“But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.”
But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest — the silence communicates guilt: they had been arguing about greatness while Jesus was teaching about his death. The juxtaposition is Mark's sharpest contrast yet between the disciples' preoccupation (status in the kingdom) and Jesus' preoccupation (the cross that inaugurates the kingdom). The argument about greatness immediately after the second passion prediction is the ultimate failure to understand what the kingdom is.
Church Fathers on Mark 9:34
It is after miracles that the Lord inserts a discourse concerning His Passion, lest it should be thought that He suffered because He could not help it.
He always mingles together sorrowful and joyful things, that sorrow should not by its suddenness frighten the Apostles, but be borne by them with prepared minds.
Capernaum means the city of consolation, and agrees with the former sentence, which He had spoken: 'And after that He is killed, He shall arise the third day.'
Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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