The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Amos 7:12-15  +  Ephesians 1:3-14  +  Mark 6:7-13

“So they went off and preached repentance.”

Sometimes it’s better to step back and consider Scripture in general, and sometimes it’s better to focus on one of the day’s Scripture passages.  Sometimes, it’s best to do both.  One of the saints of our Church can help us do so.

Saint Thomas More, who lived in England in the 1500s, was a husband and father, lawyer and statesman.  St. Thomas was also devoted to learning more about his Catholic Faith.  He was chosen by the King of England for the position of Lord Chancellor, the second-most powerful position in the kingdom, second only to the king.

However, St. Thomas, unlike many who wield worldly power, was clear-sighted.  One day he said to his son-in-law, “If my head could win the king a castle in France, it would not fail to go.”  Those were prophetic words.  St. Thomas More was martyred by the King of England because St. Thomas refused to call the king the head of the Church within England.  The feast day of St. Thomas More is June 22^nd.

St. Thomas emphasized the need to read Sacred Scripture in the light of faith, with the early Fathers of the Church as guides.  About Sacred Scripture, St. Thomas wrote:  “Holy Scripture is the highest and best learning that any man can have, if one takes the right way in the learning.  It is [like a river] so marvellously well tempered that a mouse can wade therein and an elephant be drowned therein.”

This point about the elephant and the mouse is important to stop and consider.  Sometimes Christians think that they have to be an elephant when it comes to approaching Scripture.  That is to say, they think that if they’re going to approach Sacred Scripture, they have to tackle the entire Bible, and become a master of every book, chapter, and verse.  Frankly, that makes about as much sense as wanting to begin a walking regimen, and starting by walking to the top of Mount Everest.  Instead, it’s better to be a mouse.

When someone asks for counsel about reading, or studying, or reflecting upon Scripture more deeply, there are two points I make in reply.  The first is to start with one of the four Gospel accounts:  not “in the beginning” with the Book of Genesis, and not with the letters of St. Paul, as rich as they are, but instead with one of the four Gospel accounts.

The second point leads into today’s Scripture passages.  The second point to keep in mind when starting to read, study, or reflect upon Scripture more deeply is to be that mouse that St. Thomas More wrote about.  Specifically, when you turn to any chapter or paragraph of the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit to direct your mind and heart to one particular verse, or sentence, or even just a phrase.  That’s all you need.  That small creek of Scripture is enough to immerse yourself in the Word of God.  You don’t need to swim in the Mississippi.  You only need one verse, sentence, or phrase.

But then, once the Holy Spirit has helped you to select a specific verse, sentence, or phrase, ask Jesus, who is the Word of God made Flesh, to give you insight into the meaning of that verse, sentence, or phrase.

This past week, in preparing for this Sunday’s homily, the sentence that came to the forefront is the next-to-last sentence of today’s Gospel Reading.  “So they went off and preached repentance.”  What does Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, wants us to understand through these words?  We cannot exhaust their meaning, but we can ask the Lord Jesus to apply these words to our lives in the here and now.

Each one of us, by virtue of his or her baptism, is called by God to holiness.  There is no holiness for the sinner except by means of repentance.  Repentance, accepted through the virtue of humility, is the first step.

In turn, those who are called to shepherd others, have the responsibility to preach repentance to those entrusted to their care.  They may not do so from a pulpit, but they do so in the ordinary course of life.  Parents, for example, have to preach the need for repentance when their teenager, who has a curfew of midnight, comes home at 2:00 am.  In our civil society, citizens have to preach the need for repentance when laws fail to protect the lives of unborn children.

However, no Christian can preach to others unless he first examines his own conscience and seeks out what forgiveness he needs to accept from God or others.  Every night, during his prayers before falling asleep, the Christian disciple needs to make an examination of conscience, and pray the Confiteor or Act of Contrition.  Every month, the Christian disciple who wants to grow in holiness will accept Jesus’ gift of Divine Mercy through the Sacrament of Confession.

Growth in the Christian life begins with the virtue of humility, and repentance for one’s sins.  In other words, Christian growth is founded upon two basic truths of our Catholic Faith:  (1) that there is sin, and (2) that I am a sinner.

By contrast, we live in a world that professes two claims that contradict our Faith:  (1) that there is no objective truth, and therefore no such thing as sin, and (2) that instead, those who believe contrary to each other can only at best tolerate each other, or perhaps simply ignore each other, or at worst fight against each other.  However, if there is truth – and Jesus proclaims “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life” – then we are able to reason with others, even when we disagree with them, and even when there’s a need for repentance, whether on our part or on theirs.

Nonetheless, repentance is only the first step.  Because where there is human sin, there also is Christ willing to carry that sin on His shoulders to Calvary.  And where there is sin, there is Christ Jesus offering His grace.