tested by the cross. Faith delivers results of eternal salvation.  In the end, having faith in the person of Jesus does not only mean giving him beautiful titles, but it means enduring to the end by embracing the cross of tribulations even from those within.  Jesus said this openly, anyone who wants to be disciple should know what they are signing up for, they should be ready to show their faith and pick up the cross that will lead them to eternity.