Sundays1-11 of Ordinary Time, B
Is 55:1-11
Resp. Isaiah 12:2-6
1 John 5:1-9
Mark 1:7-11
The Four Things
Commissioned
Is 55:1-11. "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon
him while he is near." Even though God is near, we still need
to search for him, to find him.
1 Jn 5:1-9. A rich reflection about love and faith, and the witness
that God has given to his Son, for us to follow him faithfully.
Mk 1:7-11. Even though John the Baptist came to serve him, Jesus
submits to John's baptism; then the Father says, "You are my
Son" and the Spirit rests on Jesus, to guide his future work.
Theme: The Baptism of Jesus as the Messiah shows him as the beloved
Son of God, who will pour out his Spirit on his followers. We respond
to that Spirit through our commitment to justice and peace.
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no
money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to
me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline
your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make
with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for
the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and
nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord
your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to
our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,
says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return
there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and
sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall
my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me
empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in
the thing for which I sent it.
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord God is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that his name is exalted.
Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,
and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know
that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his
commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers
the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.
Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus
is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus
Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.
And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood,
and these three agree. If we receive human testimony, the testimony
of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified
to his Son.
He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming
after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his
sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit."
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized
by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water,
he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove
on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved;
with you I am well pleased."
Thoughts for 1st Sunday, B
Today's homily will be a little bit different, Instead of relying entirely on words, which I usually do, I want to draw your attention to four things in this Church.
I won't tell you about the four of them together. I'll just draw your attention to them one by one.
The first of them is behind you. Behind your back. It's down there at the back of the Church. It's the door - the main door. Last Sunday I did a baptism for some friends of mine in the Midlands. At the beginning of the ceremony, I invited all the people to come to the door. I did that for one reason and one reason only - that Baptism is the door to the Church. It's the sacrament of entry or initiation. The little girl we were baptising wasn't just coming into the Church building. She was coming into the Church as community She was entering Christ's family, becoming yet another member of his body. She was being carried in her mother's arms and being placed in a wider farriily than the family into which she was born. That's the first thing I'd like you to remember. Baptism is the door to the Church community or, if you prefer, to the Body of Christ!
The second thing to which I want to draw your attention is over there. It's the baptismal font. I hope you can see it. I'll go over to it, if you don't mind. The first thing about this font is that it's a source of new life. One of the things we do as adults when we play with children, is to put our arms around them and lift them up. We give them a hug and a hoist. We embrace them and elevate them. Children love that. They say, "Do it again. Do it again." And we will do it again, if the old back will stand up to it. Baptism is embrace and elevation. Our Lord puts his arms around little children and hugs them to himself. More than that, he makes them part of himself. Incorporates them. That's the hug! Then he raises them up. The hoist! He elevates them to what we call super-natural life - a life above the natural, a share in his own life as Son of God. That's one way of looking at it - embrace and elevation!
The second thing about this font is that it's a kind of tomb! Not the kind of tomb where people decay, but where they die in a certain way and rise to new life! Baptism is part of the Easter mystery, the Easter movement. The movement of Christmas, as you know, is the movement of convergence. We converge. We gather around - around the fire, around the table, around the turkey. The family gathers around itself. The movement of Easter, on the other hand, is the movement of the diver. Down and up! Down and up! We die with Christ to selfishness and sin and rise with him to generosity and newness of life. Baptism reminds us of the Easter movement. It also makes it happen in our lives. St Paul says: "You cannot have forgotten that all of us, when we were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into his death. So by our baptism into his death, we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glorious power, we too should begin living a new life (Rom 6:35). Down and up!
The third thing to which I want to draw- your attention is that candle over there. It's the Easter Candle, symbol of the Risen Christ. During the ceremony last Sunday, the father of the child went to the Easter candle, lit the baptismal candle from it and brought it back to his wife and the god-parents. What he was doing in action and symbol was taking his light from Christ. What they were all doing as a group was undertaking to pass it on to the child. We're talking "light" years ahead! When we bring our children for baptism, we ourselves make a commitment. Baptism for them, challenge for us! The challenge is to lead them to Christ, to educate by example, to help them internalise for themselves the faith in which they've been baptised. In that sense it takes years to baptise a child! You baptise them by water and the Holy Spirit in a day. You are building on that, in bits and pieces, for the rest of your life.
The fourTh thing I want to mention is there on the altar. It's the little bucket or stoup in which we keep the Holy Water. I'll go over to it. My main reason today for drawing your attention to this water is that it reminds us of our Baptism. Because it reminds us of our Baptism, it should remind us as well that responsibility for handing on the faith is not confined to parents and godparents. It's a responsibility that's shared by all the baptised. Children don't grow up in a vacuum. They grow up in other people's shadow. Better still, hopefully, they grow up in other people's light. Our hope, as a Christian community is that, with all our faults, we'd be of some help to them as they grow to adulthood in our midst. We'd hope that, just as our faith is an amalgam that has come to us through others, there would be a little bit of us in what they value and believe! For that reason, I think we should stir up our own faith now, by renewing our baptismal promises. When we've done that, we'll pray for God's blessin on our efforts and I'll sprinkle you with the Holy Water. It may wet you a little. Please God it will whet your missionary appetite even more.
We know from reading the gospels that wherever Jesus went during his public life he generally attracted huge "crowds; and the most common reaction of people to his preaching and the way he responded to all who sought favours from him, was one of astonishment. It seems as if Matthew, Mark and Luke ransacked the Greek dictionary, in search of words to express this amazement at Jesus' words and actions. Thirty-three times in all they make use of four particular Greek words which translated mean, "to marvel, to be amazed, to be astounded, to be astonished." This sense of wonderment in the presence of Jesus is connected, to a certain degree, with two things: firstly, his miracles, and secondly, his teaching. Perhaps, the most revealing wonder of all is in the description, by Mark (10:32), of the last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem. "They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was leading the way; and the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed were afraid."
Here it seems the astonishment was not so much about what Jesus said or did, but about the person of Jesus himself. When meeting him face to face, people felt that they were in the presence of somebody who was closer to God, than anyone they had ever seen or encountered before, one who appeared to have the wisdom of God on his lips, and the power of God in his hands. It is hardly any wonder that the reaction of those closest to him was such that they were prepared - even as Peter himself said - to die for him. The feeling of amazement on the part of the disciples is further illustrated in St Matthew's account of Jesus walking on the waters of the lake (14:33). Thinking they were seeing a ghost, they were terrified. But he reassured them, "Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid." Peter even had the temerity to say, "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you across the water." But the words "if it is you" betray a lack of trust, and this was further evidenced when Peter began to sink, and had to be rescued by Jesus.
The storm having been calmed, and both in the boat once more, the men in it, we are told, "bowed down before Jesus, and said, "Truly you are the Son of God." Indeed, from the beginning, the concept of Jesus as "Son of God" was central to the faith of his followers. In all four gospels the public life of Christ begins with his baptism by John the Baptist, during which he is proclaimed the Son of God. The Spirit descended on him, like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, "You are my Son, the beloved; in you I am well pleased."
The importance attached, by the Apostles, to being present as a witness to this happening, can be seen when they came together after the Ascension to appoint a successor to Judas. The requirement was that the person selected should have been with them right from the time of the baptism of John, until Jesus was taken up from them. As we read through the gospels, we are presented with a picture of Jesus as one whose life was begun, spent and ended in the awareness that he was Son of God in a particularly unique way. That conviction sustained him throughout his whole life and mission.
His baptism marks his decision to accept that mission from God. He offers himself to God, that God may use him as he wishes. This is the beginning of the gospel account of that close personal relationship between Jesus and God, in which Jesus is uniquely "Son," and God for him is uniquely "my Father." After his resurrection Jesus had said to Mary Magdalen, "Go and find the brothers, and tell them: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" an 20:17).
By not using "our," he distinguishes between his own relationship with God and that of others. All who believe in the divine nature of Jesus will come to eternal life. "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God," St John in his first Letter says (4:15), "God lives in him, and he in God." John also (Jn 3:17) declares, "God sent his Son into the world, so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned, but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God's only Son." God, moreover, has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, enabling us to cry,'Abba, Father." Such intimacy with God is open to everyone, an intimacy which will only reach its complete fulfilment when we come face to face with God in the world hereafter.
1 Samuel 3:3-10, 19
Ps 40:1, 3, 6-9
1 Corinthians 6:13-15
John 1:35-42
Peculiar Taste in Friends
Listen to God
Unique Call
Invitation from God
Called By Name
Endangered Species
Come and See
1 Sam 3:3-10. The vocation of the boy Samuel to be a prophet is one of the great Old Testament stories. His response, 'Speak, Lord, your servant is listening' is an inspiration for all to follow.
1 Cor 6:13-20. Since our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, we will not abuse them in sinful ways, but do all for the glory of God.
Jn 1:35-42. In John's account of the call of the first disciples, we have the Lord's quiet invitation to to them, "Come and see." Like Andrew and Peter, that is how we too can encounter Jesus.
Theme: The shortage of priestly vocations is causing alarm in our catholic community. But God will provide, if only we can make full use of the many who still are called to work in the service of his gospel.
Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening." As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
Then I said, "Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."
I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
"Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food"-and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.
One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him an said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).
Intercessions
- that our church will use imaginatively all those whom God calls to the service of the gospel.
- that our God may attract more volunteers to work in the Third World.
- that those he calls to the priestly ministry will answer his call.
- that the whole congregation may have a renewed zest for serving God and the People of God.
Thoughts for 2nd Sunday, B
Jesus had peculiar taste in friends. You put the whole crowd together and they were not as smart as one of the third rate philosophers in Rome. Maybe some of them could read and write. They were perhaps street smart, but you were going to announce the nearness of the kingdom of God would you surround yourself with folks that wouldn't make assistant precinct captain? They were utterly insensitive to Jesus's spiritual message and interested only in the power and prestige they were going to have in his kingdom (which they didn't understand at all). One of them was a thief and ten of them cowards. Surely, even if he had decided to limit is choice to Galilee Jesus could have done better? Why these sluggards and nerds? Why indeed? And why do we pretend that our leaders today are better than they were? Patently the first Pope and the first bishops (if we want to use that analogy) were not sacred persons, but inept, often stupid human beings? Why do we have to pretend that their successors are any better? Why should hey be immune from criticism? Have we missed the point somewhere along the line that the leaders of the church and the followers in the church are fragile, imperfect human beings and that Jesus chose them precisely because he wanted a human church. If he wanted something better, he should have turned it over not to the philosophers in Rome but to the Seraphim.
Story: One upon a time there were a group of young men who idolized the quarter back on the local National Football League team (no cities in mind in this story). He was a great passer, a gutsy runner, he played despite pain, he was modest at media interviews, generous with volunteer work, kind to kids, and signed autographs till all had been accommodated. He was humble and respectful and prayed before every game. He was practically perfect, it seemed, a great role model for kids in the city and around the country. Then one night he came into the tavern where these young men hung out. He was roaring drunk and abusive. He pushed a couple of women around, insulted the bar tender, picked a fight with a little guy, and sneered at our group of idolaters. They were shocked into silence. However, one of them, a bit of nerd, actually asked this famous guy for his autograph. He knocked the pen out of his hand, shoved him back against the bar, and cursed him out. "What a jerk!" the crowd said. "We'll never cheer for hi again! He probably uses drugs too. He's no role model for children. The team should trade!" But, the nerd said, "He's only human." "That's no excuse" everyone else agreed.
Is it not a fact that many of us Christians are so busy talking to God, telling him in exact and minute detail all the things he should be doing for us, that we rarely or never listen to what God is saying to us. Today's first reading might well be called "The boy who listened to God." Whether it is pandering to our failings, or the intention of those who selected these readings to keep them as short as possible, unfortunately, eight verses have been left out before the ending, precisely the eight which tell us what God revealed to the boy Samuel. What have we to learn from events and sayings so far remote from our present day world, you might ask? Well, "all scripture is inspired by God, and can profitably be used for guiding people's lives and teaching them to be holy" (2 Tim 3:16). And the only scripture St Paul had in mind when he wrote those words was the Old Testament. Moreover, the period in question had much in common with ours, in that religious practice and divine worship had declined.
This happened because the Israelites, having reached the promised Land and gained a military victory over the native Canaanites, were in danger of losing out in the ideological struggle that followed between the two groups. The Israelites were tempted to copy the ways of the more highly cultured and sophisticated Canaanites, even though the pagan gods of these were sexual in nature and were worshipped in rites that were sexual also. A strong comparison could be drawn here with the people of our own country and their reaction to outside influences and example. in the past century, some of which of course are good and desirable, but others evil and retrograde, such as abortion, drug-culture and crime.
Samuel, who beyond doubt was the greatest spiritual leader of Israel since the days of Moses, was to be the last of the leaders, or Judges, as they were called, who were elected to hold the different tribes together. Under his spiritual guidance Israel was to become a monarchy with Saul its first king, while his successor King David, himself the ancestor of Jesus, was the one to consolidate that monarchy. What did God reveal to Samuel? We should remember that at the time, Eli then an old man, was both Judge and high priest. The Lord God disclosed to Samuel the wickedness of the House of Eli, how in particular his two sons had been cursing God - the Bible bluntly says they were scoundrels, caring nothing for God - and how Eli, although himself a good man, had failed to correct them. And the Lord stated most solemnly that no sacrifice or offering would ever wipe out the guilt of the House of Eli. At the beginning of this sorry saga, the sacred author tells us that the eyes of Eli were beginning to grow dim, he ould no longer see. But this physical blindness was an external sign of a much more serious interior blindness to the misdeeds of his own family, supposedly placing all their confidence on the mere externals of religion, like the offering of sacrifice, while within they were concerned not with the things of God, but with their own ambitions. All this profound spiritual assessment was made by a mere boy, because he listened to what God was revealing to him in the depths of his soul, and saw that the corruption of its leaders was the reason why Israel's fortunes were declining.
There are tremendous lessons to be learned from this story from scripture, but they will never be clear to us unless we are open to God's message. This has become more and more difficult, with so many agencies trying to monopolise our attention. Thirty years ago a Professor of Literature at Cambridge (C. S. Lewis - Christian Reflections) described the trend like this, and it has worsened since. "How then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid God? The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a large part of the human race failed to achieve, it. But in our own times and place it is extremely easy."
"Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and above all on your own grievances. Keep the radio (and T.V.) switched on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedatives. If you must read books, select them carefully. But you'd be safer to stick to the papers. You'll find the advertisements helpful, especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal." Any combination or all of these will drown out the voice of God within. How true it is that one person who prays and listens attentively to God's Holy Spirit, is worth more than a thousand ordinary souls who never listen.
How would you feel if you knew that you had an exact double, someone who resembles you so closely as to be almost indistinguishable? It certainly would be a strange feeling to see a mirror-image of yourself without looking at the mirror. Suppose that the double talked exactly like you did, had the same talents as yourself, the same mannerisms, the identical views? If that happened, the whole thing would cease to he amusing and begin to be a nightmare.
In fact, even if we found a close resemblance, we would fail to find someone who was like you in every way imaginable... and that's somehow comforting. We like people to be different from one another, with different points of view, with different talents. God clearly likes people different, too - after all, with every possibility open, he chose to make us with varying levels of intelligence, different aptitudes and abilities. God knows what he expects from each of us, and has tailor-made us for the job.
Take the old judge in the first reading. Samuel was an important figure, a great military leader as well as a wise ruler of his people. That would be quite enough, but his main role is kingmaker, setting up Saul as the first King of Israel. Not only could he make kings, he could break them too; he was the one who brought David to power when Saul was rejected and needed replacing.
Samuel wasn't always such a powerful figure. In fact, when the first reading begins we see Samuel as an attendant in the sanctuary - not a lofty figure. But the Lord wanted Samuel, and he wanted him to do more than clean up after the sacrifices. So the Lord calls Samuel to his service in the dead of the night. And Samuel rose from being a nothing to being the leader of his people.
Samuel isn't the only one chosen and called; in the Bible there are many more. And often the Lord's call comes to surprising people. God knows precisely whom he has chosen. For instance, if you wanted to get wide publicity to a new movement, would you pick the person who was spearheading the persecution? Yet the Lord wanted Saul of Tarsus so much that he knocked him to the ground to tell him so. If you wanted to pick a leader who would act as foundation-stone for the movement, would you pick someone who swore blindly that he never knew or heard of you? Yet Jesus picked Peter - who had denied him. If you wanted a man who would lead his people out of slavery, to stand up to kings, to settle disputes and unify the nation, would you pick someone who had killed a man, had run away in fear, and who couldn't even speak clearly? Yet God picked Moses who was all of that.
And if you were to choose people who would be with you, and close to you - people with whom you were really involved - and if you had all the world to choose from, would you choose people who would let you down, ignore you, rebel against your influence on them? Would you choose people full of greed, self-ambition, jealousies, and pettiness? Yet God chose you and me, and we seem to fit the description. God did not choose us because of our fantastic record, any more than he chose Peter because he was a fantastic fisherman or Samuel because he lay awake at night. The Lord does not choose us because of what we are, but because of what we can be. The Lord is the only one who really understands how unique each one of us is, the only one who knows exactly what we can and cannot do; and knowing all about us, he calls us to share in his work.
John the Baptist stands with Andrew, the brother of Peter, and an unidentified disciple. Could it be John the evangelist? The supporting role of John the Baptist is emphasized by his dramatic statement in earshot of his disciples, but yet he remains behind as his disciples follow Jesus. Not jealous of his own importance as a charismatic preacher, John the Baptist rightfully directs two of his disciples to Jesus.
Could we expect any other reaction from these two disciples, except to go to Jesus? The individual whose sandal-strap the charismatic figure of John said he was unworthy to untie has been identified and he now walks with them. Their immediate instinct is to follow, yet perhaps their timidness keeps them from catching up with the pace of Jesus and initiating a conversation.
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them "What are you looking for?" It must have been obvious to Jesus that these two men were deliberately following him. He was not walking in a busy current of pedestrian traffic on the well-worn road to Jerusalem or Jericho; rather he must have been walking alone. Feeling their intrigued stares upon him and hearing their footsteps maintaining a fixed distance behind him, Jesus turns and faces his followers.
We wonder in what tone his question was asked? What word was emphasized? Was it a shout because of the distance? Did the sudden about-face of Jesus and his directed question startle the two disciples of John? It is also worth noting that it is Jesus who takes the initiative by turning and speaking in his own special style: "It is not you who chose me. No, I chose you" (Jn 15:16).
They said to him: "Rabbi" which translated means Teacher: "where are you staying? He said to them: ""Come, and you will see." The disciples answer a question with a question and the title with which they address Jesus implies their respectful relationship to him. They stand as disciples facing their new teacher. The question that they ask seeks a longer, more personal encounter with the Lamb of God. They want to know where Jesus is staying. It is not enough to have a brief conversation while walking with Jesus. What is sought here is a quiet, exclusive exchange out of the hot sun and away from the business. The answer they receive from Jesus is not solely informative, it is not a street address or the name of a town; rather, it is an invitation, just what they were hoping for.
So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.
The last sentence here sticks out like a sore thumb. Does it punctuate the end of this verse, or is it an introduction to the next verse? In either case it feels awkward. The most convincing commentary on why the time of day is mentioned suggests that this event was so monumental in the lives of the two disciples that time of day is forever etched in their memories. Still, what does four in the afternoon specifically mark? When they departed for the house? When they arrived at the house? Or, when Andrew leaves the house to find Peter?
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. He first found his own brother Simon and told him: "We have found the Messiah" which is translated Christ.
If, like me, you are the youngest in the family, you may be able to identify with being referred to as the kid brother of so-and-so throughout your years in school or in the neighborhood. In other words, your identity is contingent upon the reputation or stature of another person. Some scholars point out that this is what may be happening with Andrew. That is, he is identified in relation to the better known, more prominent figure of Peter.
It could be said that in the Gospel of John, Andrew is the first disciple called by Jesus, at least the first identified by name. Yet, he is not included in the core group of three disciples who accompany Jesus during the intense moments of the Transfiguration, the Agony in the Garden, or the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Instead, Jesus calls Peter, John and James to be with him during these moments. Still, one could pause to paint a beautiful picture of Andrew here who was destined to make an introduction between his brother, Peter, and the Messiah. The yearning to share the discovery of the Messiah with Peter is so great that Andrew chooses to leave Jesus in order to find his brother and bring him back to the house where Jesus is staying.
Further, when Andrew finds Peter, he refers to Jesus as the Messiah whereas several hours earlier Andrew addressed Jesus only as Rabbi. The encounter that took place over the course of the afternoon has convinced Andrew of the true identity of Jesus.
Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said: "You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas" which is translated Peter.
When Peter and Jesus meet Jesus gazes intently upon him and gives him and presents him with a new name: "Cephas, which means Peter. In scripture the presentation of a new name by God communicates that a new and special relationship has been formed (i.e., Jacob to Israel, and Abram to Abraham). Peter will be the rock upon whom Jesus will build his church.
HOMILY theme: like John the Baptist, we must possess the humility to point out to others the Lamb of God and allow them to follow. Like Andrew, so filled with excitement that he must leave the side of Jesus in order to find his brother to share the good news of finding the Messiah and bring Peter back with him, we must not be afraid to make introductions between Jesus and others. In fact, it should be done with joy and excitement. Come and see where Jesus stays!
HOMILY theme: Discipleship is an invitation from God, it cannot be self-invented, self-invited. It begins with an inner call, a dream, an inspiration oftentimes in our lived, ordinary experience. It begins with having Jesus pointed out to us by the John the Baptists of the world. It begins with being introduced to Jesus by the Andrews of the world. What will our response be? Will we immediately follow? Will we make a fundamental decision to orient our lives toward Jesus?
"I have called you by your name; you are mine." remembering people's names - what a problem this can be; even with the best of intentions, even when we are really interested in someone and can recall some personal details, the name eludes us. So many methods of mnemonic are advised and tried, just to avoid the disappointing admission, "Sorry, but I just can't remember your name." Every man and woman (and child!) likes to be recognized by name; when others forget, it is a blow to our person-hood.
God knows each individual by name totally, intimately, always. None of us is ever ignored by him; like the birds of the air, and all created things, we are forever in God's mind, under his care (cf. Mat. 10:29.) Even the person of no particular significance in his neighbour's eyes, the born loser who lives in the shadows of depression most of the time - even he (or she) is precious in the eyes of God, perhaps more precious than anyone can suspect.
Samuel stands for all the little, forgotten people. Just a boy, with no high illusions about himself, a servant and apprentice to the old man Eli; he slept at night in a little room like an altar-boys" sacristy, at the religious shrine of Israel. Unexpectedly, in the middle of the night, the boy heard God calling him by name; eventually Samuel recognizes that the call is from God, and not just from the priest, so he submits himself heart and soul to listen to God's word. Only then did Samuel discover his own potential, his new identity, the role he was to fulfil in life.
Some of us may feel a strong, but quite false, sense of our own identity. Our self-understanding derives too exclusively from our own achievements, failures, efforts and ambitions; God's plan for us hardly enters the picture at all or we dismiss it as too uncertain, too "spiritual" and remote from daily life. Biblical faith, on the contrary, insists that God calls us into relationship with himself on a day to day basis, always offering us life, and always making demands on us to live our life worthily in his sight. Called by name. For Christians, specifically, it is relationship with Christ our Lord that lies at the heart of our identity. Not only are we called by name to friendship with Jesus - we become "members of his body," sharers in his spirit. Sometimes, in prayer we can taste the rich privilege of belonging to Christ. More often, it is in the darkness of faith that we simply believe in it. But always, and in ordinary details of behaviour, we are called to live up to the standard of love and truth set y the Spirit of Jesus. That is our real Christian vocation; and only by trying to live that vocation are we worthy of our name.
Later, we all hope, we will discover our full identity in God's presence, when this life is over and he calls us by name into the next life. Like the two apostles who wanted to know Christ better, we will be invited to "Come and see."
There is great concern in church circles about the crisis of vocations. The average age of the priesthood is rising steadily while the number of those entering the seminary continues to decline. Some speculate that if present trends continue, large areas of the church will be deprived of the services of a priest in the early years of the next millennium. Seminars are held to discuss the crisis. Surveys are commissioned. Reports are drawn up. The situation is found to be even worse than previously predicted. Priests are asked to preach about it. A day is designated as a special day of prayer for vocations. Recruitment is stepped up in the schools. Parents" committees are canvassed for support. The whole crusade is uncomfortably similar to a Save the Polar Bear campaign. The religious is classified as yet another of the planet's endangered species.
The problem about vocations is that the- word itself has been high-jacked by the clergy. God calls everyone in some way or other. Even to the active service ministry, there is no evidence to support the view that there are now less vocations. Look at all those young men and women who volunteer to work in the Third World. Humanitarian societies have sprung up everywhere to help the less fortunate and they don't seem to suffer from "a shortage of vocations." If some religious congregation, that came into existence in the nineteenth century, is now in crisis, maybe it is because it did not evolve with the times. Some, inevitably, have outlived their usefulness. Vocations were never intended as a means of perpetuating the breed. Religious orders, as elsewhere among God's creatures, must adapt to survive.
There is no shortage of vocations. God does not nod when his creatures are in need. Somebody, like an Eli or a John the Baptist, is needed to mediate God's call. So, the boy Samuel was able to respond: "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." Eli had given him an open ear. John the Baptist led Andrew to Christ, and it was through Andrew that his brother, Peter, became a disciple. If, today, God's calls seem to fall on deaf ears, it maybe that those of us who profess to be his disciples do not convincingly relay his message.
Today's gospel, which tells us of the call of the first disciples, has many interesting insights into the whole area of call, vocation, and of following the Lord. It applies to us as much today as to the disciples back then.
I remember, many years ago, I was chaplain in a large second level school in Dublin. Classes began at nine each morning, so I announced that I would have Mass at 8.30a.m. for those who wished to come in early. I followed one simple technique in advertising this fact. "What good would it do if I go to Mass in the morning?" My answer was always the same. "I really don't know. I can't tell you what it will do for you. I only know what it means to me. There is only one way you are going to find out, and that is by coming along." I began with six. After a while, it seemed that they were getting great inspiration from beginning their day with eucharist, so I asked each of them to invite one other person. At the end of my six-year stint there, the attendance at morning Mass had risen to four or five hundred, which included most of the staff, plus some parents from the immediate area, who asked if they might come along. Like today's gospel, the whole thing was based on "Come and see for yourself."
John the Baptist stands out as one of the giants of the gospel story. He was not the Messiah, and he was definite in proclaiming that. He knew his place, he knew his role. His task was to prepare the way of the Lord, to prepare the people for his coming. Once Jesus appeared, John was only too happy to stand back and let Jesus take over. "I must decrease, if he is to increase." In today's gospel, he turned his followers" attention to Jesus as the one for whom he was preparing, and he stood and watched as his followers left him to follow Jesus. In an ideal way, John is a symbol of the church, whose task it is to point to Jesus. Unfortunately, for far too long, the church has been seen to point to itself, as if the church contained salvation and redemption. In fact, when I was growing up, I was taught that, outside the church, there was no salvation!
The encounter of the first disciples with Jesus is so simple. "What do you want?" "Where do you live?" "Come and see." They accepted his invitation, and they spent the whole day with him. There obviously was something about this man that was magnetic and, when they met him, they didn't want to leave him. I like the idea of the quick crossover from the knowledge given by John, and the experiential knowledge gained by the disciples who spent the day with Jesus. There is a vast difference between knowing Jesus, and simply knowing about him. I have a clear recollection of the impression made on me when I visited Niagara Falls or the Isle of Capri for the first time. The only way you could understand what I experienced is to "Come and see for yourself."
The second part of the encounter with Jesus is a strong desire to go and tell. This is the first thing Andrew did. No messing, no beating about the bush. He ran to tell his brother, Peter, "We have found the Messiah." He then brought Peter to Jesus, and that meeting was something special. Just as we give a baby a name at Baptism, and another name for Confirmation, so Jesus renamed Peter. "You are Simon, son of John, but you will be called Cephas." Peter or Cephas both meant "rock," and there was more than a hint here that Peter was destined to be part of the foundation of whatever it was that Jesus intended building. Over the intervening years, before Jesus actually began his church, Peter would show many many human weaknesses, but there was never a question of Jesus regretting that original choice.
Response: Once again, I return to a point I repeat again and again throughout these reflections. This gospel is now, and I am right there in the middle of it. I said earlier that John the Baptist was a giant. I now say that the church is an extraordinary institution that continues to survive through thick and thin. It is important for us, however, to look beyond John the Baptist and the church, and "keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." There is Jesus, the Bible, and the church. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and always. Not one word of the gospel has changed. The church is continually in need of renewal, because, like Peter throughout the gospel, it has a tendency to lose the vision, and to get things wrong.
For me, the gem in today's gospel is the words "Come and see." The disciples had heard the teaching of John; they had been prepared for the one who was to come. When the moment came, they were ready to move. Their question was simple, and the reply of Jesus was simpler still. "Come and see." Come, stay with me for a while, listen to me. It is a reality for any one of us: when we personally meet the Lord, our lives will change fundamentally and forever.
We are not all called to be evangelists. Not many of us would be prepared to go from door to door, telling others about Jesus. We are all called, however, to be witnesses. We witness, through our lives, to the things in which we believe. Christianity is about attracting rather than promoting. Without saying a word, my life could have a profound effect for good on the life of another. Andrew ran to get his brother Peter. My contact with another could be so much more ordinary, for want of a better word. If I have peace, love, and joy in my heart, that will certainly have a real effect on those with whom I come in contact. As a Christian, you yourself are the message.
When John the Baptist spoke of the one who was to come, he stressed one dimension of his coming, by calling on his hearers to turn from their sins. He also said that the one who was coming would save them from their sins, and anoint them with his Spirit. If I took a few quiet moments out now to reflect on my own life, to reflect on it in the context of today's gospel, to imagine myself going aside to spend the rest of the day with Jesus what kind of day might I have? It is only when I personalise the gospel, and make it present, right here, right now, that it comes alive for me, and I begin to respond to its invitation to new life.
If you said to me, "If I came across a group of people who are radically living the gospel, I would join them," I could well give you something like the following reply: "No, that is not how it works. When you are ready to radically live the gospel, you will find that group; and if there's no such group around, you yourself will begin one. If you are not ready to radically live the gospel, you will not find that group, even if there's a group right there on your own doorstep."
If I am not involved in some kind of evangelisation, the only reason is that I myself have not been evangelised. Something extraordinary happens to those who meet the Lord, to those who are touched by God. They are set on fire, as it were. They are filled with enthusiasm, have a renewed hope and, not only are they saved, but they actually look saved! It is not the responsibility of the Christian to save souls. That is the work of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. It is our role and privilege, however, to tell others that they are saved. I can never do that if I am not convinced that I myself am saved.
With a broad swipe at modern psychological testing and skill assessment, someone suggested that if Jesus had sent his twelve apostles for these tests, this might well have been the reply he would have received (with a hefty bill included!): Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve men you have picked for managerial positions in your new organisation. All of them have taken our battery of tests. We have run the results through our own computer, after having arranged personality interviews for each of them with our psychologist and vocational aptitude consultant. It is the opinion of our staff that most of your nominees are lacking in background, education, and vocational aptitude for your enterprise. They have no team concept.
Simon Peter is emotionally unstable, and given to fits of temper. Andrew has no qualities for leadership. The two brothers, James and John, place personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas shows a sceptical attitude that would tend to undermine morale. The Jerusalem Better Business Bureau has blacklisted Matthew. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, definitely have radical leanings, and registered a high score on the manic-depressive scale.
One of the candidates, however, shows real potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness, meets people well, and has contacts in high places. He is highly motivated, ambitious, and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your controller and right-hand man.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Ps 25:4-9
1 Corinthians 7:39-40
Mark 1:14-20
The Kingdom Gospel
Never Fear!
Change of heart
Learning from Jonah
Depending on God
The Few Words
Leave what you're doing
Jonah 3:1-5, 10. Under God's mercy, the preaching of the reluctant Jonah meets with an immediate response in the pagan city of Nineveh.
1 Cor 7:29-31. Under the example of a widow coping with bereavement, Paul proposes a level of detachment from the dear, familiar things which once tended to absorb us completely.
Mk 1:14-20. "Repent, and believe in the good news." Jesus begins to spread his message and he calls his first disciples, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."
Theme: Christ said Peter and the apostles would become fishers of men when he called them to preach his gospel. His help remains sure for all who preach his word in church, or try to share the faith in any way.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for your goodness' sake, O Lord!
Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. But in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I have the Spirit of God.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea-for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
Intercessions
- for preachers of the gospel, that God's grace support their efforts to touch our hearts. with the message
- that God may enlighten our preachers to open up the scriptures, as a living word for today.
- that we may all find ways to take our part in this important ministry, of sharing God's word with others.
- for those caught up in long-standing habits of sin, that God in his mercy may put a new heart and spirit within them.
Thoughts for 3rd Sunday, B
Mark's gospel is often referred to as the Kingdom gospel, because it flows from the initial Kingdom proclamation found in today's reading. We, like the listeners in Galilee, are invited to reform and believe. Immediately following this invitation, we have two examples of what the invitation requires. The first fishermen immediately abandon their nets, and the sons of Zebedee not only abandon their nets, they also abandon their father. Neither our possessions nor our families must stand in the way of our following the path that will be set forth in the remainder of Mark's gospel.
Story: We can go to Ireland for the summer, a mother and father announced to their children at this time of the year not so long ago. The response was underwhelming. The older teen said "The Irish are creepy people, they talk all the time and they talk funny. Besides I want to spend summer with my friends, their a lot neater than Irish kids." "It's a great offer, the parents said. All the kids are free both on planes and in the cottage we'll rent in Ireland." "Cottage!" said the younger teen. "I don't want to live in any cottage. Is it air-conditioned in Ireland? Besides I have early football practice." "You don't need air conditioning in Ireland, said the parents and cottage is really a nice house and theirs a town near by where they sing all the old Irish songs." "I don't want to sing Irish songs," said the older grammar school kid. "I want to hear rock and roll music!" (which, by the way is all you hear in Ireland these days too). "You'll have a grand time when you get to know Irish kids your age." "I don' want to meet any Irish kids my age said the younger. I like my friends in America. They're a lot more fun!" A crazy waste of opportunity, you say? How many opportunities have we wasted in life for reason that are pretty similar.
On the first Easter Sunday morning, when the women were coming away from the tomb, where the body of Jesus had been laid, they met the risen Jesus coming towards them. "Do not be afraid," he said, according to St Matthew (28:10), "go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee; they will see me there." In St Mark's gospel, a young man in a white robe, within the tomb, asks the women to tell Peter and the other disciples, "He is going before you to Galilee; it is there you will see him" (16:7). Even before his death, Jesus had told the Apostles after the Last Supper, "After I am raised up, I shall go before you to Galilee" (Mk 14:28). This begins to make us wonder, why the insistence by Jesus on Galilee as a meeting place after his resurrection? "It is there you will see me" supplies a clue, for "to see Jesus' can also mean to "have faith in Jesus." In Galilee therefore there would be a rekindling, a resurgence of their belief in Jesus and his mission after the trauma of the previous days that shatteed their wishful dreams of a conquering Saviour, establishing a kingdom, where they themselves would have the places of honour.
Today's gospel reading tells how the public life of Christ began when he went into Galilee, and there proclaimed the Good News from God. Galilee was the birthplace of his mission. It was here, by his miracles of healing, of casting out devils, that the powers of evil which held so many people captive were broken. Here also, all the apostles were called and commissioned to help in, and carry on, his role of Saviour of the world. Galilee was the place most suited to start such a mission.
It was the most fertile region of Palestine, and the most densely populated. The great roads from north to south, east to west, passed through it. Many battles were fought in it, and strangers settled in it, leading to a regular injection of fresh blood. But above all its contact with outside influences made the people open to new ideas. It was the most fertile ground for the seeds of a new gospel. In stark contrast to Galilee was Judaea, the most southern part of Palestine, isolated and secluded from foreign influence, its religious attitudes dictated by hard-line extremists hostile to any change. The mind-set of its people, especially in Jerusalem, was an open book to Jesus, and he knew the fate that awaited him there. So fixed and inward-looking were they in their approach to religion, that Jesus shed bitter tears as he looked down on the temple area from the Mount of Olives. "It cannot be," he said, "that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stoe those that are sent to you. How often would I have gathered your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not" (Lk 13:33f). As much as three or four hundred years before Christ, this narrow racialism of the Jews was strongly condemned in the Book of Jonah, from which the first reading is taken today.
Far from being a droll account of Jonah's adventure with the great fish - whale is never mentioned - we have here a highly sophisticated satire on the narrow-minded Jewish thinking on God. God, it is saying, is not only the God of the Jews, but God of the gentiles also, even God of the people of Nineveh, their most hated enemies. The worst fear of Jonah, who here characterises the attitudes of the Jews, is that the Ninevites may repent, and God being a merciful God, may pardon them. And so Jonah, who wanted them punished, attempted to flee rather than call the people of Nineveh to repentance; but it was God's will which prevailed. The message for us is that no limits can be set to divine mercy, forgiveness and love, that these reach out to people of all kinds of faith in God, or none.
The call of Christ to repent is addressed to us too, here and now. It demands a complete change in our attitude towards God and our neighbour, something we have to do again and again and again as we go through life. Our response, if sincere, has got to be an on-going endeavour, not something which is over and done with, in a day. But since we are not yet perfect, our response can be somewhat erratic, a thing of ups and downs as we try to cope with the obstacles in our way. As you trust in Christ to save you, trust him too for each day's problems, St Paul said (Col 2:6f). Live in vital union with him. Let your roots grow down into him, and draw up nourishment from him. Let your lives overflow with joy and thanksgiving for all he has done for you.
The opening message of Christ was "Repent and believe the Good News." He warned that the time which they were waiting for, the time of the Messiah, was on top of them. His warning was "repent." But what exactly did he mean by that? Was Jesus asking people to do small acts of self-denial or to say more prayers? Maybe start reading their Bibles more? Even though "repent" might mean something along those lines to us, Jesus had something far more radical in mind. What he was saying was nothing less than "change your life, rethink your attitudes, give yourselves a fresh start."
Of course, all of that can sound threatening. As eavesdropping for five minutes in any pub will soon tell you, our lives are formed by strong opinions. It doesn't matter what the topic is, whether it is about the government's competence, or about punishment for crime, or about nuclear power or the cup final, we are ready to come forward with our contribution to the conversation. Our decisions and actions are often based on our opinions, and we build on those foundations every day. If anyone challenges us, we are quick to say "Oh, but we've always done things this way," or "When Mr Jones was here, he always made sure that such and such was number one priority," or "But we were always taught .... " If someone wants to change a practice or an idea with which we have grown comfortable, then that person is a threat and a troublemaker.
This is what is so unnerving about that little word "repent." It says that our lives need a change badly. Our lives don't just need a little remodelling they need a whole new foundation. No longer can our ideas and our dealings be based on notions of financial success, or popularity, or a higher position; no longer can our attitudes toward other people flow comfortably from our prejudices, and bigotries, and grudges. Whatever can stand on the foundation of Christ and his gospel can remain - whatever can't must be discarded. It's a tall order. Christ indeed wants you, but he also wants to change you through the overwhelming influence of his love.
Let's take a case in point. John, son of Zebedee, is called in today's gospel to follow Christ. Ah, yes, John the Beloved Disciple. We tend to picture him young and beardless, comfortably resting - nodding a bit - beside the Lord at the Last Supper... or maybe as the picture of tenderness, supporting our Lady beneath the cross... or maybe as the old man, telling a new generation of Christians about our Lord's message of love. If we had to go to any one of the disciples with a problem or a troubled conscience, it would probably be to John. He would understand, he would listen, he would have compassion.
But John, Son of Zebedee, is pictured another way in the gospel. When a Samaritan town won't receive Jesus, John wants to call down fire and brimstone on the town. Again, when he sees someone casting out demons in Christ's name, John brags to the Lord that he had warned that man that he had better stop if he knew what was good for him. Another time John and his brother James came up to Jesus to make sure that when this kingdom of his would come that they would have the top jobs. In other words, John was vengeful, intolerant, and hungry for power. But that's not the important thing. The important thing is that John let the love of Jesus change him, and change him deeply. Those things which couldn't stand on the foundation of Christ didn't remain. He let his life be built anew, this time on solid foundations. In short, John repented, and reformed his actions and his frame of mind.
There are people who find it hard to get enthusiastic about a certain class of saint. They wouldn't think that we need saints like Augustine who fathered a child out of wedlock, or Jerome and his bad temper, or Thomas a Becket who was known as a playboy, let alone Mary Magdalene and her type. Give us saints who are saints from their cradles, who enter convents and monasteries at a tender age, who fell into ecstasies before they could speak! Give us evidence that if the Lord wants you close to him you will be that way from birth. Give us saints who do not threaten us with the notion of repentance.
Unfortunately, none of us are cradle saints, and we do need to hear the call to rebuild our thoughts, actions, and speech on Jesus. We are like John, son of Zebedee, who had to drop more than a fishing net to follow Christ.
Only once every three years do we get to publicly read from the Book of Jonah, and it happens on this Sunday, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The whole book of Jonah tells a magnificent story totaling only 48 verses and 1250 words. This morning we have only heard 6 of those verses and about 130 of those words, and they just might be the only six verses and the only 130 words from the Book of Jonah that cast him in a heroic and righteous light. If the mother of Jonah was given the book to edit, I think we would end up reading the verses we read this morning. However, the fact of the matter is that Jonah would have benefited from a few more months in prophets finishing school. Clinically, he might be tagged with some serious authority issues.
What we hear of this morning is Jonah getting his orders from the Lord and of his execution of those orders with great precision and grace.
What we do not hear is that this is the second time this mission has been given to Jonah by the Lord, because he botched the first attempt royally!
The instructions were simple: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; their wickedness has come up before me. Amazingly, the immediate reaction to this God-given mission to Jonah is to flee in the opposite direction from Nineveh. Why? Because Jonah knew two things: First he knew that he hated the Ninevites. They were citizens of the capital of the Assyrian empire, Nineveh, the city to which all of the loot and prisoners of war were taken when the Assyrians sacked the Israelites a couple centuries before. When the city of Nineveh was mentioned in a First Century Judean coffee shop, everybody spit on the ground and dreamed of its destruction.
Second, Jonah knew how merciful, compassionate, and forgiving God could be to the sincerely repentant person, or to a truly repentant city. In a sense, Jonah was afraid of the mercy of God; not because of its scarcity, but because of its abundance! If the Ninevites sincerely sought the pardon of God through their repentance Jonah feared that God would, indeed, grant them forgiveness. With this particular mission, Jonah did not want to be a successful prophet, whereas in so many other books of the Bible other prophets were in constant fear of being UNsuccessful.
So, God points in one direction and Jonah begins his journey in the opposite direction. He packs his bag, hightails it to the shipyard in Joppa, jumps on a ship and buys a one way ticket to Tarshish, a city which was on the coast of what is today Spain, some thousand miles away from where God wanted Jonah.
Sometimes in life we have to do what we are supposed to do, no matter what ugly feelings creep up inside ourselves. If we go on the run, like Jonah, it seems like nothing will go right. Like Jonah, we get tossed around on the ocean in a violent and ominous storm and before long those around us are ready to throw us overboard in order to find some peace and stability!
If you remember the story of Jonah, this is what happens, he gets tossed overboard because he is literally about to drag everybody else down to their deaths, because he did not do what he was supposed to do. He was paralyzed by two things: hate of the Ninevites and his fear that God just might forgive a repentant Nineveh. Hate and fear will do that to us every time.
When Jonah gets spewed upon the shores of Joppa after being swallowed up by a big fish, God seems to calmly repeat the mission at hand: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; their wickedness has come up before me. And, this is where the story begins for us in the first reading.
Life can be like that. God gives a mission, we run the other way, we hit a wall, we end up where we started, God gives a mission.
We are told that Nineveh is so large that it takes three days to walk through it; yet Jonah only gets a third of the way through the city probably halfheartedly announcing: "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed" when the entire population, 120,000 citizens repent! They are all fasting, they are all covered in sackcloth, even the animals! In fact, in no time the king of Nineveh himself is dressed in sackcloth and sitting on a pile of ashes.
Is Jonah now gleaming with thoughts of capturing the Prophet of the Year Award? No, rather we read that "This was greatly displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry!" Even after a successful mission, Jonah is still filled with hate and fear, and hate and fear continue to paralyze him. What can you and I learn from Jonah? We can learn that we have to do what we are supposed to do. We can not successfully run from the call of God. If we try, we only end up in storms or winding up where we started with little to show for our wayward journey. We learn that hate and fear paralyze.
If we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing, this can be the day when we make a start. When we say to God: "Yes, I will do the right thing, With the help of your love, I will conquer hatred, With the help of your courage, I will conquer fear."
"He lives with his head in the clouds" - no compliment to a man, living in this earthly world. How realistic is Paul's advice, to live as though the ordinary events and concerns of life did not matter? As if business, planning, bereavements, possessions and the rest were of no fundamental importance? Well, first of all he does not mean that people should withdraw from all these things, or neglect the practical life.. What he does mean is that we should get our priorities right, and get a proper balanced view of things, so that what is of lasting importance can play its part too - namely, the question of our eternal destiny, and how we stand in the sight of God.
Under the influence of a brush with death - a near escape, or a recent bereavement - we come to realize how trivial are the usual concerns that engross us, when compared to the abiding mystery of life and death. Does it have a purpose? Is our life going anywhere, or is it simply an absurd farce, poised between comedy and tragedy? There are three common reactions to this mystery of life and death:
First: You can't take it with you - so spend it while you can. When you're dead that's it! So make the most of these short years, enjoy them to the utmost, and then submit to the universal annihilation that awaits us all
Second: A feeling that there may be life beyond the grave, but one which seems so shadowy and insubstantial that there's little point in thinking about it. Still, it's a worry. Perhaps there will be a punishing judgement for wrongs done in this life, which we managed to get away with
Third: The conviction that God holds each human life securely in his hand, so that death is just a passing-over into his direct presence. In the biblical view, we should not worry about death, nor about anything. in life so much as to turn to God, and obey his word. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his glory" says Jesus. If we can make the right primary decision, if our first desire is to fit in with God's plan for us, then everything else will fall into place; life and work, marriage, successes and failures, sickness and even death itself.
All of us, no matter how long we have been living in the faith, need to reawaken this attitude of trust. We need conversion, no, less than the people of Nineveh, or the people of Galilee. Repent, and believe, says Jesus today, to each one here. Believe that God is my father and your father; believe that he is near at hand, and that he is merciful; realize that God's will for you is that you be saved - and that includes the need to live by his Gospel. "Repent" - yes, the challenge is as fresh today as when our Lord first spoke it. As though we were hearing of the kingdom of God for the first time, and making our first act of total trust and total submission to God's love.
Taking Jesus at his word, being converted to genuine faith in God the Father, does not mean living with our head in the clouds. Genuine Christian devotion certainly fixes our ambition away above the passing things of life, but also keeps us aware of everyday duties towards other people. Hearing the Gospel, welcoming and following it, keeps a person with feet well grounded in reality, more keenly involved than ever in carrying out the tasks that have to be done here and now, because now is the day of salvation; now is the time, given us by God to pay him our thanksgiving through service.
The American sociologist, Fr Andrew Greeley, was invited a number of years ago to give the keynote address at a major US conference of religious educators. Working on data from a survey he had carried out in Chicago, he listed the best or most effective religious educators on a scale of one-to-ten. Coming first - and so far ahead of the other nine that it should hardly be included on the same league table - were Christian parents. In their role as religious educators of their children, mothers and fathers were the undisputed leaders in the field. That came as no surprise to anybody at the conference. One has only to reflect on one's own life, to realise that whatever religion we have, we owe in huge part to our parents and the early training we received at home.
Greeley then moved on to number two. There was a gasp of disbelief in the conference-hall when he announced the findings from his survey. The Parish Priest and his Sunday homily~ But Greeley was adamant. That much-maligned Sunday sermon and its little appreciated author were the second most important religious educators.
Preaching has always had a bad press. The word itself is far more commonly used in its derogatory than in its literal sense. Even priests themselves prefer to refer to this part of their ministry as "saying a few words" rather than "preaching." The word "homily', with its homely ring, has all but replaced "sermon." There is a holier-than-thou odour that clings to preaching, which is as offensive to the listener as it is embarrassing to the preacher. Most, like Jonah, axe reluctant preachers. Like him, too, they go in obedience to the word of the Lord.
When Christ began to recruit preachers of his gospel, he showed a marked preference for fishermen. it is not without significance. Fishermen axe noted for two qualities, patience and hope. The results they achieve are rarely commensurate with the time they put in. But they persevere and they hope. Again and again they launch out into the deep and cast their nets. Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, had done their novitiate on the Sea of Galilee. "Follow me," Christ said to them, "and I will make you fishers of men." They left their boats and their nets for the life of an itinerant preacher. They were called to proclaim the good news, to preach the gospel. The long hours spent catching nothing in the Sea of Galilee would stand them in good stead.
Preaching is like fishing. When the priest casts out his line into a sea of souls on a Sunday morning, he never knows who might nibble at his bait. He has no way of knowing what his yield maybe. He will never know what grace-filled words of his touched a soul in need. He can take comfort from Andrew Greeley's survey. It confirms Christ's promise to make him a fisher of men.
Today's gospel is virtually a repeat of the gospel of last Sunday. Instead of the invitation to "Come and see" of last Sunday, today he asked them to leave what they are doing, come follow him, and pursue a calling which he would entrust to them. One cannot fail to be impressed by the fact that, once he called them, they left everything and went off with him.
Some years ago, one of my colleagues felt a call to work in Africa. He travelled there, and went to several different countries, before deciding that Mozambique was a country with enormous needs and that, after sixteen years of civil war, the church and church structures had almost vanished. He returned with his decision made. His conviction was such that, before long, he had others who were willing to join him in the mission. Over the years since then, most of my colleagues have visited and spent some time there. Many of them admit that, were it not for the language barrier, they would have stayed there. At the time of writing, the undertaking is thriving; and all because one guy knew where he was going, and that inspired others to leave everything and follow him.
John the Baptist has done his job, and Jesus can now take over. His opening words in today's gospel are significant. "At last the time has come! The kingdom of God is near! Turn from your sins and believe this good news." John had foretold this; now Jesus had come to fulfil it. "The time is now" is his message, and that message is just as true today as it was then.
There was obviously something powerfully magnetic about the personality of Jesus. The apostles were fishermen. It was the only job they knew, and it obviously had been part of their family history for some time. Then, suddenly, one day a stranger comes along and asks them to pack it in and come off with him. Fishing for men, instead of for fish? The idea was crazy, but there was something about this man that got your full attention, and held that attention. He could not be easily dismissed. He had been baptised by the Spirit in the Jordan; therefore, his words were anointed, and he could speak with power and authority. When he spoke, others listened. This applied equally to those who listened, and to those who refused to believe, or to act on his word. Some of them would even use his word as a weapon against him. The point is, however, that his word evoked a response from them. "You are either for me, or against me."
The word "vocation" has been limited over the years, because it seemed to be the property of priests and religious. Thankfully, that is now being redressed. Anyone of us can hear the words of Jesus in today's gospel, and know they are meant for us. No matter how, or through whom, I hear the call, I can be sure that it comes directly from Jesus. Later, when he sent his apostles to spread the good news, he told them to speak in his name, to use his name in prayer to the Father, and to work miracles in his name.
Response: Today's gospel is about a simple encounter with Jesus. What happens when you and I come forward for communion? Surely that can be as personal and profound as I allow it to be? I can be weighed down with my humanity, in that I look to myself for the inspiration, for the initiative. This mistake is as old as original sin itself. It is so easy for us to turn the divine initiative into human endeavour. It is so easy for us to make ourselves the starting point of all that we do. In today's gospel, Jesus entered the world of the disciples, he called them, and they responded. This probably was the last thing on their mind when they began work that morning.
What does it mean to be part of the kingdom of God, to live in the kingdom of God? There are three rules in the kingdom, which are diametrically opposed to the values of this world. The first is that Jesus is Lord. In other words, what he says is what matters; what he says is to be obeyed. (If you live in the kingdom of the world, you will have many voices to obey: money, power, pleasure, success, etc.) The second rule in the kingdom is that everybody is important. The most disabled child is on this earth with as much right as the greatest genius that ever lived. (If you live in the kingdom of the world, then people are quite dispensable, and you can have abortion, euthanasia, etc.) The last rule in kingdom living is that the power to do so is the power of the Holy Spirit. "The kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours." If I supply the power, I will be tempted to steal the glory! (If you live in the kingdom of the world, you get your power from money, influence, social status, politics, etc.)
Just as the call was sudden, so was the response. There is another story in the gospel when Jesus asked a young man to come follow him, and he began to rattle off all the things he had to attend to before he could answer the call. Jesus walked away from him because, knowing human nature as he did, he knew only too well that, when he had completed all those tasks, he would find many many others that needed to be attended to. The moment of grace is now. "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by," Bartimaeus, the blind man, was told. He had a choice. He could stop Jesus right there and be healed, or opt to live and die a blind man. "I shall pass this way but once. Any good deed that I can do, any good word that I can say, let me do it now, let me say it now, because I'll never pass this way again."
There is a story in the life of Blessed Edmund Rice, founder of the Christian Brothers. He was fond of snuff. Somebody remarked to him that it was surprising that a man like him, who was so involved with helping the poor, would spend money on himself for such a trivial luxury as snuff. Edmund got up from his chair, took the snuff from his pocket, and threw it in the fire. He never used snuff again. People like that frighten me! However, I do admire those who are so convinced about what is right and wrong that they act on it right now, and not, like many of us, put off the pain till next Monday! There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
I said at the beginning that there were many people who listened to Jesus, but not many of them who chose to follow him. "Many are called, but few are chosen." Many are called, but few choose to answer the call. The next time I approach to receive communion, I should check into my heart, my mind, my whole attitude, to see what is going on there. Is this a deliberate act, a personal voluntary decision? It would not be possible for me, of course, to fully comprehend the full ramifications of such an encounter. I should be open, however, to possibility, to something and everything beyond my wildest dreams. Jesus is the one who is doing the giving. He is the one who is coming to me. The only limitations of what he can and will do for me are the ones I set.
A woman is preparing to leave home in the morning to go to work. Her job is an important one; she is in the public eye, and her appearance is something to which she must pay special attention. She goes through her regular morning routine with great attention and, before going out the door; she checks her appearance in the mirror one last time. She is satisfied with what she sees, as she remarks, "Now I'm ready to face the new day."
Just then she was conscious of a tiny inner voice which said "your outer person is ready, but what about your inner person? You've had breakfast for your body, but have you nourished your soul and your spirit? Just how ready is the real you to face this new day? How much resentment, unforgiveness, guilt, do you bring with you into your new day; something that may well spill over onto those around you, as the day goes on?'
She woke up on time, as it were. Jesus of Nazareth might well have been allowed pass by, and she would never hear his call to follow him.
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Ps 95:1-2, 6-9
1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Mark 1:21-28
Freedom of Heart
Unpredictable
By What Authority?
The power of Jesus
Distilled Wisdom
Against Satan's Wiles
Deut 18:15-20. Moses predicts the coming of a future prophet greater than himself, into whose mouth God will put his own words.
1 Cor 7:32-35. Paul urges those who are celibate to follow his example and give their undivided attention to doing the Lord's work.
Mk 1:21-28. Jesus heals the possessed man in Capernaum and the people recognise the amazing power of his message. His fame begins to spread around the villages of Galilee.
Theme: Christ's teaching impressed his contemporaries because he taught them with authority. The church, following its Master, must continue to impress the world by the clarity and the authority of its teaching.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet lie me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: "If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." Then the Lord replied to me: "They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak-that prophet shall die."
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would listen to his voice!
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your ancestors tested me,
and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.
I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching-with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
Intercessions
- that the church will continue to impress the world with the authority and truth of its teaching.
- that our lives within of the church may bear authentic witness to the teaching and example of Jesus.
- for parents and teachers and all who have charge of young people, that they may inspire in them a deep love for what is best in life.
- that all Christian leaders will follow ever more closely the model of their Master, leading by example as well as by word.
Thoughts for 4th Sunday, B
"Those who deal with the world should not become engrossed with it," the New Testament tells us, "because the world, as we know it, is passing away" (1 Cor 7:31). However, Jesus had said that no one, not even himself, knew the day or the hour when he would come again to judge the world. He told his listeners, nevertheless, to be on the alert. "As it was in Noah's day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. For in those days before the Flood, people were eating, drinking, taking wines, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the Ark, and they suspected nothing until the Flood came and swept them all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes" (Mt 24: 37+).
Today 2,000 years later, what Jesus said is still true. No one knows the day or the hour, but still hardly anyone believes that the world, as we know it, will end in our lifetime. And yet for the first time, the fragile nature of our earthly environment and existence is beginning to cause alarm to scientists and cosmologists. For nowadays, we actually have the power to end the earth's capability to preserve life by causing excessive radiation and pollution, by upsetting the balance of food-chains worldwide, destroying the atmospheric layers that act as a shield around our planet. Technology in attempting to exploit our resources is coming nearer to the point where these can become exhausted, with nothing remaining bar the evil effects of the methods employed.
However, even though heaven and earth pass away, Jesus has given a firm assurance that his message will never pass away (Mt 24:35). We might find confirmation of this from two tourist centres in present day Rome. The better known perhaps, the Colosseum, built some ten years after the death of the Apostle St Peter, was the focus of attention in its time, with its shows, its blood sports, its spectaculars. But when one goes into it today, it is just a gaunt shell, a dead place, as dead as the Empire at the centre of which it once attracted vast multitudes. And just 300 yards beyond the Colosseum there is the Basilica of San Clemente, called after Pope St Clement, archaeologically one of the most interesting in modern Rome, rather drab on the outside, and so old that the street on the outside is now several feet higher than the floor of the church. For more than 300 years it has been in the hands of the Irish Dominicans, and in excavations under the church, carried out by Fr Joseph Mulooly in a search, in 1867, or the relics of St Clement, they found the original 4th century church underneath the present 12th century one. Digging still deeper they discovered the remains of a first century house, 60 feet below the present street level. This house, or palazzo to use the Roman word, was there before the Colosseum was built. It belonged to the Clemente family, and was a meeting place for Christians. If you go down into one of its rooms you can say with almost certainty, that you are in a place where St Peter offered up the sacrifice of the Mass. Like the Mass rocks in Ireland, this was a place where persecuted Christians came together to renew their commitment and courage, to draw comfort from receiving the Eucharist.
Kingdoms have come and gone since then, the Roman Empire and Colosseum are things of the past, but at San Clemente, both in the church above and palazzo below, people still come together to remember the Lord, and by remembering, to make him present in their midst once again. Here there is a living and enduring tradition. Those early Roman Christians, our own forebears around their Mass rocks in Penal days, these were all prepared to risk their lives for their faith. We at least must also find a place in our lives for the worship of God, for prayer to God, for listening to the voice of God addressing us interiorly through his Holy Spirit.
We must never allow our faith become mere routine, or indeed simply a superstitious fear of God. Such a mentality is illustrated in the reaction of the unclean spirit in the gospel reading. "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?" Christ however came, not to destroy, but to save. He is saying to us, "Learn of me, for I am gentle and humble of heart" (Mt 11:29). In other words, he is not a destroyer. We are part of a long tradition that says Christ is the same today, yesterday and forever. And he abides with us, especially in his word and in the Eucharist which in the tradition of those early Christians at San Clemente we are celebrating now.
The Gospel today gives a variety of opportunities for preaching. One could take up the mystery of the person of Jesus as a theme, starting with an example of the unpredictable nature of other people. We can never be sure how anyone will interpret what we do or say. Their own mood and preoccupation at the time can influence how they absorb what we might say. Externally there may no indication of preoccupation. Their inner state is a mystery, hidden in themselves The mysteriousness may involve even a dark area even within the person, the curious currents of our motivation and desires that flow from our unconscious needs.
In the case of our experience there is so much that is faulty. We do things that we are ashamed of and are drawn in ways that we would not go wholeheartedly. In contrast to our way of life we see the mystery of the person of Jesus who is full of authority and can teach with an assurance that is rocklike. Before his powerful word the demons run. The demon thinks that he can control him by the use of his name, by claiming to have a grasp of his identity but the mystery of Jesus eludes the mere formula of words "Holy One of God." Because he is the "Holy One," the Son of God, there is no darkness within himself to cloud his freedom and there is no fear of the demon, before which he might have to shrink. Through our baptism each Christian is invited to such self possession, liberated from the demons that inhabit the darkness within each one.
One could take up the impression that Jesus made on the people By his power he evoked their admiration. Yet it was not a pretence. What was spoken by the possessed man was the truth and Jesus did not shrink from the truth of himself, his Sonship which is an important aspect of Mark's Gospel. By being true to his nature he impressed his audience rather than by any distinct effort to sway them. Without any propaganda his reputation spread out through the surrounding country
Another possibility is to take up the position of the possessed person. Explaining that possession meant some form of mental illness that inhibited the person's life, one could develop the different blind spots or weaknesses of character that inhibit our enjoyment of life and possibly cause us to strike out at people like the possessed person did at Jesus. Yet, in the midst of that hostility Jesus wants to come with a word of liberation. The same theme could be applied to social structures, where there is evidence of an inability to live freely and there are traces of the convulsions of self-destruction. Only the word of "Truth" that is authoritative can set such a situation right.
In the not-too-distant past, Catholics generally felt secure in the knowledge that God's will (for our belief and conduct) is infallibly explained by the Pope and the bishops, using the teaching authority given them by Christ himself. Influenced (perhaps too profoundly) by the doctrine of papal infallibility, our Catholic Church so strongly upheld the principle of authority, that some people felt inhibited from making up their own mind on any important issue.
Whenever controversy arose - there was always a strong statement from the magisterium, to put the issue beyond doubt.
More recently, we have experienced a devaluation of institutional authority in the Church; some welcome this, as a greater freedom for individual conscience, while others deplore it and long for a return to the hard, clean-cut edge of dogma, defined and unquestionable. Perhaps we can get some light from today's Gospel}, where Jesus "teaches with authority, and not as their scribes."
Our knowledge of God's will comes to us primarily from Jesus, the Word of God, who makes the Father known to us (cf. Jn. 1:18.) If we listen attentively when the gospel is read at Mass, or give some time to the private reading of holy scripture, the main lines of Christ's teaching come home to us. Apart from this contact with the written word of the Gospel, we have the prompting and guidance of Christ's Spirit - when we take time to pray, to reflect and let our conscience come alive in God's presence. And finally, to help us apply the message of Jesus to definite areas in our lives, we have the teaching power of the Church. Really, the big purpose of authority among Christians is to keep the Lord's word alive in the community, to keep us reminded of what Jesus said, and still says, to us his followers.
God knows, we need the reminder often enough. There's a slump-factor in all of us, tending to gradually lower our ideals, and cool our devotion. We're a flock of straying sheep, needing the pastoral concern of shepherds to hold us together, and keep us moving on the upward boreen.
Yet, when we have listened with genuine respect to what our leaders say - whether it be the Pope and bishops, or more locally the parish clergy - each one must look into his (or her) own conscience, to integrate the official teaching into his personal faith in God. Beyond, and beneath all human authority in the Church, and permeating it with vitality, is the infallible authority of Christ himself, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Through him, in faith and loyalty, we can know with certainty what God the Father expects of us, and what we must do in order to gain eternal life. Just one thing is needed: to be willing to undertake whatever he shows us, no matter how difficult. If Christ is God's fullest Word to us, we can have no reserves about doing what he says.
Where the episode happened: Capernaum was a town in the time of Jesus located on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, actually a freshwater lake some 13 miles long, 8.5 miles wide, with a maximum depth of 150 feet. The lake is surrounded by mountains 1,200-1,500 feet high and one can look across it from any direction. Capernaum was a small port on the Sea of Galilee mostly serving fisherman and the fishing industry. It is thought to be the town where Jesus resided during his public life, the town from which Peter operated his fishing business, the town in which the mother-in-law of Peter lived (and was healed by Jesus), and the town in which Jesus called Matthew, and perhaps some of the other twelve, to discipleship.
Today the ruins of Capernaum can be viewed and walked through. The excavation site is about the size of three city blocks and at the center of the site stand the remnants of a 4th century synagogue, 65 feet in length, constructed from lightly colored limestone. Although these ruins are not that of the synagogue mentioned in the Gospel, one will note that the ruins sit upon a sturdy and sizable foundation of black basalt stone which is likely the original foundation of the original synagogue. There was no sense in reinventing the wheel and confusing the weekly routine of life; the new was simply built upon the old. If you are ever in Capernaum, note where the limestone meets the black basalt and stand in the midst of the newer synagogue trusting that you are within feet of the action that unfolds in the Gospel.
Where, in the Gospel? The unfolding of these events occur on the Sabbath early on in the Gospel of Mark. The Sabbath was observed from sundown on Friday until nightfall on Saturday. In the time of Jesus this was observed by all of Israel, the Israelites, resident aliens, slaves and farm animals. During the sabbath there was no baking, cooking, food-gathering, traveling, plowing, reaping, commerce, carrying or any work of any kind. Rather, it was a time for rest and walking to the synagogue where readings from the Pentateuch and the Prophets could be heard as well as preaching and the chanting of Psalms.
The persons: The presence of Jesus in the synagogue and his teaching action were not out of place. Any educated Jewish male could preach in the synagogue. However, there is a special authority detected in the teaching of, and the delivery from Jesus which the observers can not help but perceive. What made Jesus stand out from the Scribes of the Synagogue? Jesus taught with personal authority. The authority of the scribes was rooted in their knowledge of, and their dependence on the Law. The authority of Jesus was independent of the Law. Jesus spoke as the Holy One of God and his authority came vertically from his Father and not horizontally through the Law.
"In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit." The Israelites believed in demons or unclean spirits. These lived in unclean places; for example, near tombs or where clean, running water was not available (the desert). There was a belief that certain conditions made individuals vulnerable targets of unclean spirits: traveling alone, giving birth, traveling after dark, or while enduring the midday heat. The Israelites believed that there were demons of leprosy, demons of paralyzation, demons of blindness, and demons of heart disease, etc. A man who thought himself possessed by such an unclean spirit would maintain a cogniance of both his own being and that of another being who would exercise a good measure of autonomous influence. To excise this unclean spirit an Exorcist, either religious by nature, or pagan, would utilize elaborate and lengthy rites, incantations and spells.
Jesus is identified by both his humanity and his divinity: Jesus of Nazareth and the Holy One of God.
Jesus rebuked him and said: "Quiet! Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. No chanting, no elaborate dances or gestures, no bleedings, no use of external objects thought to contain exorcising power. Instead, five words delivered with infinite authority. His authority to teach is personal as well as his power to exorcise. It does not rely upon externals. For me, this is the PUNCH of the gospel. It is a forceful display of the absolute power of Jesus.
All were amazed and asked on another: "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee. The response is appropriate. Amazement, and the widespread communication of His fame.
My homily this week will focus on our trust and belief in the power of Jesus, the power of his actions and words in our lives.
Sputnik was the first Russian word to become common currency all over the world. That little bleeping satellite, encircling the planet, heralded the arrival of the space age. For communist Russia, it marked a huge propaganda victory. Communism was triumphant. Marxist ideology seemed destined to conquer. A generation later, Russia was to make another contribution to the world's vocabulary, this time twins, glasnost and perestroika. They were to mark the virtual end of Marxism, one of the most powerful political creeds ever loosed upon the world. For the best part of a century, it held sway over half the world. Its adherents could be found from one end of the globe to the other. It rivalled the great world religions in the fervour and commitment of its believers. It brooked neither doubt nor dissent from its followers. No deviation from its doctrine was permitted. Then an insidious maverick made its appearance in the form of glasnost and began to nibble at the foundations of the Soviet monolith.
Suddenly, the whole edifice came tumbling down. Now, its altars are overturned, its priesthood despised, its doctrine reviled and its prophets discredited.
Had the communist leaders opened their Kremlin windows ever so slightly they might have sniffed the winds of change sweeping the modem world. Had their Sputnik trained its camera on Rome while it hovered overhead, they might have found a precedent for their present situation in Vatican II. Glasnost is a child of the media age. When the Council Fathers in Rome espoused the policy of transparency, the tremors were felt throughout the Catholic Church. Things would never be the same again. Gone were the old certainties. The catechism with its "simple straightforward answers" was discarded. The casuistry of the moralists, so reminiscent of the Scribes and Pharisees, was repudiated. The laity came of age. Not all were able to adapt to their newfound freedom. There were casualties. For most, the bedrock of the gospel was enough.
A new church has emerged, pruned back to its gospel roots and guided as always by the Holy Spirit. Those who feared it might have dissolved into a mist of private opinions had not reckoned with the durability of the Master's doctrine. Two thousand years have passed and the church today is enriched with twenty centuries of distilled wisdom. It continues to cherish the insights of thousands of philosophers and theologians, saints and mystics. Christ remains its model, as he was that sabbath day in the synagogue of Capernaum. "His teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the Scribes, he taught them with authority."
Today's gospel gives us a close-up view of an encounter between Jesus and Satan. It is a good example of the authority, which Jesus had. It is necessary for us to understand this because, at a later time, he offers us that same authority.
Growing up in the country, as I did, I often had occasion to see farmers exercising authority over animals. The secret seemed to lie in the fact that the person had no fear of the animal. I have known bulls where another farmer would not enter the same field as them. I have known guard-dogs that would put fear into the heart of the bravest. And yet I have seen someone handle these, control these, subdue these, with total ease. It appears that the animals know if you are afraid of them, and that causes them to attack. I remember Paul Hogan in "Crocodile Dundee," when he was attacked by a fierce guard-dog. He turned on the dog, looked it straight in the eye, pointed two fingers at it, and the dog just sat there and became totally docile. Very recently, I watched a programme where a man was handling deadly snakes. The secret of his success was that his hand was so steady that there was not the slightest movement by way of tremble. One tiny flinch of fear, and he was dead.
Satan is a bully. He loves using his power to subdue us, to entrap us, to bind us. He loves binding us in addictions, in resentments, darkness, and despair. Jesus is definite in his encounters with Satan. Right from the beginning of his public mission, he was engaged in deadly combat with the evil one, the father of lies. Satan sought every opportunity he could to undermine the work of Jesus. At the beginning of his mission, he was waiting for Jesus in the desert to tempt him. On his final journey to Calvary he used Peter to try to persuade Jesus from going through with his plan. In today's gospel, Satan tries to create confusion, turmoil, fear, and the things that cause people to run away.
Jesus taught with authority. He was the author of what he said; he knew what he was talking about. This gave power to his words, and his listeners were unused to someone speaking with such conviction. He had the secret of a good homilist, i.e., he himself believed the things he was telling others to do, and he himself did those things. The gospel is quite pointed in its reference to the fact that he was unlike the teachers of religious law. In a later reference to them, Jesus would tell his disciples "Do what they say; but don't do what they do!" It would seem that, up to that point, the teachers of religious law were not any great threat to Satan. Satan, however, knew who Jesus was and why he came, even though he asked him publicly to declare why he did come. Satan certainly felt under threat, and he wasn't prepared to give up without a fight.
Jesus spoke few words, but they were powerful words; words that Satan could not resist. He tried to harm the man, but was unable to do so, as he was forced to abandon the scene and depart. Naturally, the people around were amazed. They had never seen anything like this before. This man Jesus certainly had extraordinary power, because they had never seen anyone taking complete and total control over evil spirits. No wonder the word of what happened spread quickly throughout the whole countryside.
Response: When Jesus took on human nature, he took on mine. When I experience my weaknesses and I struggle with temptations, I can easily forget that I already have the victory over all the power of the evil one. I can allow Satan to bully and compel me, or I can stand up to him, in the power of Jesus' name, and he will flee like the coward he is. Peter writes in his first letter, "be careful! Watch out for attacks from the devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour. Take a firm stand against him, and be strong in your faith."
Satan said to Jesus, "I know who you are." That is an interesting comment, and it is represents something, which can lead us astray. Knowing that Jesus is God is not faith! It is no more than knowledge, and can often be no better than mental assent. It is what I do because of that knowledge that can declare my faith or lack of faith. Faith is in my feet, not in my head. When I step out to act because of something I believe, that is faith. When Peter stepped over the edge of the boat, he was acting in faith. When he took his eyes off Jesus, and became concerned about the waves, his feet lost their power, and he began to sink.
We are all familiar with programmes on television that involve discussion panels. They are usually chosen from a broad spectrum, to ensure differing points of view. We notice how one speaks with a strong bias or prejudice, how another speaks out of complete ignorance and lack of appreciation of the issue; and then there is the one who speaks with authority. The contrast is always so evident, and the response from the audience is always so positive. During my years of teaching, I have many memories of teachers who spoke with authority, not with bullying inspiring fear, but with a certain conviction that held the attention of the class. The secret of the teacher's control over the class came from the inner control he had on himself. The quiet teachers always had quiet classes, just as the noisy teacher always had a noisy class.
The gospel is now, and Jam every person in it. At this moment, I may be conscious of some troubled spirit within my soul. It could be a depression, an anxiety, a fear, or a worry; it could be a compulsion, an addiction, resentment, or a guilt. I am in the presence of the Lord of today's gospel. What should I do? "Lord Jesus, Son of God, Saviour and Lord, I call upon your name. I claim your authority over everything within me that is not from you. I use your name, and bind every disturbing and disquieting spirit within me."
Have you ever thought of Jesus as your teacher? I mean that in a literal sense. He is your teacher, and you are his pupil. The gospels are full of his teachings. Just as the person who wishes to become a good swimmer must spend long hours in the water, so the pupil of Jesus must spend time reading and reflecting on his teachings. Do you have a copy of the gospels? There is such a wide variety of gospels available today, and many of them are pocketsize, and with modern translations. I don't think I can honestly claim to be a follower of Jesus if I don't study and reflect on his teaching. He really does speak with authority. In another part of the gospel, he tells us that he never says anything unless the Father tells him. To some people it must seem unreal to try to enter into the mind of God. To those who read the teachings of Jesus, the mind of God becomes clear and evident.
Scripture tells us that "If God is for us, who can be against us?" St Paul says that "having given us Christ Jesus, will the Father not surely give us everything else?" In our daily battle with the powers of darkness, we have the victory, and Jesus is definitely on our side. I find shelter under the shadow of his wings. My generation grew up with sacramentals, which were holy water, blessed objects, scapulars, etc. These were all intended to protect us from evil. As we left the house each morning our mother always sprinkled the holy water on us. Every night, at night prayers, we recited the prayer to Michael the Archangel, praying for protection from the powers of hell, "from Satan, and all the other wicked spirits who wander among us for the ruin of souls." Our strongest prayers for protection were reserved for the bedside of the dying. There was a fear that Satan would make one final and fierce attack at the last moment, when the sick one was at his/her lowest. We never took any chances! As life has evolvedover the years, I have come to appreciate more and more the wisdom of all such thinking. There is nothing that pleases Satan more than that we should forget about him, or just ignore him.
There is a story about a meeting in hell, where the daddy devil rounded up all his forces, to review recent developments in the world, and to update some of the tactics being used. He walked up and down in front of the assembled multitude, and it was quite obvious that this was going to be an important meeting. He stopped in front of them, and asked them to put on their thinking caps, and come up with some ideas that would ensure a successful launch into the new century.
There was silence all around the room, as each was lost in thought and reflection. Finally, the spell was broken when one little devil put up his hand, and was called forward to give his contribution. "I suggest we go up there, and tell them there's no such place as hell. That could cause them to see no reason why they should avoid evil, and we'll be able to catch them in that way." All his pals loudly applauded his suggestion, which seemed so obvious and so simple. The daddy devil pondered the idea for a while, and then he shook his head. "No, no," he said, "that would never work. Humans are strange creatures. There is some sort of inner mechanism within them that monitors their behaviour, and every person knows only too well when behaviour merits reward or punishment. No, no, no that will not do! Come on; get back to using your intelligence, and give me an idea that will work!'
After another long silence, a little devil raised his hand and was called forth to explain his suggestion. "I suggest that we go up and tell them that there is a hell, but there's no heaven. That way they'll see no point in doing good and they'll give up, and we'll catch them in the net of despair." All his pals cheered loudly. The daddy devil thought over that for a while, and then he shook his head. "No, no, no; that will never work. If you know anything about humans you know they have some sort of inner resilience. If today is bad, they'll expect tomorrow to be better. There is no way they'd ever believe that there's no such place as heaven." He was furious with frustration then, as he roared at them to give the problem some serious consideration, because this was a serious matter.
Once again, after a long pause, one devil raised his hand and was brought to the microphone to explain his suggestion. "We'll go and tell them that there is a hell, and there is a heaven; but there's no hurry; don't bother about that for now." The daddy devil pondered on that for a while, and then he came over and shook the hand of the speaker. "That's it! That's it! If we can get them to believe that, we're really back in business. Let them believe what they want to believe, as long as they put off doing anything about it. Brilliant! Next Lent? Next year? Next Monday? It doesn't really matter. Come on, let's go. Off with you now, and get this message out to everybody. Not everybody will believe you, but you'll surely get plenty who will."
Have you heard that whisper lately?
Job 7:1-4, 6-7
Ps 147:1-6
1 Corinthians 9:16ff
Mark 1:29-39
Signs of God's Healing
Space for God
The Life of Job
Friends of suffering Job
Boredom
Suffering Job
God's Gentry
What to hold; what to leave aside
Job 7:1-4, 6-7. Job wrestles with the problem of why the innocent should suffer. As a result of his own sufferings he takes a pessimistic view of life.
1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23. St. Paul becomes "all things to all" in order to bring them the Good News of Salvation. We need to be both generous and flexible, in finding the best way to share our faith.
Mk 1:29-39. After a busy round of activity and healing all who needed him, even Jesus finds it necessary to escape a lonely place to pray. Then he starts a new phase of his mission.
Theme: Sickness and suffering, especially in the young and innocent, is the hardest test of our faith. But God is merciful and compassionate and invites us to bring all our troubles and sorrows to him.
"Do not human beings have a hard service on earth, and are not their days like the days of a laborer? Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like laborers who look for their wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. When I lie down I say, 'When shall I rise?' But the night is long, and I am full of tossing until dawn. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to their end without hope. "Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good.
Praise the Lord!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the downtrodden;
he casts the wicked to the ground.
For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my preaching I may make the gospel free of charge, not making full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more.
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law-though not being myself under the law-that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law - not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ-that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Intercessions
- for the sick, that our merciful, caring God may lighten their burden.
- for those who tend the sick, that they may bring to their patients the comfort of Christian compassion.
- for a deeper understanding of suffering, that we may see its mysterious place in the total framework of our lives.
- that in his wisdom and providence, God will finally heal our troubles, guide our efforts and dispel our doubts.
Thoughts for 5th Sunday, B
There is considerable debate about whether the people whom Jesus healed were really possessed by the devil or were just mentally disturbed. The debate is utterly besides the point. These individuals were deeply troubled and Jesus healed them. Jesus came to heal both body and soul. Most scripture scholars now agree that miracles were an important part of Jesus's ministry and of the memory of that ministry in the early church. We simply cannot abandon them to please those who say miracles are impossible. The precise explanation of how these healings were accomplished is another matter and perhaps one that is also besides the point. Jesus did not work miracles to prove anything. Rather they were signs that God's healing love is at work in the world.
Story: Once upon a time there were some doctors who were discussing whether prayer helped their patients. "Does it do any good," they asked, "for people to pray for those who are sick?" One group said "Well, it helps those who pray to feel that they're doing something for the sick person. But it really doesn't help the sick person at all." The other group said that they had the impression that prayer really had a positive effect on sick people. The first group said "That's scientifically impossible!" So they decided to try a "double blind" experiment on those who were recover from heart problems. They would have prayers said for some and not for the others to see what happened. The doctors didn't know who was chosen to be prayed for and the subjects of the prayers didn't know either. However a list of first names were given to those who were to do the praying. So neither the "pray-ers" nor the "pray-ees" nor the researchers knew who had been chosen to be the target of prayer. What happened? Those for whom praers were said recovered more quickly. "See!" said those who had argued that prayer worked, "there's more things under heaven than science dreams of." (This true story of research was reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.)
To be constantly on the move, being engrossed in earthly affairs, has always been regarded as one of the great obstacles to contemplation of God, recognising him at work in our lives, and entering into close communion with him. So the reason why people became hermits and lived in solitude. But, surprisingly, the last chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that to know God means to be constantly on the move, but on a different plane. "Here we have no lasting city," it says, but we look for one in the life to come. In other words, the search for God is something that goes on and on, a continual seeking after a new and more profound understanding of who God is, what we are, and what the meaning is of life here on earth.
For the people of the Old Testament, who as yet did not believe in a general resurrection, the virtuous person was held to be rewarded in this world with prosperity, health and long life; whereas the sinner was punished by poverty, sickness and untimely death. Such was the theory, but in reality it did not always work out like that. The Book of Job set out to try and find a reason as to why God, who is the God of justice, could allow a good person to suffer. Job was a virtuous man who trusted in God, believed in God's goodness and power; and here he was, robbed of his family, stripped of all his possessions, and a prey to extreme bodily affliction. Moreover, the suffering of his body is matched by the torture of his soul, as he struggles to discover why this should be.
Such was his anguish that, instead of showing what is commonly referred to as the "patience of Job," he cursed the day he was born, and in a rage hurled protests at God. Gripped by a spirit of bitter fatalism, he saw man as being condemned to a daily drudgery, the slave seeking rest in the shade of a palm tree, the paid workman concerned solely with the amount of his wages. Job undergoing this interior struggle really stands for each of us. What is the purpose of my life, I this solitary person who thinks and loves, remembers and hopes, lives and dies? His wife urged Job to curse God, but this he refused. What Job learns in the end is that God is beyond all human scrutiny, understanding or argument, and that never is he under any obligation to human beings however upright their lives may be. Realising that he has no ground for arguing with God, job retracts his harsh words, repents, and humbles himself before his Creator.
The mystery of suffering, however, remains unanswered, even as it is in the Bible as a whole. "Whoever does not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:27). What is certain is that suffering can reduce to despair the person without faith, but for those with faith suffering can be faced in the knowledge that they are in God's hands, that God works with those who love him, and turns everything to their good (Rom 8:28). In marked contrast to job, St Paul accepts gladly whatever hardship each day may bring, in order to have the opportunity of sharing with others the blessings God has granted him. It is Paul who gives us the only saying of Jesus not recorded in the gospels: "There is more happiness in giving than in receiving" (Acts 20:35).
The gospel reading today shows Christ giving of himself, of his time, his energy, in the mission his Father has entrusted to him. So complete was the cure from fever of Peter's mother-in-law that she was able to prepare a meal for them. Then after sunset, crowds came with their sick ones to have them also cured. But Jesus flees the crowds, and is found early next morning at prayer by himself elsewhere. This was a clear indication that Jesus regarded the performance of miracles as being a subordinate feature of his ministry. His principal objective was to preach, to pass on a greater understanding of God, and the meaning of life on earth.
To call him the "Holy One of God," simply on the evidence of his miracles, as ,did those possessed by evil spirits, Jesus regarded as being dangerously misleading, and so the demons were warned to be silent. At the foot of the cross, the centurion was right in confessing Jesus to be the Son of God, because he saw in him, not the miracle-worker, but the crucified One. Miracles of healing were advance signs of the greatest act of healing, that which took place as a result of Christ's death on Calvary, and his glorious resurrection two days later. The merits that accrue from what took place then continue to be applied to all who have faith in Christ, especially when celebrating the Eucharist.
All of us from time to time can experience life as something of a struggle or a burden. This might be because of some difficulty in our family, or our work may be unsatisfying or troublesome, or we may be working too hard, or our health may be deteriorating. Any one of these or similar experiences can take its toll on us. We might find ourselves struggling to get through the day; we feel stressed; we overreact to things, getting annoyed at what we would normally take in our stride; we may have little energy for life.
At such times we identify easily with the sentiments of Job in the first reading, his description of life as pressed service and hired drudgery. We may feel the need of a strength beyond ourselves to keep us going, a strength that we do not possess within ourselves. The temptation when life becomes a burden can be to try harder, to summon up more of our energies, to do more to tackle the problem. In reality, the better path might be to do less, to step back and be still, to open ourselves to the presence of the Lord. During the past week I heard someone say that we are human beings not human doings. We often find it easier to do than to be.
The portrayal of Jesus in today's gospel reading may have something to teach us in this regard. Because people recognised that God's healing power was at work through Jesus, they came to him in great numbers in their brokenness, and reached out to him for healing. In the gospel reading this morning, they told him about Simon Peter's mother-in-law. Later on that day the whole town came crowding round the door looking for healing. That was only in Capernaum. Jesus could have worked day and night in all the towns of Galilee, healing the broken, releasing people from whatever was enslaving them. Yet, Jesus knew the importance of standing back from what he was doing and being alone with God, even if it meant doing less.
In the gospel reading we find him going off to a lonely place early in the morning to pray. When the disciples realized where he had gone, they were clearly puzzled by this behaviour of Jesus, going off on his own like that. "Everyone in Capernaum is looking for you," they said, as much as to say, "what are you doing out here on your own when you could be healing more sick people in Capernaum?" But Jesus was not at the mercy of the demands of others. There was an even more important relationship in his life than his relationship with the needy and the sick, and that was his relationship with God, his Father. To do the work of the Father well, he needed to be with the Father.
If Job had put his question to Jesus, "Is not our life on earth nothing more than pressed service?" Jesus would surely have answered "No." Yes, our life on earth is much about service, serving one another in love. People served Simon's mother-in-law by bringing Jesus to her. Paul in our second reading declares that he has made himself the slave, the servant of everyone. Tomorrow, parishioners will serve other parishioners by bringing them to the Mass for the sick in this church. There are all kinds of other ways in which parishioners serve one another in our parish. One of the reasons for our parish assembling next Saturday is to celebrate all those many forms of mutual service that have graced our parish since it was established fifty years ago this year.
Yet, even more fundamental than the service we render each other is the service that God renders us. God sent his Son not to be served but to serve and to give his life for us. God was revealed as our Servant in the person of his Son. Jesus went away from the demands of others to open himself to the service of God, to be renewed and strengthened by God's presence. If Jesus needed to be alone before God and to be served by God's presence, how much more is that true of ourselves, we who are weak and prone to sin. We need to be before God, to come before him in our poverty and to be renewed by God's presence.
If we can learn to be with God in stillness, then our doing is more likely to be what God wants. After spending time alone with God, Jesus did not go straight back to Capernaum, as Simon and the others wanted. He went on to other towns, because he knew this was what God wanted. It is not easy to acquire this habit of being alone with God in quietness and stillness, because so much of our culture today tells us that this is a waste of time, that we should be doing this, that or the other. We pray that the example of Jesus in the gospel this morning would inspire us to be with God, regardless of the demands made on us by life.
The story of Job is a famous one: Job has made it big - happy home, good material resources, and he's a regular religious practiser. The Lord brags to Satan about him - what a fine and virtuous man Job is- and Satan says that Job's prayers might lessen if his bank account went down. So the Lord lets Satan at it (reluctantly), and Job doesn't know what hit him. Friends of his come along, talking religiously, but it doesn't hit home with Job. He speaks about the misery and emptiness of life.
We're far removed from Job in time, but not removed in experience. We would have to be hermits to avoid seeing the pain and misery into which human life is plunged. We see the marriages of friends heading for the rocks, neighbours having nervous breakdowns, teenagers at odds with their parents, destruction and violence in our cities. At times it seems that the world in which we live depends on immorality, injustice, exploitation, and hypocrisy for its systems to operate. So many live in fear - fear of going out of their flats, or fear caused by financial trouble, or fear of a neighbour's tongue; others feel enslaved by drudgery and sameness. And as little meaning as life has, death has less. We can repeat, maybe with less polish, most of the sentiments that Job speaks in the first reading.
What does the Christian have to say to Job? What does Christianity have to say to Job's sisters and brothers who populate the world? Is there some platitude which will silence their cries? Some theological insight which will take away the pain they find in living?
Maybe in this situation it is not the task of Christians to speak, but to listen. The cry of emptiness, loneliness, despair, and pain may not be the most profound insight into life, but the cry is real, and honest, and strong. In a way, that cry is part of the Christian message; we even find it in the Saviour "5 mouth on Good Friday. That cry today is part of the Word spoken now, and it demands response.
What is the Christian response to a person in pain? To some extent, we can see that response at work in the Gospel passage: the sick are brought to Jesus, and he heals them. He does not enter debates on the meaning of suffering - he stretches out his hand and heals.
Our first reaction is to think that here we cannot be the followers of Christ. But that is only true if we take the action of Christ in a narrow sense. We cannot remove all the loneliness and fear; we cannot make a fever go away with a simple action, as Christ could. But we can respond, and we can help to ease the suffering. We can let Christ himself act in us to fill the loneliness, care for the sick, to be with the fearful and the heartbroken.
Our religion cannot afford to be other-worldly, even though much of our faith and hope will only be fulfilled in the world to come. Our God felt that he could not be other-worldly. He felt the need to experience it all, to walk among broken humanity, to listen, to share the pain. And when he was touched by the things he heard and saw, when he had listened closely to the cries of the sisters and brothers of Job, when he saw the sadness that can be in human life, and saw it through human eyes, then he responded. Then we saw that Jesus, too, had things to share with us - forgiveness, concern, a reason for hope, and a reason for joy. Most of all, when he had shared the most bitter experience of all, weakness, the cross, the tomb - when there was nothing left to share - he showed us that he wants to share a life SO full, so joyful, so filled with meaning, that it might make even Job smile, despite his troubles.
Today the Scripture challenges us to listen and to share. We are to follow Jesus on the path which winds through the hunger, and the loneliness, and the tragedies. We too are to reach out and touch the worried, and the weak, and the bored - to let the Lord touch those situations through our hands and to give his time on our clock.
Then he calls us to himself - after we have listened. And after we have brought to him the cries and the fears and the needs of broken humanity, we must thank him; for he has let us be his eyes, his smile, his ears, and his hands, still mightily at work in the world.
The first reading offers an entree to the homily if one wishes to speak on the boredom of life. Job presents a graphic picture of man waiting for something better to turn up. The one who is always waiting for the next night or day has no interest in events as they are. He is self-centred, having his whole reward in his wages. The inner tension of his life is shown when, in contradiction to his impatient waiting, he complains that life is too short. There is little enjoyment for one who is not interested in others. The folk in the Gospel are different. Peter's companions have a care for the mother-in-law who is burdened with sickness; she has an interest that her benefactor gets a meal; the crowd come to the door to look for this mighty healer and at night find him, whereas in the morning he is out in a lonely place; Jesus himself has time for his Father and for the demanding crowds. We are given meaning and interest in life through our communion with God and with the needy around us.
Or one could take up Jesus' balance in approach to the people. He is not swept off his feet by their demands on him, although their adulation is flattering. He does not use their enthusiasm to build up his popularity or allow it to divert his attention from his Father. He does not permit the demons to speak out his secret identity and so provoke a wave of messianic ferment which could have won him many followers of a warlike character. Rather he reaches out to his Father in prayer and to others through their deepest needs for teaching and healing. In our own lives there are many attractions that are good and can appear to be so important that all else pales in comparison - even the need to speak to the Father in prayer. Jesus' example challenges us to keep a balance and to be careful not to lose the one thing necessary among the many necessities of life.
Paul's letter opens another possibility for the preacher. So many people look to God for a reward, by living a Christian life to earn a place in heaven, or in its cruder manifestations by making devotions to earn some favour from the Lord. Paul is so insistent that his arduous missionary life does not justify him looking for a reward. The message of the Gospel of God's love freely given to all mankind carries its imperative that it be made known far and wide. The real reward is to be a beneficiary of God's love and to be able to share its joy with others. Paul is the unprofitable servant who has great job satisfaction. One could link his enthusiasm and joy with the boredom of the first reading.
The story of Job is a famous one: Job has made it big - happy home, good material resources, and he's a regular religious practiser. The Lord brags to Satan about him - what a fine and virtuous man Job is - and Satan says that Job's prayers might lessen if his bank account went down. So the Lord lets Satan at it (reluctantly), and Job doesn't know what hit him. Friends of his come along, talking religiously, but it doesn't hit home with Job. He speaks about the misery and emptiness of life.
We're far removed from Job in time, but not removed in experience. We would have to be hermits to avoid seeing the pain and misery into which human life is plunged. We see the marriages of friends heading for the rocks, neighbours having nervous breakdowns, teenagers at odds with their parents, destruction and violence in our cities. At times it seems that the world in which we live depends on immorality, injustice, exploitation, and hypocrisy for its systems to operate. So many live in fear - fear of going out of their flats, or fear caused by financial trouble, or fear of a neighbour's tongue; others feel enslaved by drudgery and sameness. And as little meaning as life has, death has less. We can repeat, maybe with less polish, most of the sentiments that Job speaks in the first reading.
What does the Christian have to say to Job? What does Christianity have to say to Job's brothers and sisters who populate the world? Is there some platitude which will silence their cries? Some theological insight which will take away the pain they find in living?
Maybe in this situation it is not the task of Christians to speak, but to listen. The cry of emptiness, loneliness, despair, and pain may not be the most profound insight into life, but the cry is real, and honest, and strong. In a way, that cry is part of the Christian message; we even find it in the Saviour "5 mouth on Good Friday. That cry today is part of the Word spoken now, and it demands response.
What is the Christian response to a person in pain? To some extent, we can see that response at work in the Gospel passage: the sick are brought to Jesus, and he heals them. He does not enter debates on the meaning of suffering - he stretches out his hand and heals.
Our first reaction is to think that here we cannot be the followers of Christ. But that is only true if we take the action of Christ in a narrow sense. We cannot remove all the loneliness and fear; we cannot make a fever go away with a simple action, as Christ could. But we can respond, and we can help to ease the suffering. We can let Christ himself act in us to fill the loneliness, care for the sick, to be with the fearful and the heartbroken.
Our religion cannot afford to be other-worldly, even though much of our faith and hope will only be fulfilled in the world to come. Our God felt that he could not be other-worldly. He felt the need to experience it all, to walk among broken humanity, to listen, to share the pain. And when he was touched by the things he heard and saw, when he had listened closely to the cries of the brothers and sisters of Job, when he saw the sadness that can be in human life, and saw it through human eyes, then he responded. Then we saw that Jesus, too, had things to share with us - forgiveness, concern, a reason for hope, and a reason for joy. Most of all, when he had shared the most bitter experience of all, weakness, the cross, the tomb - when there was nothing left to share - he showed us that he wants to share a life SO full, so joyful, so filled with meaning, that it might make even Job smile, despite his troubles.
Today the Scripture challenges us to listen and to share. We are to follow Jesus on the path which winds through the hunger, and the loneliness, and the tragedies. We too are to reach out and touch the worried, and the weak, and the bored - to let the Lord touch those situations through our hands and to give his time on our clock.
Then he calls us to himself - after we have listened. And after we have brought to him the cries and the fears and the needs of broken humanity, we must thank him; for he has let us be his eyes, his smile, his ears, and his hands, still mightily at work in the world.
Eileen is a few months short of her third birthday. Most of her short life on this planet has been spent in hospital. She was born with a serious congenital defect. In fact, had she arrived a mere twelve months earlier she would probably not have survived. Luckily for her, medical technology had just made a breakthrough, which enabled the surgeons to operate on her. So far, she has undergone fifteen major operations, more than most people undergo in a lifetime. And in all likelihood, she has more ahead of her. It is a strange way to pass one's infancy, virtually on a surgeon's table. She has seen little of this world outside the operating room and the intensive care ward. Yet between operations, she is a bright, cheerful little thing, full of energy and chatter for her nurses. Her mother has been through purgatory for over two years, spending days at her bedside, in spite of having two other small children to mind. It does not make it any easier that the young family are in a foreign country and have to cope ith a new language and an unfamiliar system. They have good cause to complain, life has treated them so unfairly. Yet far from being angry at what they might have considered an uncaring God, they are immensely grateful for Eileen's survival. They believe - notwithstanding the unquestioned skill of the surgeons - that Eileen's life is an answer to prayer. And they might well be right. Ever since her complicated birth, she has been prayed for by their little expatriate community at their Sunday Mass. There, she has become something of a mascot for a group only slightly older than herself. Each Sunday morning recent bulletins are passed around giving details on her weight, how she is being fed, intravenously or otherwise, how long she was allowed play in the hospital nursery. It goes without saying, she has carved her own special niche in the prayer of the faithful. Many have gone to see her in hospital,. giving her mother a much-needed break.
Nothing more threatens our confidence in a caring God than the sight of a suffering child. The arbitrariness with which sickness chooses its victims points the finger of suspicion at God. But when it numbers a child among them, it stretches our faith to the limit. How could God permit so innocent a creature to suffer so? It is a mystery which does not easily yield its secret to us. We use thought-patterns that often do little credit to our Creator. To describe a fellow-human as "handicapped" because his physical or mental endowments do not conform to our narrow standard scarcely does justice to God the Father who made us all in his own image. There are no faulty creations, no nodding Creator. An earlier Irish spirituality had a deeper insight when it spoke of such a person as duine le Dia (one of God's people). The sick are God's special gentry. Their suffering is crucial to his plan of salvation. God is a caring God, and he gives the sick priority. The gospel leaves us in no doubt about that. "He cured many ho were suffering from disease of one kind or another." Like Eileen's parents, we should bring our sick to him, "crowding round his door." By curing our sick, or at least by helping us to accept their sickness, he will cast out all those devils of doubt and disbelief that possess us.
Over the past several years here in Ireland, we have witnessed the work done by the Friends of Chernobyl. The idea is to bring children from there who are effected by the nuclear fall-out, keep them in Ireland for a certain length of time and, hopefully with proper care, give them a chance to survive. The secret of the project is to surround the children with love iii every form. Love in a home, a hospital or a care centre. Love through adults, doctors, teachers and other children. Love through good, nourishing and healthy food. Love through fresh clean air and open countryside. The greatest healer of all, of course, is the people who deal with them. Today's gospel can still happen if we make ourselves available to Jesus, so that he can continue his work through us.
The first thing we notice in today's gospel is that Peter, who became the first Pope, was married. There seemed to be a great family spirit among Jesus' followers. Peter and Andrew, James and John, all seemed to be concerned about Peter's mother-in-law. They brought Jesus in to where she was. He took her by the hand, and she got up, completely cured. It is interesting to note that she set to work straightaway, so maybe the boys" concern for her was not altogether altruistic!
The way Jesus healed people continues to amaze me. Some of them touched the hem of his garment, some just called out to him, some just asked him to use the authority, which they knew he possessed. Surely this was some sort of inspirational surge of the Spirit that prompted such faith, rather than any reasoned out, logical conclusion. I often think that the power of their prayer came Out of the depths of their total helplessness. The two ingredients for the miracle are: a) there is nothing I can do; b) he can do it if I ask him, Still inspirational, but not necessarily profound.
Jesus slipped off early in the morning, to be on his own to pray. How often do we hear that in the gospel? He needed time with his Father. He never said anything unless the Father told him. Before choosing his apostles, before facing Calvary, etc., he spent the night in prayer. The apostles told him that everybody was looking for him, which was true. There certainly was a great deal of work to be done. That work, however, must take second place to the time he gave to his Father. Anyone of us can become so busy with the work of the Lord that we find we have little time for the Lord of the work.
Response: Every time I write the word "Response" in these reflections, I do so with one thought in mind. My response must bring me right into the middle of the gospel. The gospel must come alive, like a living drama, and I am one of the participants. Louis Evely wrote a book on incidents in the gospel some years ago, and, as it was before political correctness and inclusive language was in vogue, he called it "That man is you." A more correct title, of course, would have been "That person is you." Unless you enter into the gospel, and become part of it, you will not be touched by it.
There is an enormous amount of disease, famine, evil, injustice and death-inflicting situations in today's world. Thinking of the Jesus in today's gospel in any one of our areas of concentrated population today, he certainly would be busy indeed. That was evident in the lives of Blessed Damien the Leper, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and many such charismatic and saintly souls of our own day. This poses a serious and real problem for all of us who claim to be Christian. Where Christ is present, directly or in the person of a Christian, there should always be signs of healing, of correcting of injustice, and of real goodness. I am not thinking of miraculous signs and wonders. I am thinking of the many little miracles that are effected by love. "By this shall all people know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Prayer is about keeping in touch with the source of my power. Without prayer, I am like a rudderless boat on a stormy ocean. I am adrift without anchor or life jacket. I cannot come to the asistance of anyone else if I myself am in mortal danger. A tape- recorder with batteries will play, but it will not continue to play. If it is plugged into a socket, it is drawing power from outside of itself, and it will continue to play. Life is fragile; handle with prayer.
Peace on earth to those of goodwill. No matter what gospel I read, I always find myself confronted with this statement. If there is not goodwill on my side, then the whole thing passes me by, and nothing happens. From my own personal experience of life, in my own life, and in the lives of those I know, I can easily concede evidence of that goodwill. There are exceptions, of course, as there always will be. Even in my own life, I often encounter situations where there is grave doubt about the presence of goodwill. The Lord of miracles is still there, but the limitations of what he can do for me, and through me, are the ones that I myself set. For example, this day, I could take today's gospel with me for reflection and for prayer and, by this evening, it could have become a whole new experience within me.
Prayer is difficult to define, because it is such a personal thing. And yet, I could easily mistake the personal dimension. It is personal from the position of God. I can go through all the antics and emotions. I can read a prayer book from cover to cover. I can follow the Mass leaflet, and have my songbook. Throughout all of that, however, my mind could be all over the place, and there is not one word coming from my heart.
Jesus had a mission, and he knew why he came. It is great to have a direction in life, to have a programme within which I can live, and make the most of the gift I have. Everybody dies, but not everybody lives. Some people just settle for existing. Jesus said that he came that we should have life and have it more abundantly. I have come across a few people, and it is obvious to me why they are on this earth. Everything about them has a purpose. They are life-giving people, and those around them are enriched by their presence. Instead of worrying about dying, they are too busy living. The greatest tragedy is to come to the end of life, and discover that I haven't really lived life at all.
The old tramp heard that the King of Kings was coming to a certain village. He had no idea who that might be, but with a name like that he must be a powerful and a rich man. The tramp decided to go along to the village, in the hope that he might meet him, and, get an opportunity to try to get some money from him. When he arrived in the village, he discovered quite a long line of people waiting to be introduced to the King of Kings. He joined the line. His mind was racing with how best to approach him.
What would he ask for? Should he go for something big, or for several smaller items? He was still deep in thought when he found himself standing in front of the King of Kings. Before he got a word out of his mouth, the King of Kings asked him, "Well, my good man, what do you have to give me today?" The tramp was struck dumb. He just couldn't believe it. He threw out his hands in a hopeless gesture, and said, "me? I don't have anything to give you." "Oh, but you must have," said the King of Kings, "Everybody has something to give." The tramp continued to protest, but the King of Kings insisted that, of course, he surely had something to give. Eventually, in total frustration, and even at the risk of being offensive, he pulled an old rag from his pocket, opened it up, and showed that it contained a few grains of wheat he had collected, to be chewing as he went along the road. With a sense of embarrassment, and feeling that he was being insulting, he took two of the grains of wheat, and gave them to the King of ings. The King took the grains, said "Thank you much," turned around and walked away. The tramp stood there totally perplexed and angry. He felt he had been made look like a real fool. He stormed out the door and headed off down the road, muttering to himself. When he had gone come distance, he -· pulled out the old rag to get some grains of wheat to chew. Just as he went to pick up a few, he was rooted to the spot. There in the middle of all the grains of wheat were two grains of gold. He thumped himself on the forehead, in total frustration, as he groaned, "you fool! You fool! Why didn't you give them all away?'
Those things in life that we hold on to, and refuse to let go of, when we die, they die too.
Leviticus 13:1ff
Ps 32:1ff
1 Corinthians 10:31ff
Mark 1:40-45
Leprosy
A Word of Thanks
Lepers and Outcasts
Untouchables
If you just want, you can!
Lev 13:1-2,44-46. Under the law of Moses, lepers had to live apart from the community. Only if a priest pronounced a leper cured of the disease could he or she come back into normal life.
1 Cor 10:31-11:1. This is Paul's great principle: "do all to the glory of God." And instead of offending people, we should aim to please them if we can.
Mk 1:40-45. Jesus cures a leper by the healing touch of his hand. Then he wants the cure officially recognised by the priests, so the man can again join in the life of his local community.
Theme: Thank God, leprosy is today well on its way to eradication. Yet our world has another kind of leper - those whom society has marginalised. Following Christ, we may have power to help and heal.
The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a leprous disease on the skin of his body, he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. he is leprous, he is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him unclean; the disease is on his head.
The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, "Unclean, unclean." He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Happy are those to whom the Lord
imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,"
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.
After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.
Intercessions
(Bidding prayers)
- for those who have been in one way or another marginalised, that Christians may welcome them back into a warm sense of community.
- that we may, like Christ, reach out to touch and help the "lepers" and neglected ones in our societies.
- that our God may cleanse all of us of the disease of discrimination.
- for priests who minister the sacrament of reconciliation, that led by the Holy Spirit they may show the compassion of Jesus to their penitents and those who come for guidance.
Thoughts for 6th Sunday, B
With two of the three readings today touching on the subject of leprosy, it is obvious that the Church wants to direct our attention to something deeper than a purely physical disease. We find confirmation of this in the Responsorial Psalm, which tells of the inner joy which comes to those who candidly confess their sins before God, and experience his forgiveness. Sin, then, we might say is a kind of leprosy of the soul. The only way the ancient world used to combat physical leprosy was to isolate the afflicted ones, make them live outside the camp or town, and have them cry aloud, "Unclean, unclean!" by way of warning to anyone who would approach them. If anybody were even to touch a leper, that person also would be regarded as unclean, and would be excluded from the community.
Christians are members of a community as well, the community of the Church, the visible presence of God's Holy Spirit which bonds together all believers in Jesus Christ. A sin committed by a member of this spiritual community is never a purely private affair, but a rejection, in varying degree, of this Holy Spirit as well as the standards which the members have pledged to uphold. We might go so far as to say that sin is a kind of idolatry, an attempt to put self at the centre of one's world, to satisfy one's own urgings and cravings, without due regard for God who is love, without caring for the consequences to oneself or to others. A truly critical stage is reached when one utterly rejects the promptings of Christ's Holy Spirit; and this can come about through a definite decision made in a single moment, or more often as a result of a gradual moral and spiritual decline. Having lapsed so far, one has reached the stage of rejection of God, in other words the stage of mortal sin, and this by one's own deliberae choice.
One of the most disturbing sayings of Christ in the gospels was his reference to Judas when he prayed for the Apostles at the Last Supper: "Not one of them is lost, except the one who chose to be lost" (Jn 17:12). As John Donne, the English 17th century poet wrote, "I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am mine own executioner" (Devotions). Hardly ever can it be said that a leper is responsible for his disease, but the collapse of all that inner striving, for what is pure and holy and sanctifying and loving, is the sinner's own choice. And no less than leprosy, its effect is to isolate that individual from the community. Not only has he become unloving, but he becomes utterly incapable of responding to love, whether from others or from God. "I am he in whom there is no love," the devil once said to St Catherine of Genoa.
There was an air of humility and resignation also in the leper's request to Jesus, "If you want to, you can cure me." And his appeal was met with compassion by Jesus, who, as St Mark tells us, was moved with pity. He reacted further, to the extent of stretching out his hand and touching the leper, so, strictly speaking according to the law, making himself unclean. This may well be what Mark had in mind, when he tells us that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. But this compassion for suffering humanity resulted in more and more people coming to him, and even today the outstretched arms on the cross of God's only Son are a never-ending invitation to the sinner to seek refuge within them also. No longer was the leper, when cured, forced to live apart. After showing himself to the priest he was accepted once more as a member of the community. Likewise, the sinner is reunited to God by means of reconciliation with the community, which is the Churc, nd which Christ has made the visible source on earth of his forgiveness.
What in the past was called penance or confession, is now referred to as the sacrament of reconciliation, and just as mortal sin is not an isolated act, but rather the culmination of a whole series of minor lapses, so reconciliation is a gradual return to God over a period of time, with the reception of the sacrament as the high point, a time to celebrate our joy and gratitude in being at one with God again. This conversion, this newly-found commitment to the Lord is a thing which has to be constantly renewed. So the enduring need for the sacrament of reconciliation, if we want to love God with our whole strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. This clearly is the task Christ has set each of us when he said, "This do, and you will live" (Lk 10:2).
This story may be an early version of the story of the ten lepers. However the point is quite different. In this version the leper, far from not thanking Jesus, goes about the land and expresses his gratitude to all who would listen. The passage is made even more opaque by Mark's literary device of the "Messianic Secret" -he builds his gospel around the structure that Jesus was trying to keep who he was a secret, which doesn't seem to be any more than a narrative form. Surely, however, Jesus did not want to be known as the kind of military messiah that so many people in his time wanted and expected.
Story: Once a senior in high school helped a freshman study for a test. Can you imagine anything more weird? A senior wasting time on a freshman? But the help worked and the freshman earned an A, a badly needed A, in the test. "Now don't tell anyone, please," the senior begged, "They'll think I'm like totally weird for helping a punk like you and then every punk in school will want me to help them." Well, the freshman shot off his big mouth, like freshman always do. The other seniors laughed at the one who had helped him, but secretly thought it was kind of cool. And sure enough mobs of freshmen descended on our poor hero demanding help. "Well," she said, "I guess I have myself to blame. I knew this would happen. Now I have to help tons of them. They ought to put be on the faculty payroll. To tell the truth, however, she liked to help."
The predicament of the leper in the time of Jesus was truly pathetic. Such a person was debarred from all social life, both religious and commercial. We might take up their standing and try to explain it with examples from one's local surroundings. In modern cultures it is difficult to find such an all-embracing boycott.
Jesus crosses over all these boundaries to cure the leper. But before Jesus actually felt sorry for him, the leper had the courage to break the Law of the Old Testament and approach Jesus. The outcast had heard of him and had such a high opinion of him that he risked a rebuke from this holy man in ignoring the prohibitions of tradition. Foremost is the will of Jesus. If he wants to heal then the limits of the ancient custom can be superseded and all can be put right. The importance of the person of Jesus is highlighted by Mark's phrase that compassion moves Jesus not only to respond to the outcast in word, but also to reach out and touch him. As God-made-man Jesus shows us God's attitude to human disability. He wishes to reach us in our weakness and restore us to fullness of life.
But it is not enough that the outcast is restored to health. Without the permission of the priest he could not take up his place in society and would remain an outcast. Jesus wishes to reestablish communion in a broken human family. Leprosy drove people away from others through the fear of the healthy that they would contract the dread disease Jesus wishes to remove these barriers between human beings and set up a communion that is free and harmonious. We might apply this to his own community by instancing types of bias and prejudice that exist locally and invite people to ask the Lord to heal the biases and fears that keep them at a distance from certain people. Perhaps it might be a way of speaking about continuing reconciliation that is necessary as we go through life and receive various types of hurts, which can cause us to withdraw from others as the leper did. It requires the courage of the leper to bring these hurts and fears to the Lord for healing.
This involves the will to be healed. Sometimes we have a certain contentment in being the underdog and having something to complain about against another and we allow ourselves to get hard. The repetition of the word "want" in the first few verses of the Gospel shows us the importance of wanting to be healed and being ready to take the risk involved in approaching the Lord.
A different topic could be built on the second reading. Paul's emphasis on thought for the other's good is a reminder that none of us can ignore. He does not pander to the desires of others, but in a generous spirit thinks of how his actions might affect them. He wants to imitate the Lord, who loved his brethren even unto death. Paul wants to love them in their weakness and to work for their advantage. This type of attitude is unto the glory of God in ordinary things, such as eating and drinking. It resembles the practical advice given by Matthew in 18:10 that no one can ignore anyone else, even the least.
He was performing street theatre on a bridge over the Seine in Paris when I spotted him. He was a sight to behold. He was barefoot and wore a long, flowing saffron robe. He carried a staff from which dangled an assortment of objects with nothing in common except the vividness of their colours. In his other hand he held a large bunch of wild flowers. Around his neck hung a carved calf's head. Even without all this exotic gear, he was a striking figure, with his long black hair and thick bushy eyebrows. He entertained the crowd, gesticulating grandly and disclaiming boldly in a language few of them could understand. He was strangely reminiscent of John the Baptist. We were old friends and at a lull in the performance I invited him to join me at one of the outdoor cafes nearby. He laid down his belongings on the pavement while I ordered for both of us. A few minutes later, the waiter returned and informed us that the patron requested us to leave. I was dumbfounded. I immediately confronted the patron, pointing ot that I was a Catholic priest and that my companion was one of Ireland's most prestigious artists. I added for good measure that that year was the bicentenary of the French Revolution when everybody was celebrating Liberté, Egalite, Fraternité. I was rewarded for my pains by being promptly told to "Clear off!" - right in the centre of Paris in 1989!
The world has a deep imbedded passion for categorising people. There is-almost no country on earth without its minority. Race, religion, colour, language and a myriad of other traits are used as a basis for discrimination. It could be as little as the clothes you wear as was the case of my companion that day. All societies have their "untouchables." We proclaim loftily in our constitutions that "we cherish all the children of the nation equally." The reality is a different story. Despite its much vaunted liberalism, xenophobia is thriving in the Western world. There is deep-seated resentment of the Turks in Germany, the North Africans in France, the Muslims in Britain and the Puerto Ricans in New York. There is an alarming growth in electoral support for extreme right political parties whose avowed aim is to rid their countries of these "impure" elements. Protesters of every colour, from the anti-nukes to "crazy lefties," are subject to close police surveillance. The disease of leprosy is thankfully now well n the way towards complete eradication. Moral leprosy continues to thrive. We fill our pavements with a tattered mass of misfits, rejects and outcasts, those society has ostracised and disclaims responsibility for. We lump them together as the "marginalised."
The leper Christ met was denied association with the rest of society. He was condemned to living apart, ringing his bell and shouting "Unclean! Unclean!" at the approach of a fellow human.
Christ, flaunting all the laws and conventions of his society, stretched out his hand and touched him. His touch was contagious. The leper was cured. Christ's example invites us to do the same. We must reach out and touch the "untouchables." Only we can cure them. Only we can lift their contagion, because it was us who made them contagious.
In today's gospel, we have Jesus, healing a leper. It is an extraordinary prayer of simple faith and, in healing him, Jesus touched him, which was an extraordinary expression of love, and something that, incidentally, was totally against the law.
I was one of 85,000 people who gathered in a football stadium in Brussels, to celebrate the centenary of Blessed Damien the, leper priest. He had lived for sixteen years in a remote corner of one of the remotest islands in the Pacific. He worked with lepers and, like Jesus in today's gospel, word spread about him far and near. He was written about in newspapers from England to Australia. The day of our gathering was a national holiday in Belgium. The king and queen attended. The whole country was en fete. And all for one man who spent sixteen years working at the back of beyond, but working in Jesus' name, and doing his work.
I couldn't helping remembering at that time that it coincided - with the centenary of the birth of Adolf Hitler; and I didn't hear of any celebrations.
The man had leprosy. What was he to do? In this case, he went straight to Jesus, with a simple and uncomplicated prayer. "Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean." No long speeches, no promises about a reformed lifestyle, no grovelling or protestations of unworthiness. It was one of those moments of grace when the truth came to the fore. The man was powerless, and he saw that Jesus had all power. That was the basis for the miracle, as it is for all miracles.
Jesus touched him. It's almost impossible for us to appreciate what that meant. Lepers were outcasts and untouchable. To touch a leper made the other person unclean and untouchable as well. It would be unthinkable for a religious Jew to come next or near a leper, much less touch one. The law was totally devoid of love when it came to the obligations of cleanliness imposed by that law. Jesus compared the religious leaders to a cup that is clean on the outside, and filthy on the inside; to white tombstones, white and clean on the outside, and full of rotting bones within. There is no doubt that Jesus saw something totally different from everyone else when he looked at the leper.
It was not possible for the man to remain silent about what had happened to him. Jesus had touched him; his life had been utterly changed; his future prospects were changed completely. Obviously, his joy was so infectious that it drew the attention of all who heard him. I have no doubt that he went straight to the priest as ordered by Jesus. Everyone he met, however, went in the other direction in search of Jesus. What had happened to him had triggered off some hunger within all of them, and they ran in search of the power, the healing, and the transformation that they all longed for.
Response: The core of today's gospel is that the man met Jesus and he availed of the grace of that meeting. Over the years, many thousands had met Jesus in one way or another. The Pharisees met him, some Samaritans met him, and asked him to leave their village; both Herod and Pilate met him. Today's meeting was special, because it was a meeting between two people with totally different roles. One was the Son of God, the Saviour, the Redeemer, and the other was a poor outcast, who had nothing to offer but his human brokenness. He could not pretend, he could not assume any power that he did not possess. He was in a totally dependent situation. In other words, he stood before the Lord as we all must do, and let him be God.
Pride in such a situation would be an abomination. Even when he was healed, he wasn't running around boasting about that fact, as if he himself has effected the miracle. Pride is a dangerous form of insanity, because it causes us to live in a world of unreality, when we fail to see things as they really are. Just imagine what might happen to all of us here now if we got even the slightest glimpse of the comparison between God and ourselves. We would probably fall on our faces, and be ashamed to raise our heads.
There were many people who wanted to meet Jesus. There could have been as many reasons as there were people, as to why they wanted to meet him. I imagine, though, that most of them wanted to meet him because of something that was missing from their lives. Of course, there were the curious, and the thrill-seekers. There were the religious leaders watching every movement, and listening to every word, awaiting an opportunity to entrap him. However, I still believe that most of them came to him because they were hurting in one way or another. They hungered for truth, for direction in their lives, for someone who spoke of love, of hope, and of the value of the individual. "This man has something that I don't have. He has something that I want. He has something that I need." I know that because I am one of those people.
Practical "Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean." What a simple prayer! Jesus' answer was instant "Of course I want to." That is true right here, right now. "Lord, I know you want to heal me, to forgive me, to free me. I ask you to do that right now." Prayer is really easy if I can keep it simple. The facts are clear, and the facts are friendly, because they don't keep changing. I am who I am, and Jesus is who he is. When I meet him and know my place before him, miracles can be expected. If I were to pause for a few minutes right now, what would your prayer be?
There is a beautiful song by Marilla Ness called "He Touched Me." It has a haunting melody, and the words are powerful and moving. "He touched me and oh, the joy that fills my soul; something happened: now I know: he touched me, and made me whole."
The evidence of healing in the life of this leper drew enormous attention from everyone he met. That, I believe, is the role of the Christian. "He that is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name." The greatest witness of the recovering alcoholic is to walk sober down the main street of his hometown. Christians preach the gospel by the way they live their lives. Unfortunately, that has been a source of great scandal down the years. Christians have committed many of our most recent atrocities, which included genocide and ethnic cleansing. The only genuine response that I can have is to look within my own heart and to examine my own life. "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." If I'm not part of the solution, I continue to be part of the problem.
A man was wondering what hell and heaven might be like. One night he had a dream, in which he was brought off to visit hell and heaven. Hell consisted of a large room, with a long table down the centre, and the table was laden with every kind of food. The people sitting around the table, however, were totally emaciated and malnourished, as each had six-foot long chopsticks, and they were unable to get the food up to their mouths. Next door was heaven, which was also a large room, with a long table down the centre, and, once again, the table was laden with all kinds of food. In this case, also, the people had six-foot long chopsticks. However, they were all happy, fulfilled, and contented, as each picked up some food, and fed the person sitting opposite.
In today's gospel, Jesus reaches out to touch the leper. The gratitude and joy of the leper was his way of touching Jesus. Of course, Jesus wanted to heal him.
Isaiah 43:18ff
Ps 41:1ff
2 Corinthians 1:17-22
Mark 2:1-12
Pondering the Miracles
Power to See
No Outcasts
Determined to bring him
A Loving God
Good Old Days
Healing
Is 43:18-25. God is going to give his people a fresh demonstration of his love and care. Their past sins will be forgiven and a better future opened up.
2 Cor 1:18-22. Paul declares himself to be a reliable man of his word, imitating the faithful Christ, who is not "Yes and No;" for in him it is always "Yes."
Mk 2:1-12. Jesus claims to have the personal authority to forgive sins, and offers proof of it by curing a paralysed man.
Theme: If we bury ourselves in nostalgia we may betray our Christian calling. Our mission is not towards the past; it is to plough a new furrow, to make new pathways and to tame the wilderness. We must be future-orientated, looking forward to the Promised Land.
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities. I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
Happy are those who consider the poor;
the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble.
The Lord protects them and keeps them alive;
they are called happy in the land.
You do not give them up to the will of their enemies.
The Lord sustains them on their sickbed;
in their illness you heal all their infirmities.
As for me, I said, "O Lord, be gracious to me;
heal me, for I have sinned against you."
But you have upheld me because of my integrity,
and set me in your presence forever.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Amen and Amen.
Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards, ready to say "Yes, yes" and "No, no" at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been "Yes and No." 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not "Yes and No;" but in him it is always "Yes." 20 For in him every one of God's promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we say the "Amen," to the glory of God. 21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, 22 by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.
When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, "Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, "Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"-he said to the paralytic- "I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
Intercessions
- for those who are depressed by their moral weakness, that they may ut their trust in the Lord, and live just one day at a time.
- that we may spend our lives looking forward with hope rather than looking back with useless regret.
- for scientists, inventors, researchers, and all who work at pioneering for the future, that they may have both wisdom and courage.
- that our God may guide us all, as we journey towards the Promised Land.
Thoughts for 7th Sunday, B
Scripture scholars today generally repudiate the conviction of scholars from a generation or two that Jesus did not work any miracles save the conversion of human hearts. The tradition that Jesus did signs and wonders is just too important and too powerful to be casually dismissed. They leave open the question of the precise nature of the miracles which has so baffled rationalists and believers who want to keep the rationalists happy. Jesus did signs and wonders to show that the kingdom of God was at hand, about that there can be no debate. The issue of how he did them is less important than that he did them and why he did them. Jesus did miracles to heal human bodies and to show, as in today's Gospel, that he came to heal human spiritual hunger too. In this richly detailed story we see that, like the senior in last week's story Jesus like helping others.
Story: Once upon a time there was a young doctor in a hospital who had great instincts about what was wrong with people, probably because she liked them so much and listened carefully to what they said. She was so kind and pleasant and cheerful that all the patients love her, but some of her colleagues and some of the nurses, thought she was a little creepy. Not exactly a Patch Adams perhaps, but still someone who spent to much time being nice. So one night when she was on call, she went into the room of a man who was in for observation because he had a fever and a diffuse pain. He refused to complain no matter how bad the pain was (he was Irish and that's the way they generally try to react to pain!). She did her usual pleasant act and noticed that it did not have much effect. He man was pale and miserable, she could tell that. She touched his head. Fever was higher. She jabbed at his gut. He shouted in agony. She called for a surgeon. Hidden bowl obstruction, she said. Take it out. They did, and the man recvered and went home happy. Which is easier, she said, to smile at people or to catch their symptoms because they trust you.
Probably a good proportion of the people in this church are wearing glasses. We need them to see properly. If I misplace my glasses in the house I often have trouble finding them. I sometimes need glasses to find my glasses, which is why I have a spare pair in a drawer in the house. Apart from difficulties with our physical sight, there are other ways we can have difficulty in seeing. When we experience life as a trial and a struggle we can become focused on the negative and we can fail to see what is good or promising in the situation. We pick up easily one part of the reality and fail to see another part.
The first reading this morning was addressed to the people of Israel when they were in exile in Babylon. This was a tragic hour in this people's history. They were aware of all they had lost. They had been taken from their land, the city of Jerusalem was a ruin, the Temple of God's presence had been destroyed. Yet, the prophet Isaiah was aware that there was another reality at work in all the failure, the loss, the devastation, if only the people could see it. God was doing a new deed, creating something new out of the ruins, opening up a new avenue in the wilderness. "See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light; can you not see it?" The people had great difficulty in seeing it.
Our God a Creator God. God did not simply create in the past, but is always working creatively in our midst, doing new deeds, bringing new life out of situations that might seem unpromising. The gospel reading this morning also reveals God doing a new deed, speaking a life-giving word into a situation of paralysis and guilt. "Your sins are forgiven; pick up your stretcher and go home." God in the person of Jesus was making a new road in the wilderness of this man's life. Not everyone present saw what happened as God doing a new deed. The scribes saw what was happening as an insult to God. "He is blaspheming." Yet, there were others, the men and women of Capernaum, who saw more deeply, "We have never seen anything like this." They recognized what was happening as God's new deed, and they praised God for it.
The God in whom we believe is a living God who never ceases to do a new need. God is always at work through his Son in a life-giving way in our lives, be it our personal lives or our community lives. Even when the painful realities of failure, loss and sin press upon us, we believe that God does not cease to work in new ways, bringing life out of death. We need to pray for eyes to see the new deed that God is doing especially when it is not apparent or obvious.
Yet, we are called to be more than just passive observers of what God is doing. God calls us to work with him in doing the new deed he seeks to do. We can create openings for God to work in new ways. This is what we see happening in the gospel reading this morning. When the friends of the paralytic created an opening in the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching, they were also creating an opening for God to work through Jesus in a new way. Their friendship of the paralytic created a space for God to work in a way which left some people saying, "We have never seen anything like this." These four friends knew that Jesus was more interested in people than in buildings. Their passionate friendship enabled the paralytic to experience the Lord's life-giving presence.
We need to befriend each other in similar ways if the Lord's new deed is to get done. In all kinds of ways our working together in love can create openings for the Creator God to work. In the second reading St. Paul reminds us that we carry the Spirit in our hearts. The actions of the friends in the gospel reading show the Spirit at work. When the Spirit works in similar ways among us, God's new deed gets done.
It took four people to create the opening for the Lord to work. None of them could have done that alone. No one of us on our own can open whatever roofs need opening for God's work to be done. We can only do this together. The Lord has gifted each of us in different ways through the Spirit that we carry in our hearts. We need to offer our gifts to each other, and to be open to receive the Lord's gifts in each other. Only then will the Lord be able to do the new deed that needs doing. Then in our own day, people will praise God saying, "We have never seen anything like this."
During his earthly life Jesus normally performed the duties of a pious Jew. He prayed frequently, he went up to the Temple in Jerusalem for the great festivals, he attended the synagogue on the Sabbath. But on the other hand he broke with the Jewish interpretation of the Sabbath commandments, of the laws of fasting, of the laws about washing before meals. Above all he shared meals with sinners and publicans. In complete contrast to the attitude of the Pharisees towards sinners, he laid great stress on God's love for them. "I tell you," he said to the Scribes and Pharisees, "there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner, than over ninety-nine virtuous people who have no need of repentance" (Lk 15:7).
So striking was his approach towards these religious outcasts that, from quite early on, a satirical saying that added spice to the gossip about him, became common knowledge. It branded him "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and malefactors." This behaviour of Jesus, which aroused so much anger, was not purely social concern for the downtrodden - in no sense were the tax-collectors downtrodden, but rather collaborators with the Romans in exacting the greatest possible amount of money in taxes from the people.
To understand the action of Jesus in sitting down to eat with such people, we must remember that in ancient times the sharing of a meal with others had a special significance, that of fellowship before God. At the meal the master of the house said a blessing over a whole loaf, and having broken it, shared it with all those present. And so, each person who received a portion, received also a share in the blessing spoken over it.
You will easily see the quite definite connection between this custom, as well as its interpretation, and our Eucharist which stems in large measure from it. Jesus then by taking sinners and publicans into fellowship with him, was taking them into fellowship with God. By so doing he was ignoring the reasons for their being the outcasts of society; in other words he was forgiving their sins. As it is only God who can forgive sin, Jesus in all this was asserting that he is someone who stands in the place of God; that in and through him God reaches out to those who are without hope, and brings consolation and direction to those who have lost sight of the one thing necessary - the firm belief that no matter what we have done or failed to do, God still continues to love us.
"I am he," the first reading in effect is saying, "who for my own sake blots out your transgressions, and I will not remember your sins. I will not hold them against you. I will regard them as if they had never been committed." If one is right with God, if one's conscience is at peace before him, then simply nothing can disturb the serenity which settles upon the soul of such a person. All this stems from faith, from the firm conviction that God is working in one, that he is looking for obedience to the demands of Christ and the gospel.
We see from today's gospel how Jesus put faith first, that he never set out systematically to heal all the sick, and drive out all the demons. He simply intended these isolated signs to convey some deeper religious significance. We might feel inclined to ask why did Jesus raise the issue of sin, why did he enter into an argument with the Scribes and keep the paralytic lying helplessly before him in expectation of a cure? Because, firstly, in Christ's mission the healing of souls took pride of place, and rejection of sin was a clear indication that one had accepted his gospel message. To this day, it is acceptance of this message that leads to life eternal, and indeed what does it profit a person to gain all the world can offer, and hereafter suffer the loss of that life?
Secondly, because even greater than the miracle of bodily healing is the miracle of the remission of sins, the bestowal by God of a new life of grace on the soul - a life which transcends every aspect of the natural, however desirable. Thirdly, because the signs worked by Jesus were intended to give a mental jolt to the onlookers, to make them wonder, "what is taking place here?" The Scribes, however, with their closed minds were incapable of doing this. They could only see blasphemy in the words of Jesus, and not the hand of God in what he was doing. It was left to the ordinary simple folk to be made aware of that. "We have never seen anything like this," they said, and they praised God.
A closed door of a home in First Century Palestine communicated a clear desire for privacy. However, most days all of the doors of all of the homes would be open to let in fresh air, light, sounds, and visitors. Children would shuffle in playful bands throughout the narrow streets of the town from home to home to check on any action or commotion that might catch their attention.
Reports of the doings in the village would be made to their mothers throughout the day and the daily news would be shared between the women at the well and the market. Soon the news would be passed on to the husbands. In short, it was not easy to keep a secret and on this day it was certainly no secret that Jesus was in town and that he was speaking the word, with authority, just as he had done in their synagogue a short time ago.
So, in no time a crowd had filed through the open door of the house in which Jesus spoke the word and soon the structure was filled to capacity. The next best seats were outside the door spilling into the streets.
They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they broke through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.
A careful reading of this verse paints a picture of a crowd larger than just the four carriers accompanying the paralytic. A crowd arrived among which four men, perhaps the stronger of those assembled, or perhaps close relatives of the paralytic, are observed carrying a stretcher upon which a paralyzed man lays.
Although the crowd that accompanied the paralytic may have lost some verve at the site of the crowds around the house, the four carriers are men of determination and ingenuity. The obstacle that the masses pose and perhaps the knowledge of the presence of hostile scribes are not going to be a deterrent.
They knew about rooves; for the roof of every house was flat and used as a place where one might catch an afternoon breeze and find some peace and quiet as the sun set. In fact, a ladder or staircase would have been a permanent fixture on one of the sides of the house. And so they wasted no time in ascending the stairs to the roof each clutching a corner of the stretcher. From above they could see where the roof beams were situated separating three foot wide rows of packed brushwood and clay. Enough of this material was removed to lower the stretcher through.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic: "Child, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves: "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?
The four men want a healing for their friend, they want him to be brought back into society as a functioning member. Perhaps they even wonder to themselves if the sin of their friend has caused his paralyzation. Regardless, they want him made whole again and they will not miss this opportunity to present him to Jesus.
It should be noted that Jesus sees the faith of the four carriers and not that of the paralytic. Here the faithlessness of the people of the Old Testament may be slightly restored by the collective faith of this quartet in the New Testament. The faith of the friends of the paralytic is recognized and it is instrumental in the decision of Jesus to heal.
The word: "Child, may denote the young age of the paralytic or perhaps it foreshadows his reentry back into the family of man, a society that walks and works and lives. He will not have to be dropped off at the city gate to beg through the day anymore.
Jesus tells him that his sins are forgiven, that it is okay, that God is not angry with him, that it is all right, that his paralyzation is not a result of his sin; for his sins are forgiven, that he can go home and not be afraid, that he might know the dignity of a clean soul and a clean conscience.
Yet, the scribes have an opinion about the authority of Jesus to proclaim such a thing.
Jesus immediately knew in his mind what they were thinking to themselves, so he said: "Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic: "Your sins are forgiven, or to say: "Rise pick up your mat and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth he said to the paralytic: "I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home. He rose, picked up his mat at once, and went away in the sight of everyone. They were all astounded and glorified God, saying: "We have never seen anything like this.
This scene is significant; for throughout the Gospel of Mark Jesus shies away from using miracles to prove the possession of true authority. Rather, the purpose of miracles are to heal and to reintegrate the outcast back into society. Here, however, Jesus displays his awesome power to illustrate that the Son of Man can, indeed, forgive sins.
Jesus makes it possible for this man to truly go home, to go back into a world where he feels like a contributing member of a family. Imagine the celebration that surrounded this healing. The crowd that accompanied him and the men who carried him now walk side by side with him to his home where they will continue to say: "We have never seen anything like this, as they glorify God.
Homily theme: Do we possess the same determination and focus that the four carriers had? Do we make an about face at the first sign of adversity in our approaches to Jesus, or do we understand the need to be courageous, inventive, and determined in a world that poses many obstacles?
Homily theme: Do we know people in our own lives who need to be carried to Jesus because they are in a state of paralyzation? Do we feel the responsibility as a community to lift up the needy and weak in our midst and deliver them to Jesus?
Homily theme: Do we recognize the power of the collective faith and prayers of our community? Jesus responded to the faith of the four carriers by healing their friend. Do we trust that Jesus can do the same for us as faithful, prayerful people who lift others up who need to be healed?
The scriptures teach us that God is not some remote, lonely, supreme being who lives in splendid isolation. God is a community of love Father, Son and Spirit. There was no need for God to create. His creative activity is a free gratuitous act. According to Gen. 3, when God created man and woman he created them in a state of perfection. Man walked freely in the presence of God and talked to him with confidence. There was no fear or awkwardness. As man's relationship was with God, so it was between man and his fellow man, symbolized by Adam and Eve. Then sin entered and the whole atmosphere of the scene is changed. The man hid himself from God and for the first time fear entered into the relationship: "I was afraid and I hid myself." Corresponding to the collapse of the God-man relationship is the breakdown of man's relationship with his fellow man: Adam blamed Eve for leading him astray and Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent. Fear, tension, shame, anxiety in our relationships with God and with one another are th fruits of sin.
The story didn't end with man's rejection of God, because God did not reject man. He continued to provide for him, to care for him, and to love him, Indeed God could not stop loving us for to do so would be to annihilate us. The Bible is the story of God's attempt to reveal and communicate his love for man. It is largely a story of defiance, rejection, back-sliding, broken promises on the part of man and of steadfast, abiding, merciful love on the part of God. Jesus Christ, Son of God incarnate, is the supreme expression of God's love: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (Jn. 3:16.) And Jesus described his own death in terms of love: "Greater love has no man." (Jn. 15:13.) Despite this, we continue to sin; for God cannot do violence to us, he cannot force us to love him, he cannot rape the human heart.
Christ's life and mission was to make us aware of his Father's love for us, to make us aware that we are important to God ("You are more important than many sparrows'), to make us aware that God is the purpose, the end, and the fulfilment of life, that without God we are nothing. And so Christ tried to make us conscious of sin and of our need to open our hearts to God and accept his love and forgiveness.
There are occasions in our lives when we do things that we are ashamed of: mean, petty acts that inflict hurt on ourselves and on others. We all have our hidden scars and wounds that need healing. Christ is the healing power of God in action. No sin is too great or too small for his attention, except the sin of despairing of God's mercy and love. The stories of the prodigal son, the woman taken in adultery, the public sinner who washed his feet, the paralytic in today's gospel, all witness to the healing power of God at work in Jesus. They were not greeted with righteous indignation, lengthy harangues, or condemnation, but with compassion, warmth and understanding When Jesus said, "Unless you become as little children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven," he wasn't talking about childlike innocence or purity or simplicity. He was talking about our attitude to God. That we should approach him with the trust and confidence of a child towards a father who loves; confident that we will be understood and forgven. This too is the reasoning behind the instruction to address God as "Our Father." God is not a great book-keeper in the sky to be feared. God is "Our Father."
Ironically, the more we advance technologically, the more nostalgic we become. We lapse into reminiscing about old times at the drop of a hat, or at least with every encounter with old friends. Nostalgia has proved a rich vein for TV programme makers. Each season has its own crop of revivals of old movies, like "Gone with the Wind." New serials are created each year from old classics like "The Barchester Chronicles" or "The Forsythe Saga." Even the recent past has now become part of the "Good old days." The Elvis Presley empire continues to be a multi-million dollar industry. Frank Sinatra continues to pull in the crowds on his occasional tours.
Our penchant for looking back has many explanations. For some it is an escape from the drudgery of the present, or more importantly the dreadful uncertainties of the future. Most of us hanker after a lost innocence. Memories of our childhood fill us with warmth. It was the only time in our lives when we felt completely secure. The older we become the more we tend to indulge our nostalgia. There comes a point in everyone's life when there is more to look back on than to look forward to.
Occasionally wallowing in nostalgia is a pardonable lapse. Over-romanticising the past is a dangerous deception. Recalling the good old days "when sex was dirty and the air was clean" is a gross misrepresentation of reality. Memory is highly selective. We remember the good times and bury the unpleasant. The summers of long ago were not all sunshine. Life in every age prior to ours was "nasty, brutish and short." War, disease, and poverty were endemic.
An old Russian proverb says, "Look at the past and you lose one eye." It distorts the present. We should respect time-hon oured traditions and cherish the distilled wisdom of our ancestors. Mourning over a lost paradise is a dangerous illusion.
Christians look forward with hope towards the Promised Land.
We must strike out with courage. Isaiah expresses it well:
So says the Lord:
No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See,! am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light; can you not see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness, paths in the wild.
This is an interesting gospel story, because it makes a direct connection between internal and external healing. Jesus heals the total person, or not at all. "Your sins are forgiven; arise and walk." It shows us that healing begins on the inside, and then comes out through the body.
A worry in the mind often ends up as an ulcer in the body. Whenever I pray with someone for healing, I lay great emphasis on the whole area of forgiveness, because if there is unforgiveness in the heart, the flow of the Spirit is impeded. Whenever I celebrate a Mass for healing, I expect everybody to be healed. Nobody maybe cured, which is a different thing. However, I believe that the inner healing must always precede the cure. Indeed, the inner healing is often the greatest miracle. Just as we speak of being frozen with fear, so we are freed when the fear is removed. The lights must come on inside, the darkness must be dispelled before that light can appear as a smile on the face.
The faith of these people is extraordinary. They brought their friend to Jesus, they couldn't get near him, so they pulled back the thatch on the roof and lowered him in front of where Jesus stood. There was no word spoken. Their actions spoke louder than words. Notice what the gospel says "Jesus marvelled at their faith." The man on the stretcher was probably unconscious and unable to have any faith. Jesus also marvelled at their love, because they were doing for their friend what he is always asking us to do for others.
Right from the beginning, Jesus called on people to repent, and seek forgiveness for their sins. He said that if I have unforgiveness in my heart for another person, I myself cannot be forgiven. When I forgive someone, when a broken relationship is mended, both of us are freed. When God forgives me, I am freed from bondage and I can fly again. The healthiest people on earth are those with a forgiving heart. When I have a resentment against you, it is as if I were drinking poison, and I'm expecting you to die! I am the one who is being hurt by my lack of forgiveness.
Jesus proclaimed his authority in no uncertain way. They knew that only God could forgive sins. They questioned when he forgave the man his sins. This drew from him the assertion that he would prove to them that he, the Son of Man, had power to forgive sins. They could not actually see him forgiving sins, so he would do something that they could see. Therefore, he told the man to pick up his mat, and go off home. He had already said that this was as easy to do, as it was to tell him that his sins were forgiven.
Response: It is important to come to the Lord as completely as I can. No point in coming to the Lord to heal some illness, if I have unforgiveness in my heart for another person. The idea is to open out the canvas of my life, out, out, out to the edges. Stand before the Lord exactly as you are, exactly as he sees you. Let him see the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is just as if I were lowered down through the roof, and placed on the ground on front of him. Those who lowered the man said nothing. They knew that Jesus could look at him and see what was wrong with him. That is how l should come before the Lord.
I taught religion in a second-level school for many years. I seldom used books, as I preferred to bring a class to the prayer room for some experiential encounter with the Lord. One method was to get into a physical and mental state of relaxation so as to be as free as possible from outside distractions. I then suggested that Jesus was present among us. What did he look like? How was he dressed? You have a choice of going up to sit beside him, or inviting him to come and sit beside you. What is he saying to you? What do you want to say to him? Could you imagine yourself going for a walk with him around the school grounds? What would you be talking about? Do you have anybody in hospital, or ill at home? Bring him there. Pull up a chair for him by the side of the bed. Ask him to place his hand on the head of the sick person, etc., etc.
This can go on and on, but I will add one little event that came out of such prayer: We had been in the prayer-room that morning. It was now after lunch. There was a knock on my office door, and one of the senior girls came in, closed the door, and began to sob. I gave her plenty of time to express whatever it was that was upsetting her. When she was ready, she began to speak. Her mother was in hospital with suspected cancer, and all of the family was in total despair at the possible outcome. The girl had been in the prayer room that morning, and she brought Jesus to the side of her mother's bed. She imagined him placing his hand on her mother's head. Jesus then took her mother by the hand, and raised her up out of the bed. She hadn't thought any more about it, until she went home for her lunch, and found her mother in the kitchen! At the time she had been praying in the prayer-room, the doctor had come to her mother to confirm that their worst suspicions were unfounded, that she was clear, and was free to gohome.
This daughter experienced some of what I'm talking about today.
Hosea 2:16ff
Ps 103:1ff
1 Corinthians 3:1-6
Mark 2:18-22
What's the point in complaining?
Letters that matter
Into the light
Heritage Centres
Different Fasting
Hos 2:16-17, 21-23. God calls his people back to their first fervour - back to the honeymoon period of their relationship with him at the time of exodus.
1 Cor 3:1-6. In god's service, Paul is confident of the sucess of his work, because all pastoral success comes from God.
Mk 2:18-22. It is useless new wine into old wineskins, or sewing a new patch on an old garment. The brotherly spirit taught by Jesus is radically new.
Theme: We live in times of constant change. Our growth as persons depends on our ability to cope with change. Christ's reminder is: "new wine needs new wineskins."
On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, "My husband," and no longer will you call me, "My Baal." For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.
On that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, "You are my people;" and he shall say, "You are my God."
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits -
(It is he) who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men? For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apol'los," are you not merely men? What then is Apol'los? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apol'los watered, but God gave the growth.
Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. "No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins."
Intercessions
- that God may grant us the grace to adapt to the changing times we live in.
- that those in charge of the communications media may use their power to communicate what is best in life, as well as remind us of what is worst.
- that the Holy Spirit will always help to renew our lives and our faith.
- that those trapped in fundamentalism everywhere will be released from the prison of their past.
Thoughts for 8th Sunday, B
It's quite by accident if this Gospel appears on the Sunday before Lent starts, but it is appropriate as a warning that we should not parade our penances for everyone to see and admire. It also tells us at least indirectly that we would be a lot better off and so would everyone who has to put up with us if we complained a lot less.
Story: Once upon a time two couples who lived in empty nests decided to spend a couple of weeks in the desert during the worst part of winter. They had bright hopes of playing tennis and golf, hiking in the hills, riding horses, swimming every day an exorcising all the demons of winter under the gentle warmth of the desert sun. Well, there plane was an hour late landing because the airport was closed by rain and high winds. That was only the beginning. All the locals said we really needed the rain for the wild flowers and to avert brush fires. The visitors held their peace until they heard that for about the fortieth time. One of the men said they were taking money in the city on the false pretense that it was warm in the winter. They went hiking one day and found themselves caught in a downpour - with lightening and thunder. Then they tried horseback riding, but the horses were so frightened by the snow that they wouldn't leave the stable. The golf course was flooded. So there was nothing else to grin and ber it an play bridge. The problem with that was that one of the men was so furious about the bad weather that he spent most of the time complaining and so missed several opportunities to make a bid because he wasn't paying attention. Pretty soon no one was talking to one another. Finally the snow and the rain and winds ended and the sun came out. It was the last day of their trip.
One of the signs of the times today is the speed of communication. The great symbol of that is the e-mail. You can e-mail someone in another hemisphere and they can reply back, all in a matter of minutes. The same kind of communication years ago would have taken three or four weeks, for one letter to arrive from the sender and the other to arrive back to the sender. Even those who have converted to e-mail use late in life soon come to recognize what a wonderful means of communication it is. As with everything, there are drawbacks. You can end up getting e-mails from people and groups you don't really want to hear from. For all its value, the e-mail is unlikely to totally eclipse the letter. From time to time, we will still feel the need to write a letter, even to those for whom we have an e-mail address. We sense that a letter written to someone in our own handwriting is experienced by him or her as a more personal communication from us. In holding a letter that someone has written to us, feeling it, noticingthe way it is written, we feel that we are more in touch with the person who wrote it that we would be if we read an e-mail from that person on our computer screen.
St. Paul knew all about writing letters. He was a great letter writer. We read a section of his second letter to the Corinthians this morning. In that reading he uses what I think is a lovely image. He tells the Corinthians that they themselves are a letter written by Christ and that he, Paul, is the secretary that Christ used in the writing of this letter. This letter was written by Christ on their hearts by means of the Holy Spirit. Paul was reminding the Corinthians that they are Christ's letter to the world, that their lives are a message from Christ to be seen and read by all. It is interesting to think of our own lives as letters. That image may be in the background when we say of someone that he or she is a difficult person to read. Paul's words to the Corinthians might prompt us to ask ourselves, "How do people read me?" "What message is my way of life sending out to others?" Paul is suggesting that we become Christ's letter, that we allow the Lord to write the script of our lives, so that we become nt just people who have a message but people whose lives are a message, Christ's message. The Lord through the Holy Spirit seeks to write a letter with our lives, a letter that proclaims his love and his presence. Insofar as we are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit within us, among us, that letter will get written and the lives of others will be all the richer for it.
When we write a letter and send it off to someone, we can make our own those words of Pilate to the Jewish authorities on that first Good Friday, "What I have written, I have written." Once we have sent a letter, it is gone. We can't change it. The most we can do is to send another letter correcting the one we have sent. It is not always wise to post the letter we have written. A person who was angry with someone wrote a strong letter to that person, but first showed it to a friend before sending it. The friend said, "It is a fine letter. It was good for you to write it. Now, tear it up and write another one." We need to be careful what we write because words on a page cannot change. However, that is not true of our lives. If our lives are letters, they are letters that can change. We need never say of our lives, "What I have written, I have written." The Lord is constantly at work in our lives writing something new. Our past script does not determine our future, at least not in the Lord's eyes. The Spirit, wom the Lord pours into our hearts, is constantly at works in new way within us, among us. In that sense, our lives are an evolving letter. The Lord never ceases to write a letter in our hearts, making of us a living letter from himself to the world. Hopefully, with the passing of time, the letter that is our lives becomes more complete, and more life-giving for others to read.
We can be tempted to hold onto one particular script for our lives and for the life of our church. In the words of the gospel reading we can be tempted to cling to old wine skins. Yet, the Lord is always at work in our lives renewing our wine skins and pouring new wine into them. He calls us to be open to his new wine, even if it means letting go of some old wine skins. He asks us to be receptive to the letter that he continues to write in our hearts. This letter is still unfinished, and will only be truly finished when our names are written in heaven. Lent begins on Wednesday. It is a season when we invite the Lord to work in a new way in our lives, so that they really become a letter from him to others. Lent is a time to take stock and to see what needs changing in us, what needs renewing, if our lives are really to be the message the Lord wants them to be.
One of the truly great theologians of the nineteenth century was John Henry Newman, the Anglican divine of Oxford, who in 1845 at the age of 44 became a convert to the Catholic Church. Shortly after he had been ordained a minister in the Anglican faith he wrote, "I have the responsibility of souls on me to the day of my death." And so he began a systematic study of the writings of the Fathers of the early Church, as well as the heresies which then prevailed, so that he might present to his parishioners in St Mary's Church, a few miles outside Oxford, the Christian faith in all its purity. He became one of the founders of the Oxford Movement which set out to renew and revive the Church of England. He had a profound influence on many committed Anglicans, but many others, including Catholics of the day, saw him as a threat. Yet when he died in 1890, he was a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his epitaph was, "Out of the darkness and shadows into the truth."
The more Newman studied, the more he searched, the more surely it dawned on him that truth must be sought by the heart as well as by the head. Christian revelation addresses itself to our hearts, to our love of truth and goodness and virtue, to our fear of sinning, to our desire to gain God's favour, to our longing to advance in his love and friendship. He became more and more convinced of what St Paul is telling us in today's readings, that mere adherence to written laws brings death, but that it is God's Holy Spirit working within people which gives life.
It is the Spirit who leads, is the admission that Newman makes, in the hymn which he wrote while struggling with his doubts about the Anglican Church, "Lead kindly Light, lead thou me on." In the past, he tells us in that hymn, he loved to choose and see his path, to map things out for himself, to have all the Christian truths slotted into nice doctrinal compartments. But now he was entering into a new and intimate relationship with God, wherein however the Spirit would show the way.
"I am setting my face absolutely towards the wilderness," he wrote to an Anglican friend, a confession which strikingly parallels Hosea's words today about God resolving to lead the unfaithful Israel out into the wilderness, and speak there to her heart. Today's gospel reading also reminds us that the season of Lent which begins shortly is a call to us, not just to modify our way of life, to make slight changes, changes often lasting only for the duration of the Lenten season, but rather to bring about a complete conversion of life, a fundamental change of heart in order to be open to the doctrines of Christ, and the guidance of the Spirit he has left with us. New wine must not be put into old wineskins, which burst in the fermentation process.
Let us make this season in particular a time of prayer, for when one ceases to pray, it is a clear-cut indication that one is no longer walking with Christ, no longer open to the voice of the Holy Spirit, whose temples we became after being cleansed in the waters of baptism. "Pray without ceasing," St Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, "and in all things give thanks." To the Philippians he said, "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." And his last word of advice to the people of Ephesus was, "Pray at all times, in the Spirit." All this brings home to us clearly how important it is to persevere in prayer, and how in particular we should pray, not only for ourselves but for others as well. If we keep on doing this, then gradually prayer will undoubtedly change our lives, and the Spirit of Christ will be with us, interceding for us before the Father with sighs too deep for words.
But we should bear in mind that Christian living is not a matter of warm feelings and sensible consolations. It is rather a venture of faith, a journey often into the unknown, that calls for abandonment and trust in our relationship with God. This was even demanded of those closest to Jesus, his Apostles. Outwardly they saw in him a man like themselves, a man who had to satisfy his hunger and thirst like themselves, who fished with them, slept beside them on the shore around the same campfire. Only for a brief moment was the veil that covered his divine nature drawn back, and they saw him as he really was, a man possessed by God, a divine person with two natures, that of God and that of man.
Time, we are told, is the measurement of change. On that computation, we who live in today's world have lived immeasurably longer lives than any of our ancestors. People now in their nineties have seen transport develop from the push bicycle to the space shuttle. Their ancestors from time immemorial could conceive of no other form of transport than what was provided by the horse. The extraordinary changes in transport in our time can be mirrored in all the other facets of our lives. Our homes have become veritable centres of technology by comparison with those of our forefathers. Advances in communication have reduced our planet to a global village. Each day, in our own homes, we watch events taking place in far-away countries with strange sounding names, from Baghdad to Beijing, from Mongolia to Monrovia.
Change is the climate we live in and the greatest problem we have to cope with. We are in large part products of our environment. A constantly changing world makes enormous demands on our ability to adapt. Our growth and survival depends on it. As Cardinal Newman put it, "To live is to change and to be perfect is to change often."
Notwithstanding the enormous improvements in the quality of our lives, there is inevitably a debt side. There are casualties. Some will not, or can not, cope with change. All, to a greater or lesser degree, suffer from stress. Stress is often the result of our inability to change. Change is here to stay. The future promises a more accelerated rate of change.
The more we resist change, the more we stifle our growth as persons. Too often religion offers a refuge for the fearful. In all religions, the growth of fundamentalism bears witness to this. Right-wing Lefebvrists, followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, Paisleyites all had something in common. They played upon fear, a rooted fear of change. Too often, people come to church to seek the certainties of the past. They were never meant to be heritage centres for the local community but power houses to "renew the face of the earth." Christ put it bluntly to his fundamentalist critics: "New wine, new wineskins."
(Mark 2:18-22) Today's gospel has Jesus speaking of the kind of fasting he has in mind, and the difference between that and the fasting practised by the Pharisees.
When I was growing up, one of my heroes was Terence Mc Sweeney, former Lord Mayor of Cork, who had died on hunger strike in Brixton prison in England. I knew little about him, to be honest with you, nor did I have a balanced understanding of his cause. The one thing that won my reverence was that this man believed so strongly in a cause that it was even more important to him than food to keep him alive. Over the years since then I have witnessed many attempts at hunger strikes for a cause in this and in other countries. While completely disassociating myself with violence of any kind, from whatever quarter, I must confess that the many people who died in the Maze Hunger Strike of recent years will probably be seen, in retrospect, as the beginning of the turning point in Northern Ireland politics. I have often reflected on the fact that, when things got really serious, the gun was put down and the power of food was used as a weapon to advance a cause.
Fasting is not about going without food. If going without food was a virtue, then the dying millions in the world would be truly blessed, which, of course, is completely untrue. It is important to understand what I am. I am a spiritual being in a physical dimension. In other words, while I need food for that in me which is physical, I have a greater need for food for the spirit. "Not on bread alone do people live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
When Jesus speaks about prayer in Matthew's gospel, he continues his teaching with the words "And when you fast .... " There are two things that strike me about this. The first is that, having spoken about prayer, he went straight into a teaching on fasting, as if they were inseparable. He didn't say "If you fast," but "When you fast." It appears as a proper balance. Prayer strengthens the spirit, and fasting curbs the body, and prevents it running the show. We live in a world where there is a great waste of food, drink, money, etc. The problem is not that half the world is dying of hunger, but that the other half is on a diet, trying to get down the weight!
In Jesus' day, fasting was exclusively part of religious practice. Jesus did not approve all the rules and regulations of Jewish religious practice, because they inflicted bondage, rather than conferring freedom. He longed for the day when the Spirit would come and his followers would fast voluntarily, and as a sign of having their priorities right. He compares himself to the groom at a wedding. At such a time, people are not asked to fast. When he leaves them, though, and the Spirit comes, they will have the goodwill and the motivation to fast as a spiritual exercise that will be part of their spiritual life.
Over the last few years, the church is seen to be undergoing enormous change and transformation. It is crossing back over the bridge from religion to spirituality, from a love of law to a law of love. Therefore, it is significant that church rules on fasting have changed utterly. There is now little fasting that is coming from laws or obligation. It is more common now to have people do a twenty-four hour fast in support of those who are dying of hunger. Fasting is now becoming more of a spiritual and social exercise than something being imposed by law or obligation. It is becoming an exercise of love and charity, rather than a burden or an imposition.
This man died and ended up in a place which he did not recognise, nor was there any clue as to what or where it might be.
When he was hungry a young lad came in with a tray of food. When he was thirsty, the same young lad came in with a tray of drinks. When he was tired, once again the young lad appeared, pressed a button, and a bed emerged from the wall. This went on day after day, until the man began to notice something peculiar. He noticed that even if he only momentarily thought of having something, the young lad appeared, and presented him with it. Life began to become rather predictable. One day he called the young lad and asked him a straight question, "Look, can you do without anything in here?" "Oh no," replied the lad, "You have to get everything you desire." "But, I mean," said the man, "things that I just think of, but I don't really want, or certainly don't need?" "Oh, you have to have those," replied the lad, "That's the way it is here." "And is this going to go on for all eternity?" asked the man. "For all eternity, yes, for all eternity, that's the way it's going to be." "Good Lord," said the man, "sure I'd be beter off in hell!" "And where do you think you are?" enquired the young lad.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Ps 81:2-7, 9-10
2 Corinthians 4:6-11
Mark 2:22--3:6
No threat to our freedom
Sabbath is for Mankind
Sabbath Celebrates Life
The Lord's Day
Observing Tradition
Sabbath as Gift
Deut 5:12-15. The sabbath is not just a day of rest, but a reminder to the people of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Their servants should enjoy the same freedom on the sabbath.
2 Cor 4:6-11. Though ministers of the Gospel may be heavily burdened and perplexed, still the life of Jesus flows through them to others.
Mk 2:23-3:6. The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. We are free to do good on that day.
Theme: Attendance at Sunday Mass continues to decline. We should not so easily discard the time-proven Christian tradition of regular Sunday worship, to renew our faith and our commitment to God.
Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work-you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.
Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
Raise a song, sound the tambourine,
the sweet lyre with the harp.
Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
at the full moon, on our festal day.
For it is a statute for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
He made it a decree in Joseph,
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
I hear a voice I had not known:
"I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you;
There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.
And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins." One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?" And he said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions." Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath."
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, "Come forward." Then he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Intercessions
- that we may always remain faithful to the Lord's day, especially by joining actively in Sunday Mass.
- that God the Father will fill our hearts with gratitude for our lives, and for all the blessings of creation.
- for people troubled by scruples, that they may rediscover that Jesus has come to set us free to love our God, just as we are.
- for those who have lapsed, that they may be once more restored to the practice of their faith.
Thoughts for 9th Sunday, B
"The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is master even of the sabbath." In this saying of Christ in today's gospel reading, we are being told that it was for the benefit of humankind that God ordained the sabbath. The full statement was intended to be a reaction to the false understanding of the sabbath, in particular by the Pharisees, in the Old Testament era, who surrounded it with all kinds of regulations that required something akin to a slavish observance of it. Christ here is stating clearly that the sabbath was God's gift to his chosen people, as of course is Sunday which for Christians has replaced the Saturday observation of it among the Jews. It was meant to be a day of leisure, a day of celebration, a day for reflection on the wonders of creation and the hope of eternal happiness held out to us because of his own passion and resurrection. Indeed the word Sabbath is the anglicised version of the Hebrew word Shabbath, which means repose.
The fact that Christ defended his disciples, when they were accused by the Pharisees of breaking the sabbath laws, tells us a lot about Christ and his understanding of the sabbath. He was against the numerous restrictions and human laws which had come to surround it, and which did not take into consideration human needs and immediate requirements. Blind obedience to a whole code of regulations, as demanded by the Pharisees, can have the effect of restricting God's love and mercy, while ignoring his command to love one another and share our bread willingly. Religion that is sincere and authentic should be a liberating influence in our lives.
Yet how true it is that God's will is regarded by so many people as a threat to their freedom, something involving coercion, disappointment, even suffering. That attitude will surely prevail when Sunday observance is given mere lip service, such as regarding attendance at Mass as something we have to do. Strict observance of the Lord's day must of course allow provision for basic human requirements. The sick must be taken care of, meals must be served, trains, buses, planes must operate. We must never regard Sunday as being there for the benefit of God. Rather is it we ourselves who are meant to benefit from it. Celebrating it in a loving and thoughtful way should have the effect of making us more human, and more in the image of the God who brought us into being.
When life is pleasant and serene how rarely we attribute this to a benevolent God, but in times of adversity we complain, "Why does God allow this to happen to me?" Whenever we begin to regard religious practice as being our entitlement to the good things of this world, it will undoubtedly cease to be a liberating factor in our lives. It will instead become an oppressor, not a servant. However, God's will for us is always nothing other than his love. To accept God's will is to accept his love. So the acceptance of God's will is for ever the only basis of our true welfare and happiness, and should be recognised by us as such.
Indeed if we try by every means at our disposal to reshape God's love into a form that fits into our narrow vision of him, if, in other words, we try and manipulate God, then we are no better than the hypocrites and pagans that Jesus spoke of. At all times we have to try and follow the example of Christ, who was always ready to accept God the Father as he is in himself. "Not my will, but yours be done," was his prayer. In one sentence, which at first sight is rather confusing, St Augustine summed up what our approach to God should be, "To please God," he wrote, "is to be pleased with God." That phrase, "to be pleased with God," means to be filled with the firm conviction that there is nothing more precious, in this whole wide world, than God. "Pray with all your heart," Augustine used to tell his congregation, "and love God without looking for any gain. Then your prayer will reach God whom you have come to love unselfishly."
This kind of prayer can be defined simply as "a desire for God," and if this desire, this longing for God, becomes part of our inner being and is discernible deep within us every time we look into ourselves, then our life has become one continuous prayer. We have reached the stage where we are fulfilling Christ's own precept that we should pray always. We might say that each day of our life will then have become one long Sunday, one continuous Lord's day.
If you have ever been chased out of a corn field, apple orchard, or a strawberry patch as a kid (or an adult) you may also ask yourself about the accuracy of the setting in which Jesus and the disciples are pictured. Can a first century Jew walk into a field of grain which might have been the property of a private landowner and start lopping off the grain heads? Actually, yes.
In Deuteronomy chapter 23 it is written: When you go through the vineyard of your neighbor, you may eat as many of his grapes as you wish, but do not put them in your basket. When you go through a grain field of your neighbor, you may pluck some of the heads with your hand, but do not put a sickle to the grain of your neighbor.
However, this is where the prosecuting attorney would interject with Exodus chapter 34 where it is written: for six days you may work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; on that day you must rest even during the seasons of plowing and harvesting.
Even if the fields are ripe for harvesting and the market demand is high there can be no work. Further, the first reading from Deuteronomy would not even allow you to order a servant or two to pull a donkey into the field for a few hours of work on the Sabbath before the sun grew too strong; for it is written: The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may be done then, whether by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or ass or any of your beasts, or the alien who lives with you. Your male and female slave should rest as you do.
It looks as though the Pharisees have a good case against Jesus and his disciples. As aforementioned, they are not breaking the law by the action of picking heads of grain, even if it is cultivated grain on what we would call private property today; for they are simply hungry; but rather it is their timing which offend the Pharisees. It is the Sabbath.
At this the Pharisees said to him, Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath? He said to them, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?
Here is the scriptural text from 1 Samuel chapter 21 which Jesus cites in his defense. In any event, the defense of the actions of his disciples which is rooted in scripture has to do with the immediate hunger of traveling men and Jesus saw the close parallel between this story and the situation of the disciples and himself.
Then he said to them, The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.
Both chronologically and ideologically, the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. It is a help to man; not a hindrance.
HOMILY theme: A saying like "The sabbath was made for man", may not have fundamentally changed the Pharisees; but it may have changed the minds or the hearts of others who were in earshot of these words of Jesus. Life throws a gem like this to us once in a while.
We experience, read or hear something and we are changed. We see something more clearly, we reprioritize our lives, we hold new things dear to us, we fall in love all over again with a loved one or with God We gain wisdom. Near death experiences often serve as shortcuts to these kinds of actions too. In some sacristies that I have visited over the years a sign is hung above the door from which the Mass procession begins stating: Priest, celebrate this mass as if it is your first Mass, your last Mass, and your only Mass. It serves to focus, to clear the mind of distractions, and to aid us in remembering the intimacy that will take place between the people of God and their creator.
The Sabbath was meant to help keep focus, to clear the mind of distractions, and to aid in remembering the intimacy between humans and their Creator, their refuge. Instead, the Pharisees used the laws of the Sabbath against a group of hungry men.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemies, we are our own Pharisees. We take the true and beautiful meaning out of our own Sabbath by looking at it legalistically. We do not do it on purpose; rather we slowly slip into it without knowing. It is a slippery slope. We forget how the Sabbath, and our Mass attendance is meant to bring us closer to God.
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we are here to worship God as a community, to receive his grace through the Word and through the blessed sacrament. This is a holy place, a house of prayer. Do we need to refocus, reprioritize, to think in a new way of our practice of worship? Have we been attending Mass out of duty or guilt rather than worshiping at Mass in love and out of thanksgiving? Is it time to make a change and think anew? Is it time to confront our own Pharisees that we have let slip into our lives?
(Helen Doohan)
The readings revolve around the central theme of the celebration of Sabbath as a celebration of life. In the first reading, the holiness of the seventh day provides a culmination of six days of work. This celebration is a time for remembering the goodness of the Lord and for experiencing the fruits of labour of the previous week. The second reading focuses on the fragility of the human person, particularly one who ministers in the name of the Lord. The reading identifies difficulties of work and of life, but brings weakness into proper perspective. Limitations show forth the power of God at work in us. These weaknesses and struggles are part of our human condition, just as they were part of the earthly life of Jesus. Yet, for Jesus and for the Christian, God's glory shines through darkness, turmoil and pain so that, in faith, we can truly celebrate all aspects of life. The gospel returns to the celebration of the Sabbath, but offers a startling reversal of the wisdom of the religious leaders of Jesus' day. Sabath observance is subservient to the needs of people. Ritual never replaces life or spiritualises need. Rather, Sabbath observance celebrates life because those who participate in worship extend themselves in service to others as needs emerge. This radical reversal in thinking challenges religious leaders and communities in every age. Love of God becomes real in our love of one another, not in empty ritual. Furthermore, struggles of daily life and ministry become the substance of our offering in the. Sabbath celebration.
We might address the need for a day of rest, reflection and integration for members of the congregation. Scripture offers insight into the necessary balance between work and leisure, a balance that contributes to personal growth. Many individuals focus exclusively on work, leaving little time for the kind of "listening," reflection and presence that is the starting point of authentic celebration.
The readings also suggest that the fragility of the human person requires this integration of work and leisure. The Christian attitudes and insight in Paul's letter result from reflection on his experience in ministry in view of the life of Christ. Sabbath rest, so conducive to reflection, should be part of each day so that difficulties and limitations become opportunities for growth and for complete reliance on the power of the Lord. The homilist might give examples of hope in difficult times and of reliance on the power of God witnessed in the community.
Finally, the readings clearly identify correct priorities for the Christian community - the service of one another over ritual observance, The Sabbath celebration becomes a celebration of life when it is an expression of our work, our struggle and our service of one another. The spirit of the celebration is far more important than its weekly observance, However, weekly observance of the Sabbath results from six days of work and is an appropriate culminating celebration for the faith community.
Families and communities can be challenged to keep the Sabbath holy, as a day of refreshment and rest. They can use the work, trials, and celebrations of every day as a preparation for this worship. Likewise, sensitivity to need and awareness of limitation often opens the individual to the power of God at work in each person. The fullness of Sabbath celebration occurs when there is an intimate connection between life and worship.
The Sabbath rest may be older than Moses; it is surely older than the detailed laws governing it, that are written into the Old Testament. Basically, as the Hebrew name indicates, it was a day of rest. What this rest involved, and how it was to be observed, varied from one age to another, at first among the Jews and later also among Christians. In several Gospel stories it emerges that, in Christ's day, an inordinate emphasis was placed on the absolute duty of the Sabbath rest among the Jews.
Within a few years of its foundation, the Christian community came to consider as the sacred day of their week not the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), but rather the Lord's Day, the day of Christ's resurrection from the dead, i.e. Sunday. They observed this day as holy, without transferring to it all the Jewish legislation about Sabbath. Later a whole series of Sabbath laws and observances emerged within the Church, many of them in the tradition of the Jewish religion. In our own day we are witnessing a change in Sunday observance and a reinterpretation of the Sabbath rest, which is seen mainly for reasons of recreation.
We should do our best that the sanctity of the Lord's Day is not lost sight of. Christians of our age still need to come together once a week to reflect on Christ's victory over sin and death. They need to take a break from their everyday work and recall that the one thing necessary in this as in every age is to seek first the kingdom of God. While attendance at Mass cannot be taken as the sole criterion for Christian practice, it is difficult to see how a strong Christian life can exist without contact with the source of life in the Eucharist. A homily on the Lord's Day could also lay stress on frequent communion. The Sunday rest itself, in the sense of freedom from work, may require mention in cases where the Lord's Day is in danger of being turned into just one other day of the business week.
It all seems so recent and yet it belongs to a world beyond recall. On Sunday mornings the roads were black with people, all making their way towards their church or chapel. For many communities Sunday Mass was the social highlight of their week. It was a time to dress up, to wear one's "Sunday best." Most people walked, some carrying their shoes until they neared the church. Others rode bicycles. Those with some pretensions to grandeur came in their ponies and traps. But rain, hail or shine, everyone came except the bed-ridden and the young.
Not to go to Mass was unthinkable then. It was a mortal sin for which one risked eternal damnation. The Mass was in Latin, incomprehensible to all. The sermons were long, cliché-ridden and dull. Many said rosaries or read their prayer books while Mass was going on. Nobody complained. Nobody expected anything else. For almost everybody, the Mass on Sunday crowned a week of work regulated by God and the seasons.
When change came it was gradual - some English and the altar turned round. Many welcomed it. Some had misgivings. Few were greatly disturbed. There were other changes outside the chapel walls. Television had arrived, and transistors. Car sales boomed. Parish boundaries were breached. The church was no longer the focus of the community. Weekend leisure activities provided serious competition for the Sunday Mass. Big business had other plans for the Sabbath.
Now, scarcely more than a generation later, there are almost no families without "conscientious objectors', mostly among the young adults. Despite the best efforts of persuasive parents, the numbers of those refusing to go to Mass continues to rise. Making the Mass more meaningful is a laudable enterprise, but its effect on church attendance will be only marginal.
Our secular week has been shaped by the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. It would be a pity to see it now desacralised. For the Christian the Mass, or the more aptly-styled Eucharist, is a communal act of gratitude to our creator. It is an obligation which we owe as creatures to our Creator. It never had any other justification in Christian tradition which adopted it from the Mosaic Law.
The Lord says this: "Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. For six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath for the Lord your God."
Mark 2:23-3:6 Today's gospel is interesting. Jesus has a discussion with the religious leaders about what one should or should not do on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are seen against the backdrop of the law. When Jesus breaks the law by healing a man on the Sabbath he is clearly seen against the backdrop of love.
Parable When I was growing up in the country there was a rare happening during the occasional summer. The weather was really bad on occasions and the harvest was in serious danger. The corn was flattened with the wind and rain and was liable to rot. The turf was soggy and wet, and would never be fit for burning. When, eventually, the rains stopped, there was a quick stampede to save the crop. Time was of the essence, because it was literally a question of saving the hay when the sun was shining. Every Sunday the farmers sat in church, waiting and watching. On that rare occasion, the famous announcement was made. "Due to the bad weather, the problem with the crops, and the lack of time, special permission is granted for the next few weeks to do farm work on Sundays." There was a sigh of relief all around! No one would dare lift a finger to do farm-work on Sundays until that sacred mandate was given!
Most religions have a day of rest; a day that is sacred to the Lord. For the Muslims it's Friday, for the Jews it's Saturday, for the Christians it's Sunday. This is part of a sacred tradition that sets one day aside for the Lord. It is an excellent concept and deserves to be preserved, especially in the money hungry, materialistic world of today. The mistake that was made, of course, was that this day was seen as belonging to the Lord. This day, or any other day, for that matter, is a gift for us from the Lord. There will be times, naturally, when the work done on such a day is purely the work of the Lord. There are many ways of praying, and doing good to others is one of the best.
Jesus was angry with the Pharisees because they were so stubborn, nothing could change them. The gospel is enlightened common sense, but, with them, nothing was allowed interfere with the literal carrying out of the law. You wouldn't want to be drowning on the Sabbath, because none of them would come to help you! When the law is applied like this it becomes a burden and no longer deserves respect or obedience.
Law has an important place in civil and in religious life. Law, however, is there to protect and to ensure the welfare of people. A thirty-mile speed limit through a town is not imposed to punish anyone, but to protect everyone. That is how God sees law, and that is how Jesus interpreted it. It was never intended to become an end in itself. "The Sabbath was made to benefit people" was what Jesus told the Pharisees. I can have a much healthier and truer image of Jesus if I think of him independently of law.
A sin is a sin is a sin. I'm not trivialising the law as if I want to justify everything and anything. What I am saying, however, is that any one of us could have a little Pharisee in residence within our hearts. A lot of our guilt comes from this, while, of course, some of our guilt has valid and good foundations. The church to which I belong is still much preoccupied with law and, quite often, some members experience anything other than love and compassion. I console myself, however, when I reflect that we have come a long way from the church of my childhood, where any Pharisee would feel completely at home!
There was a funeral in the town. Everybody would be there. The parish priest had to go elsewhere that day, but he was happy that the funeral was in the care of an intelligent, common sense, no-nonsense curate. That evening, when he returned, he asked the curate how the funeral had gone. "Ah, it went well," he said, "No real problems. A huge crowd. Oh, by the way, I did have one minor problem." "What was that?" came the quick question from a problem-oriented parish priest. "Mrs Robinson was at the funeral and, as you know, she's Protestant." "Oh, that's no problem. I would have expected her to be there. A good friend of the family and all." "But she came up to communion," said the curate, knowing that the parish priest was going to hear about it anyhow. This rivetted the parish priest to his chair, as he turned with a look of horror on his face. "What happened?" he gasped. "Well," said the curate, "she was in my line for Communion. She was about two away from me when I spotted her." "Go on, go on," said the paish priest, "what did you do? What did you do?" "I didn't know what to do. I had to make a snap decision. I decided right there to do what I believe Jesus would have done." "Oh my God, no! Surely you didn't do that!'
Genesis 3:9-15
Ps 130:1-8
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Mark 3:20-35
Not in Satan's Grasp
Overcoming evil
Purpose and Joy
Man's Inhumanity To Man
Not At All Crazy!
Gen 3:9-15. Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned. This reading describes the tragic consequences of their fall.
2 Cor 4:13-5:1. Paul looks forward to the world to come in which God will give us a permanent dwelling place instead of a temporary tent.
Mk 3:20-35. Jesus was misunderstood by his family and slandered by the scribes, yet he was accepted by the ordinary people.
Theme: Evil is too well documented to be dismissed as just a religious concept. It thrives precisely because many choose to ignore it. Like the Psalmist, we recognise our complicity and seek forgiveness.
But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."
The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture-"I believed, and so I spoke"-we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
And the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind." And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons." And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
"Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"- for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
Intercessions
- that we may recognise whatever is evil in our society and have the grace to combat and defeat it.
- for the victims of evil everywhere, that they may be released from its tyranny.
- for forgiveness for the sins we have committed against others.
- that following the teachings of Jesus and his apostles we may not lose heart, but persevere in living a good and generous life.
Thoughts for 10th Sunday, B
If you read the gospels carefully, one of the questions you are bound to come up against is, why did Jesus so readily forgive even the greatest sinners. To err is human, to forgive divine. Never once do we find him condemning any of them - and yet, at the same time, he had extremely harsh things to say about the Scribes and Pharisees, regarded by many of their contemporaries as the religious elite of the day. The answer, possibly, is that the greatest evil, in the eyes of God, is not to be imperfect, but rather to deny before the world that one is imperfect, to refuse to admit that each one has within him or her, an area of darkness, that cries out for the healing touch of God's tender mercy, without which we are helpless. Indeed the greatest proof of the existence of the devil lies in the immoral behaviour, the senseless cruelty, envy and jealousy, the acts of racism and genocide, the unrelenting search for wealth and power so common in the world of which we are part.
In the twentieth century, which held out so much promise for freedom and equality, we think of the concentration camps and prisons, where the torturers were good husbands, tender fathers, obliging neighbours, who said they were carrying out orders. We think of so many professions and businesses where deals are often negotiated through bribes, commissions and what we refer to as influence or pull. We think of a world where famine is combined with over-production, where one-third of the population is over-fed, and the other two-thirds suffer from malnutrition or even starvation. And all this is not because of deliberate wickedness, or hatred, or oppression. It is the result of circumstances which individuals often seem incapable of avoiding. All of us, unless we are deceiving ourselves like the Pharisees, have felt from time to time the insidious power of evil at work within us, even to the extent of gaining control over our wills. The devil of course never appears in person before us, but, as Cardinal Newan one said, a little money and luxury, a little selfish gratification, a little honour, is enough for him to hold us helpless in his grasp.
However, the great message of redemption, foretold in the words of God to the serpent in the garden of Eden, is that evil will be overcome, that there exists a redemption even after the worst moral collapse. "The offspring of the woman will crush your head, and you will lie in wait for its heel." The offspring referred to here is Christ, the promised Redeemer. A great saint once said that the devil is the one in whom there is no love; and the one thing he fears is love. Our victory over evil is achieved by the love that comes from God and cures us of ourselves, begetting a return of love for God, love for goodness, for truth, for justice, for mercy. We should not imagine that God shows us his love only if we are keeping all the commandments and living good lives. No, God's love for us does not depend on our goodness.
Even when enmeshed in the trawls of sin, God still loves us, as we know from the example of Jesus Christ his Son. While on earth, he was called the friend of sinners - sinners like Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils, like Zaccheus, the despised tax-collector, like the adulterous woman who was about to be stoned, like the good thief on the cross. No matter what our failures are, they can never separate us from the tremendous love of God for us. There is difficulty in reconciling this with the saying in the gospel reading today, that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness. These are the people who were once followers of Christ and shared in his Spirit, but now spurn and even mock him. Such souls, being guilty of apostasy and deliberate rejection of God's grace, are no longer capable of repenting.
But remember God does not want us to live in fear. St Gertrude, a German Benedictine nun of the 13th century, who was a forerunner of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was told by the Sacred Heart in a vision, "Some people tie the bandage of their own unworthiness so tightly about their eyes, that they cannot see me and my love." Almost a thousand years earlier we find St Augustine declaring the same idea. "I ask myself, he says, "whether the fear of punishment hanging over a person does not make that person worse rather than better." Let us then rejoice and be glad, for sinners though we are, the Lord truly loves us and will save us, if we but trust in him.
One of the threads running through today's readings concerns the reality of evil in human existence.
The first reading deals with the problem of the origin of evil - it comes both from beyond man (as the Serpent-Tempter) and also from within. The present human condition with its experience of disharmony in human relationships and in the man-God relationship is presented as a fall from the ideal, and it is this disharmony which is the essence of evil (as the result of sin.)
The homilist might develop this notion of evil from the contemporary situation - e.g. of political and social discord fragmenting societies with oppression and violent revolt, disharmony in family life, the chain reaction of hurt and bitter response which result. Just as with Adam and Eve, sin is never a private affair; it always has social implications; other people are affected.
In the context of this disharmony the parable of Jesus takes on a resonance that was not originally intended; a house divided cannot stand. Equally we can see that a humanity divided and fighting against itself cannot survive; our creativity has put too much destructive power in our hands. One of the paradoxes of the human situation seems to be that the more we develop our control of the world, the more good we are capable of producing, the more there are possibilities for evil. This seems to be the Achilles heel, the flaw in the fallen human condition. This ambiguity was hinted at in the Genesis text when it says: "He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Human achievement cannot be perfect; we can build our towers to the heavens but they become a Babel of confusion and races. Is there then no hope?
What was hinted at in Genesis came to full revelation in the ministry of Jesus; here the power and influence of evil was fully overcome. What Jesus revealed in action was God's power restoring creation - healing men and making them whole again. From here on man is no longer left on his own in a relentless and defeatist struggle against evil. There is now possible for him a share in the new creation, if he belongs to Christ.
At the same time there is nothing overwhelming about the presence of God in Jesus as we can see from the cynical reaction of the scribes in the Gospel today. Pride, the desire to make oneself the arbiter of all that is good, this motivates them to see in Jesus not the power of the Spirit but a trick of the devil. What was an evident good they could not deny but only reinterpret, in order to hold on to their own special position. Such a closed mentality merits a severe censure from Jesus; it is a reminder to us that we must be ready to see God's goodness in unexpected places. Man's road back to the new creation involves true openness and humility. It is a journey that does not involve privileged positions.
Even the blood relatives of Jesus have no special standing in the kingdom. To belong to Jesus is a possibility open to all; the only condition is the readiness to commit oneself to doing the Father's will. This was the commitment that Adam and Eve failed to make but which becomes a possibility for us in Christ.
By listening to God's word to us and following it our lives may become full of purpose and joy; we may feel secure and cared for. One way in which we tear ourselves from this experience is by sin. We become alienated from God and from our community because we have failed to act in a loving manner as Christ would have done and would have us do. We experience the frustration of guilt. We become disheartened and disillusioned; doubtful of good in ourselves, unclear about any potential goodness. We can cope with the situation in several ways.
Perhaps we may try to escape our guilt feelings by absorbing ourselves in other interests: our job, our social life - by decorating the home. Alternatively, we may try to justify an unchristian action and become defensive about it. We might decide that a person deserved to be treated unkindly because he or she had been unkind; because they had hurt us first. We may become aggressive. We may decide that a code of conduct observed by others does not necessarily apply to us.
All of these are of course unhealthy ways of dealing with the situation of sin. The healthy approach would be to acknowledge the wrong one has done, apologize to the injured party and in so far as possible try to undo the hurt done.
Today's readings offer an occasion for speaking on the role of Confession - or as it is now more appropriately termed, the sacrament of reconciliation. Many, particularly young people, find great difficulty in comprehending the need for confession - when one can apologize directly to God in prayer.
A young man I met recently asked me to explain this aspect of the sacrament to him. I think that the following image helped him to understand the value of the sacrament in building up one's relationship with God. I compared the situation to a close friendship. One may hurt the other deeply and be sorry for the action. The wounded one may be aware that his friend is sorry. The offender may be aware that his friend senses his regret, but the relationship cannot be really healed until the offender actually faces his friend and says, "I know I have done wrong and I am sorry for it. Please forgive me and let me try again." Then, stripped of his selfishness, he can be forgiven and made whole again through the constancy of his friend.
So too with God, despite our alienation as a result of sin - which can destroy us if we allow it - we must be ready to stand before the Lord and the community acknowledging our weakness and with an earnestness to do better. We are constantly dying little deaths in order to reach the state of fulfilment which is the opposite to the alienation we feel when we sin. Each renewal of our relationship with God is a little resurrection which gives us hope for the resurrection to the next life.
In a celebrated speech, the former President of the US, Ronald Reagan, describe the USSR as the "empire of evil." How uncomplicated life would be if evil could be so geographically confined. It would have all the simple charm of an old Western movie with its classical conflict between the good guys and the bad guys. That the system of government in the Soviet Bloc was corrupt we suspected for a long time. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had fleshed out its operation with spine-chilling detail in his Gulag Archipelago. Other courageous dissidents such as Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov provided further witness. With the arrival of glasnost and the sudden collapse of the Iron Curtain, the full extent of the evil that permeated the system has come to light. But we should not leave this movie - as we did so often in our youth - cheered that the good guys had triumphed once more. And there is little cause for anybody, least of all an American President, to rub his hands gleefully at the demise of communist totalitarianism Evil is not that easily routed. The serpent raises its ugly head elsewhere. Satan is alive and well, even within view of the White House itself, ravaging the streets of Washington with crack and cocaine. it is heartening to discover how well the old maxims are vindicated by these extraordinary events. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." No better personification of it could be found than Nicolai Ceausescu in Romania. Tragically for Romanians, his legacy seems destined also to fit the Shakespearean maxim: "The evil men do lives after them." His dreaded Securitate and omnipresent spies have left suspicions among neighbours and even within families that may take generations to eradicate. What never ceases to astonish about a Nazi Germany or a Stalinist Russia is how so many people, by all appearance "simple, decent, ordinary people', can be got to connive at evil. This century alone has provided two lurid examples of it, on a scale hitherto unknown. Fear only partially explains it. Before far can become a compelling factor there needs to be a general complicity on the part of a considerable section of the population. "For evil to triumph, it is enough that good men do nothing." Too many people looked the other way, as too many people everywhere look the other way. Yeats described it well:
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
It has become fashionable in our time to sneer at the doctrine of original sin. The penny catechism informed us that it left us "prone to evil." And our daily newspapers confirm it. Four times each day, morning, midday, evening and night, television chronicles in words and pictures "man's inhumanity to man." No generation was ever better informed than ours of the effects of original sin. The South American drug cartels, the Italian Mafia, Chinese repression and South African apartheid are only spectacular examples. Ours may be less newsworthy but nonetheless deadly. The Psalmist speaks for all of us.
If you, 0 Lord, should mark our guilt
Lord, who would survive?
But with you is found forgiveness:
For this we revere you.
In today's gospel we experience some of the awful loneliness that must have been part of the life of Jesus. The Pharisees accuse him of using the power of Satan to pretend that he has power over Satan, and his family and friends think he's mad, and has gone crazy.
Life in the country, when I was growing up, was predictable. Everybody knew everybody else and, among the more senior members, this acquaintance stretched back for several generations. For those who emigrated, allowances were made. They made some money and returned on holidays to make a splash. Others did not do so well, and word came back that they were sleeping rough, or were in jail. Iii such cases, it was better that they should not return on holidays. For those who stayed at home there was a fairly cast-iron mould into which they had to fit. The general consensus was based on the family history. If they failed to conform, there was always a ready explanation. "They always had an "odd" drop in them. Like father, like son... Oh his grand-uncle had a wild streak in him. What's bred in the bones will come out in the blood."
Jesus is caught in quite a bind in today's gospel. He certainly does not conform; he sure is different from everyone else; and when they try to remind him of his family of origin, he claims that he belongs to a far-flung family.
Today's gospel is sandwiched in between two paragraphs. In the first one, his family hears about him, they think he is out of his mind, and they decide to take him home. In the final paragraph, his family has arrived, and he is told that they are outside and want to have a word with him. This is puzzling, because, according to the story, Mary was among those waiting for him outside. On the other hand, it is not puzzling, because Mary was party to the greatest love story of all time. She didn't understand the overall plan, but she believed that everything that happened to her had a purpose. She came along with the family out of love and motherly concern, and with absolutely no intention that Jesus should be locked up. . She couldn't tell the others what she knew, because they wouldn't and couldn't understand. She was the one who pondered everything in her heart and, while she didn't fully understand, she knew enough to believe, to trust, and to keep going.
In the middle of today's gospel there is a message that demands our full attention. After arguing that he wasn't using the power of Satan to destroy the kingdom of Satan, Jesus went on to say that there was one sin that could not be forgiven. A sin against the Holy Spirit was an eternal sin, and could never be forgiven. That is frightening, and it cannot be easily passed over. The Holy Spirit is the power of God in action. All good comes from God, through the action of his Spirit. To attribute that good to Satan is blasphemy, and it is to give the credit to Satan for something that is of God. That is the ultimate blasphemy, and it cannot be forgiven. I can reject God through sin and selfishness, but to attribute the good in my life to the power of Satan is a fundamental rejection of God.
There was a fancy-dress ball in the town. It was an important part of the social life in the area, and people went to great lengths to come up with new and exciting attire each year. This year one man dressed up as Satan and, at the instigation of his friends, he decided to walk down the main street of the town in his Satan costume. Unfortunately for him, the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down. He ran for shelter, and the nearest open door was the parish hail. He ran in the door, and created total chaos when he found himself in a room where there was the weekly Prayer Group meeting. There was panic as people dashed for the exits. He tried to calm them, but no one listened. One little old lady, in rushing down the aisle, caught her coat on the corner of a table, and was unable to free it. As Satan approached, she was terrified and she saw no escape. In desperation, she cried out, "Satan, I know that I have been going to Mass every day for the past forty years, but I want you to know that, during allthat time, I was really on your side!'
Ezekiel 17:22-24
Ps 92:1-2, 12-15
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Mark 4:26-34
What God's Kingdom is like
Fulfilment of our hopes
Only God Can Make A Tree
Parables of Growth
Ezk 17:22-24. The prophet foretells the downfall of Jerusalem, but also of a future restoration (in the days of the Messiah).
2 Cor 5:6-10. Paul's priority at all times is to please the Lord; so he has no fears of appearing before the judgment seat of Christ.
Mk 4:26-34. This contains two parables about the slow but steady growth of the Kingdom of God from insignificant beginnings. It is God who brings about this growth.
Theme: The mustard tree in today's gospel symbolises a person's growth from a first encounter with the Word of God into becoming a deeply rooted believing and caring Christian.
Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord- for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come." He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Intercessions
- that as long as life lasts we may continue growing as deeply rooted and caring Christians.
- that, as the stewards of creation, we may become more conscious of, and protective towards, our environment.
- that we may better develop our natural resources to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.
- for this worshiping community, that our faith may be shared, and shine out its light upon our lives.
Thoughts for 11th Sunday, B
Jesus said to the crowd: "This is what the kingdom of God is like." Nowhere, however, does he tell us in so many words what the kingdom of God actually is. He only tells us what it is like, or that it is near. Moreover, it is with great difficulty that we can arrive at any understanding of the kingdom's original meaning. The Pharisees equated it with total and absolute observance of the Mosaic Law; the Zealots saw it as a political state established by force of arms with God as supreme ruler; the Essenes despairing of the society of their day imagined it as heralding the end of the world, and so they withdrew to Qumran and elsewhere, in the Dead Sea wilderness, to await its coming. Even through the centuries, among Christians, it has been interpreted in various ways.
Nevertheless there is no doubt but that the heart of Jesus' message about the kingdom is summed up in his first recorded words in Mark's gospel (1:15), "Repent and believe in the good news." The word "repent" has a deeper meaning than just being sorry. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand" (Mt 3:2), John the Baptist told those who went out into the desert to listen to him. And Peter preaching to the crowd after the first Pentecost said "You must repent, and every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 2:38). Repent is a translation of a Greek word (metanoia), which means "a change of mind." So the Baptist and Peter were urging their listeners to reform their lives, to undergo a conversion that touched their inner being. Conversion here does not mean a change of religion, nor making a special effort to keep the commandments, although these can be part of it. Conversion is a total and utter change of mind and heart.
This is what St Paul was trying to get the Ephesians to do when he told them, "Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution" (4:23). The kingdom of God becomes for people a search for peace, freedom, and justice, a meaning to life itself. Left to one's own resources a person is incapable of gaining these. But they can be attained by faith, by trusting absolutely in God, and seeing him as a loving Father. In the gospels God is called Father no less than 170 times. In the Old Testament, God was described as Father also, but Jesus introduced something unique. Not only did he speak of God as Father; he addressed him as Father. God is near, Jesus proclaimed, and he accepted people no matter what they had done. God's kindness and loving care knows no limits: it extends even to such insignificant creatures as sparrows. "Can you not buy five sparrows for two pennies. And yet not one is forgotten in God's sight" (Lk 12:6).
The coming of the kingdom is the revelation that God is in love - in love with all his creatures. But this does not mean that human beings are merely called to bask in this love. Rather is the call to us, repent, change your mind, change it utterly, trust in God, believe in Christ's message. This is the challenge the Christian is confronted with. Our response in faith becomes our reply to God's love, and is at the same time love for God and love for our neighbour. Christ in his preaching of the kingdom promises the fulfilment of all human hopes, expectations and longings for a transformation of the world. The blind are to see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead to be raised up and the poor to have the good news preached to them. Those whom Christ calls blessed are not the propertied, but rather the poor, the hungry, the mourners, the despised and persecuted.
This does not imply that Christ had in mind a programme for social reform. He was a realist. "The poor you always have with you," he said (Mk 14:7). He shows no hatred towards the rich, but receives and accepts their invitations. His poor are those who have nothing to expect from the world, but expect everything from God. They have been driven to the limits of endurance, and are beggars before God. Only from God can they expect help. And God, in the person of Christ, did not distance himself from such, people like the despised tax-collectors, the lepers, the harlots, the public sinners who were held up to public contempt as being godless.
But God is love, and the coming of God's kingdom means that salvation is at hand for everyone. For, as evidenced in the person of Christ, love is stronger than hatred, than persecution, than injustice, stronger even than death. Love is the only thing which lasts for ever, and what is done out of love endures for ever.
This is a time of the year when many of the young people in our parishes will be sitting major exams, leaving school and facing into adult life as they seek full-time employment for the first time. This is something which involves their families as well as themselves. It is a situation which lends itself to reflection on the future, to consideration of the goals they are trying to achieve. It is also a time when people need to be given courage and hope in the face of an uncertain future. We might select aspects of this situation which are relevant to his own people as an introduction to the theme of hope which comes through all the readings in today's liturgy.
For many of our congregations the allegorical details of the Ezekiel passage will lack impact, but what might be emphasized from it is the notion that the future restoration of his people will be the work of God - i.e. only he can bring it about. The concluding words of the passage are especially important, "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it." So the future is based on God's own promise, and it is this principle which still applies today. We can have no future without God. The virtue of hope then focuses our attention on the divinely given future; it is a future that is essentially beyond ordinary human foresight. Without the gift of God's promise we could not even glimpse this future; it would be invisible. We walk by faith and not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:6 cp. Rom. 8:24-25).
So the hope that God offers is something that otherwise would have been unexpected.
The homilist might return to outline some ordinary human expectations - the kind of success we would like to achieve in our work, happiness and fulfilment in our relationships, more exalted ambitions of advancing human knowledge or contributing to the development of one's society or the world. Such aspirations are important because they open our lives beyond the complacency of present achievements. They remind us that our lives should never become static; they need to grow continually .... Such growth is fostered by our openness to the future. This openness is a reminder that the present state of things (at any particular point in our lives) cannot remain the same; it is limited and already passing away, This transient quality of our temporal existence is something we can often experience as a dissatisfaction with our affairs and a longing for something better. Such longings can easily end in either ennui or despair if they are confined within the limits of the present age, but take on their real importance ad value when transformed by hope in God.
If our hopes were only for this world they will too often end in disillusionment and this is something which undoubtedly happened in the lives of the disciples of Jesus. They expected immediate concrete results from the kingdom which he claimed to be bringing; instead of this they were confronted with failure. To help their faith to survive this disappointment Jesus had to direct their gaze beyond the present as a visible reality to the future which had already begun in an invisible way. It is not just playing with words. He reminds their faith that even in nature small beginnings produce unforeseen fruits; how much more will this be the case with the growth of God's reign?
Trees bring the four seasons into the heart of a great city: spring with its brave new foliage, the thick green leafy shade of summer, golden autumn transforming it into a gilded city and snow-covered in winter into a vast iced fairyland. "Dear old dirty Dublin" has its own special charm, as that expression indicates. However, the warmth of its citizens is not quite matched by the elegance of its streets. But all that may well be changing, as some years ago the city fathers launched a vast scheme for tree planting. I had an apartment in a southern suburb there shortly after the planting had began. Returning from work one evening, I was dismayed to discover that somebody had broken a branch of a tender young sapling just outside my window. The frac tured limb, still hanging limply, was not completely severed from the tree. While I looked out my window in anger and dismay, an elderly neighbour emerged from his house carrying bandages, sticking plaster and short lengths of timber. He began to treat the broken lib, gently easing the damaged tendons back into place, binding up the wound, encasing it in solidly bandaged splints to support the fracture. For months I watched to see would the branch grow back again. One day new buds appeared and soon afterwards, my elderly neighbour came back to remove the bandages and splints.
It is surprising how much of the story of our salvation is peopled by these leafy giants. It was in a tree-filled garden that God placed our first parents, with permission to eat the fruit of all except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Perversely, they did and were expelled from there in fig-leafed disgrace. Noah and his extended family were saved by God from the waters of the flood in an ark specifically constructed from a gopher tree, and it was with a leaf of an olive tree in its beak that the dove reported the eventual subsidence of the waters. Out of a burning bush, God called Moses to set his people free and lead them to the Promised Land. The prophet Ezekiel proclaims, today as long ago, that God will make "low trees grow" and the Psalmist assures us that "the just will flourish like the palm-tree and grow like the cedar of Lebanon."
But it is above all in the Christ-story of the New Testament that the theme of trees is most frequently invoked. Jesus is called "the tree of life" and compares himself to the true vine of which we are the branches. Like trees, we are exhorted "to go forth and bear fruit." Today, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a mustard tree, whose seed is so tiny, yet matures into a giant. In the end, it was on the tree of the cross that our salvation was won.
Throughout, trees symbolise, as in today's gospel, growth and shelter. In the Middle East where Christianity has its roots, trees represent fertility in that near desert climate. A cluster of trees there forms an oasis with life-giving water. In its shade, nomadic man and beast find shelter from a relentless sun. In more Northern climes, they provide shelter too, from rain and wind. No Irish farmhouse is without its shelter belt. What country cyclist hasn't taken shelter under a tree from that sudden shower, that unpredictable squall? My elderly neighbour was being profoundly Christian when he doctored that injured sapling back to health. It was a sermon of gospel stature! The poet might well have included other preachers in his modesty when he wrote:
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
The priest at the altar, with arms outstretched, tree-like, prays for himself and his community that, deeply rooted in the gospels, they will grow into believing and caring Christians, stretching out their arms to offer shelter to the world's homeless.
Jesus uses simple parables about everyday things to explain to his disciples how the kingdom of God grows among us. Like the brilliant teacher that he is, he brought them from the known to the unknown by referring to things with which they were familiar in their everyday lives.
One of the legends in the life of St Patrick is that he used the shamrock as a way of illustrating the teaching about the Blessed Trinity. On stem, one plant, with three leaves. Each leaf was different, and yet was part of the plant. The leaves had a common unity, a common source, and they shared a common life. All three were necessary to make the plant a shamrock, to make the unit a whole.
In a way, today's gospel brings us right back to the beginning of creation. God took clay, and breathed his Spirit into it, and human life began. "Humus" is the Latin for clay and, so, we are human. Jesus stays close to base today when he speaks of the seeds being placed in the clay, and what happens after that. The seeds contained within themselves whatever it takes to grow. All they needed was the proper kind of clay. The clay contributed the conditions in which the seeds could sprout and grow. The clay doesn't have to do anything beyond providing the proper conditions, and the seeds will do the rest.
The farmer trusts both the clay and the seeds. He goes about his business and lets nature get on with its business. The work of the Spirit of God within us is silent, certain, and sacred. Have you ever noticed, after a shower of rain, that there is one spot that is quite dry, while a few feet away there is a pool of water? One part of the ground was open to receive the rain, while the other part was so hardened that the rain could not enter; and so, it will have to return to the clouds from whence it came.
Jesus uses the image of the mustard seed, because it is one of the smallest seeds you could find. And yet, to look at a mustard tree, fully grown, is really impressive. It takes five years for the seed of a bamboo tree to show any growth above ground. And then it grows to a height of 90 feet in six weeks. Five years of preparation, of putting down roots, of spreading out underground so as to have access to plenty of food. And then, and only then, does it take off.
The final line of the gospel is enlightening. When he was alone with his apostles, he explained the parables in detail to them. This is the idea behind prayer. If I spend time with the Lord, I will be let into the secrets of the kingdom. There is such a thing as prayer being a school, where Jesus is the teacher. I am not speaking here of saying prayers. I am speaking of reflection, of moments of quiet, of times of meditation and contemplation. There is nothing difficult or sophisticated about this. I could sit looking at a waterfall for hours, and be filled with wonder at God's creation. I could wander the valleys in the mountains, and discover that I am in a prayer-room.
A group of men were returning from a conference and were rushing by taxi to catch a train. As they arrived at the railway station, the train was ready to move off. They already had their tickets, so they rushed across the platform and began to board the train. In their hurry, however, one of the men accidentally brushed against a table on the platform, and scattered some of the apples that the seller had packed neatly in a pyramid. As it happened, this man was a Christian, someone in whom the Spirit of God was living and working. Without any further thought he shouted to the others to go on ahead, and he would catch the next train. He returned to the table and the apples, to find that the person in charge was a twelve-year-old boy, and he was blind. He was waiting for his mother to return from the shop across the road. The man gathered the scattered apples, put aside some that were slightly damaged, and stacked the others neatly, just as they had been before being scattered. When the job was finished, the man took some money from his pocket, put it in the boy's hand, and said, "that will cover for the apples that are damaged. I'm sorry for what has happened, and I hope I haven't spoiled your day." He squeezed the boy's hand in a reassuring way, and turned to walk away. As he did so, the boy turned in his direction, and asked simply, "Excuse me, sir, but eh, are you Jesus?'
That man was a living sign of the kingdom Jesus is speaking about.
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