The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30 is a federal statutory holiday that honours the survivors of residential schools as well as their families and communities. It's an opportunity for all of us who call Canada home to reflect, learn and act. Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day intended to raise awareness of the individual, family and community inter-generational impacts of residential schools, and to promote the concept of "Every Child Matters". The orange shirt is a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.
 
In the gospel of Mark, chapter 9, we find that Jesus and His disciples came to Capernaum quietly, passing through Galilee. On the way, Jesus foretold His suffering and death a second time (Mk 9:30-32). Also on the way, the disciples disputed who would be the greatest (Mk 9:33-34). Jesus took this opportunity to teach His disciples the way to true greatness, but in a way involving servitude, and in a way involving humility. The route through Galilee returning from the North stands out in the closeness of His sacrifice in Jerusalem. Due to that, in Mk 9: 29-36, for the second time, Jesus announces His passion, death and resurrection on the third day; but on this occasion, He adds the following words: "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men." In the Old Testament, this expression is contrasted with that of "falling into the hands of God, whose mercy is great" in Sam 24:41.
 
How terrible it is to fall into the hands of man, and not into the hands of God, is seen in the passion of Jesus. When men have done their work, and everything has been accomplished, Jesus will commend his spirit into the hands of the Father, and the Father will resurrect him. The disciples cannot understand that their teacher, whom they recognise as the Messiah, should suffer so many insults and even death on the cross. Nor do they understand anything about the resurrection on the third day. However, the fear that they feel in asking shows that they do not understand because they do not want to understand. The disciples cannot accept the tremendous programme that their Master has revealed to them. That is why they prefer to keep their mouths shut while their hearts are filled with sadness (Mt 17:23). A group of stragglers begins to argue behind Jesus' back about ranks and origins among the disciples. Jesus does not take notice and lets them do as they please.
 
But as soon as they have arrived at Capernaum, possibly already seated in Peter's house, he asks them what they had argued about on the road. Ashamed of their behaviour and knowing that they could not please their Master, they remain silent. The disciples do not respond now for the same reasons that they did not dare to ask the Master before about what he had told them about his passion. The disciples' shame is perfectly explained to Jesus, who has much deeper concerns and only thinks about serving others. Jesus teaches that the greatest honour is the greatest service, that the first is the one who humbles himself to serve all. During the last supper, Jesus will wash the feet of his disciples and serve them, placing himself last.
 
When he is raised on the cross the next day, the disciples will understand the meaning of Jesus' words: The last will then be the first: he who dies for all will be Lord of all. It is necessary to serve everyone, but especially the humblest and the smallest. He who serves the poorest and most humble, like this child, serves Jesus and the Father who sends him. Jesus' attitude towards children has often been misinterpreted. It is not that Jesus "liked" children or that he specially loved them for their candour or purity of heart. For Jesus, a child is no more and no less than a poor person who is not usually considered by others and who occupies the last place in the house. That is why Jesus takes him as a symbol of all those who are his favourites and whom we must serve if we want to be first in the Kingdom. someone.

Life and history must make us humble; history confronts us with ourselves in the same way as the Bible. Both expose us to our vulnerabilities, our realities, our weaknesses and our evils, but both also offer us means of redemption that involve repentance and change. to expose vulnerabilities, our realities, our weaknesses and our evils, but both also offer us means of redemption that involve repentance, recognition and change through faith. It means faith that we can be better and that we can do things better. History and the Bible connect us with everything, with the past through storytelling and memory, with the present through recognition and analysis and with the future through hope, and they announce to us a past that, although it is not unknown to us, we want to ignore.
 
Life is a trip; it's a personal journey, like Jesus' journey in the gospel. For Jesus, the journey was from Bethlehem to Capernaum; for us, it's a journey from birth to eternity, just like that, because we don't finish with death, but we belong to eternity. Throughout this journey, we find people around us, some of them are supporters, others are our witnesses. Supporters are people who live the story with us, giving us support, encouragement, and empathy. Witnesses are people who see our story from the stage without commitment, but with indifference, even judgment. Both can testify to what God is doing in our lives, but from different perspectives.
 
God's story is one full of love and mercy, with two big aspects to highlight: the story of salvation and the story of human dignification. The boy with spirit was dignified in the same way as all people who received a miracle from Jesus. We can check in detail the miracles contained in the gospel to recognise that Jesus wanted to embrace people in need and restore their dignity with love and empathy. Jesus is not advocating for Himself any religious authority to impose a culture or a condemnation, but the way to greatness in the kingdom of God is different from the way to greatness in the kingdoms of men. From Jesus, we learn that it involves servitude and humility. Jesus clearly stated: "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all," in Mark 9:35.
 
How we can practice the servitude in the context of the day of truth and reconciliation, we can consider next ideas: Serve people in need, as someone led you to Christ, can you lead another to Him, practicing the hospitality, offering acts of kindness and service, can you help others, giving with deliverance, being present in the life of people affected by solitude, greeting every one not only people who affected by loneliness. Take special interest in those who are vulnerable, take care of them, serve others in benevolence, visit the sick or elderly, at home and in the hospital. Render services such as cleaning, transportation, errands, and minister to the poor, the hungry, or those otherwise in need. How can we practice humility in the context of the day of truth and reconciliation? Jesus used a little child to teach the importance of humility in Mk 9:36-37. When we humbly receive others in Jesus' name, we receive both Him and His Father in heaven in Mark 9:37.
 
Then we can consider some ideas to implement as the next: Be open to opportunities to learn from people in situation of disadvantages, ask others if you can show your areas of improvement or weaknesses, reach out to those who are different than us, especially those less fortunate than you, gladly accept roles in the church not to much visible, warmly welcome those below or above your "social status", help with mundane tasks (e.g., cleaning the building). Truth and reconciliation are part of the history and of the Bible. Jesus shows us how to develop a servant heart and keep servant hands, also a humble heart and humble hand, in that way, we can recognise in the past the true, seek in the present the reconciliation and build a future based on Jesus' hope for all.

31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. 33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. ​36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

One of the hardest testimonies to hear about faith in the middle of the trial is the testimony of the Puerto Rican preacher Yiyi Avila, famous for his involvement in the 80' evangelical revival for Latin America. Thousands of people came to Jesus thanks to God's will using the gift given to Yiyi Avila to explain the Bible and to call people to God, but one day, Yiye Avila's ex-son-in-law, Luis Gerardo Rivera Marín, stabbed to death his lovely daughter Elizabeth Rivera Avila in 1989.
 
Luis Gerardo Rivera Marín is currently serving a 125-year prison sentence in Mexico for the murder of his wife and Avila's daughter. One day Yiye Avila went to visit him in jail to let his ex-son know he forgave him. On April 28, 2009, his other daughter, Noemi Ávila, an Evangelical pastor herself, died in a car accident in Freites, Venezuela. How this kind of facts operate in God's will for people who believe in Him, praise Him, and worship him? How to continue proclaiming that God does everything good amid crises?
 
In Mark 7: 31-37, Jesus goes with his disciples northwards, towards the city of Zion, then descends on the eastern side, to the valley of the Jordan and reaches the Decapolis, near the Sea of Galilee. He deliberately avoids stepping on the land of Israel and takes a long detour; He flees from the crowds and seeks the opportunity to be alone with his disciples. This departure of Jesus from Galilee and this flight from the crowds mark a change in his activity, which will concentrate from then on on the small group of his followers. However, upon arriving at the Decapolis, where he was already known after the healing of the possessed man of Cerasa (Cf. 5,20), the natives notice his presence and come to him to ask for another miracle: the healing of a deaf.
 
The laying on of hands, already known in Genesis (48:14-19) as a rite of blessing, is frequently used by Jesus in his healings (6:5; 8:23 and 25). This gesture also signified the communication of the Spirit of God, and as such has passed into the liturgy of the Church. Let us remember that the Spirit, which descended abundantly upon Jesus in the Jordan, is the life-giving force and the "finger of God" with which Jesus performs all miracles. Jesus does not want to arouse blind enthusiasm and foster sensationalism in the crowds. Jesus removes the sick man from the curious crowd. Although Jesus usually cures the sick by laying on His hands and pronouncing His effective word, here He also performs a series of symbolic gestures that give the whole process a special solemnity. On the other hand, they are necessary signs to communicate with the deaf-mute. The baptismal liturgy has taken up these gestures of Jesus, recognizing that every man must be opened by God so that he can hear the Gospel. Raising one's eyes to heaven is the expression of a silent prayer, a supplication, and often also of thanksgiving.
 
Mark has preserved in its original Aramaic the word of Jesus to the deaf-mute: "effetá." This word has also passed into the baptismal liturgy. Both Jesus and the Church address this word to man, so that he opens himself to communication and is ready to receive the Gospel. Neither the miracle of Jesus nor the baptismal rite is a magical actions that act by virtue of certain gestures and thanks to the power of a formula. The gestures and the words in both cases have a meaning and are, therefore, an appeal to those who see and hear. The miracle of Jesus is first made understood by the deaf-mute with visible gestures and thus prepares him for faith; then he pronounces the effective word. But the effectiveness of this word does not depend on it being such, but on it being the word of Jesus heard by the deaf-mute. There is a relationship between deafness and muteness. One cannot speak if one cannot hear. And this also applies to hearing and confessing the gospel. Only he who believes, he who listens, can then authentically proclaim and confess the gospel.

​As Paul says, "because we believe, that is why we speak." Although Jesus performed the miracle by withdrawing from the people, what had happened soon became known, and everyone began to talk about what had happened. This miracle is one of the signs announced by Isaiah for messianic times (see today's first reading). It is possible that Jesus imposed silence on these people precisely for this reason, fearing that the false messianic conception they possessed would compromise their performance before the public authorities
 
God acts in a way that we can not control, even though we can not understand. When we see all the evil around us or when we face trials or crises, we can feel like God is not acting in favor of us as His children. These kinds of feelings are normal during traumas or pain. However, the bible shows us a complete development of a Plan for humanity, a perfect plan in which God committed Himself to pay a high price by giving His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Then how does that explain God's love in our daily struggles? First of all, we need to recognize the value of our salvation, the importance of eternity, which is something that God gives us through Jesus' sacrifice. We can be sure that He is in control of our future, but we need to live in such a way that we can honor Him with our acts and with our faith.
 
God also gives us the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, especially when we are weak, when we are suffering, or when we are experiencing loneliness and pain. It's not possible to resist or to survive by ourselves but in His strength and through His mercy. Our life, the earth in which we live, and everything around us belong to God. When we understand that we can trust in a complete dependency on Him, He is in control, and when we review our personal journey throughout our lives, especially as Christians, we can verify His mercy even in the midst of a strong storm or difficulties.
 
Jesus makes everything well, but not just our miracles, which are a sign of His eternal love for us, but throughout eternity, because in the end of the days, Jesus gives the certainty about His care and control for our families, giving us a place in heaven with Him. Our life is a collection of miracles, starting with our birthday until the way that we are breathing at this very moment. The gospel collects 40 miracles, registered in detail and, additionally, a lot of just referenced, we can identify at least 4 types of Jesus miracles, for example, healing, exorcism, nature miracles, and resurrection from the dead. The resurrection constitutes the biggest one because it incorporates the victory over death. In conclusion, the miracles of Jesus are a testimony of His divine power and love for all people. By exploring these miracles and understanding their significance, we can deepen our faith and find hope and comfort in the wonders of Christ ,especially in moments of grief, pain or trials, because God is the same and love in the same way forever