“Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels — the shame saying is the inverse of the cross-bearing call: ashamed of Jesus now produces the Son of Man's shame then. The adulterous and sinful generation is the community that has seen the miracles and demands signs, that rejects the prophet and plots with the Herodians. The coming of the Son of Man in his Father's glory with the holy angels is the Daniel 7:13–14 vision applied to the future consummation — the same title used in Mark 2:10 and 2:28 now given its full eschatological weight.
Church Fathers on Mark 8:38
After shewing to His disciples the mystery of His passion and resurrection, He exorts them, as well as the multitude, to follow the example of His passion.
For a man who denies another, be it brother or father, does not sympathize with him, nor grieve at his fate, though he be wounded and die; thus we ought to despise our body, so that if it should be wounded or hurt in any way, we should not mind its suffering.
Or else, as a skilful pilot, foreseeing a storm in a calm, wishes his sailors to be prepared; so also the Lord says, 'If any one will follow me, &c.'
Read all 12 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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