Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
II Samuel 15:13-14,30;16:5-13  +  Mark 5:1-20
January 29, 2018

…they began to beg [Jesus] to leave their district.

Demonic possession is an extremely serious matter.  While some today dismiss it, suggesting that all reported cases of possession are in fact psychological disorders, the Church takes today’s Gospel passage at its word.

One striking point in this narrative is the reaction of people to the swineherds’ report:  “they began to beg [Jesus] to leave their district.”  Why do the people react this way?  One might expect the people to express gratitude to Jesus, and invite Him to stay as their protector.

Perhaps the people were in shock, never before imagining that demons might dwell among them.  However, demonic possession in the Holy Land was not uncommon in Jesus’ day.  Perhaps the reaction of the people reflected what today is described by the acronym “NIMBY”:  “Not In My BackYard”.  When terrible violence erupts in a metropolis, many people on hearing the news shake their heads, say a prayer for those affected, and then turn the channel.

But if such violence erupts in their own hamlet, they express disbelief at how such violence could happen “here”.  Sin, violence and death are here, there and everywhere.  While each of us needs to practice prudence to deter them, we should have no illusions of escaping them.  In the midst of such illusions, Christ has no place.

The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Deut 18:15-20  +  1 Cor 7:32-35  +  Mk 1:21-28
January 28, 2018

…He taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

The people in today’s Gospel passage are astonished at Jesus’ teaching, “for He taught them as one having authority”.  Towards the passage’s end, all are amazed at this “new teaching with authority”.  This “authority” is worth our reflection.

In ordinary use, the word “authority” has a meaning much weaker than the way it’s used in today’s passage.  A police office has authority to make an arrest within his jurisdiction.  A judge has the authority to pass sentence in her courtroom.  A colonel has authority to issue commands within the range of his commission.  But in each case, this authority has been handed down from a higher authority:  the chief of police, the governor, or the colonel’s commanding officers.  Yet those higher authorities themselves report to others, within chains of commands that reach upwards.

By contrast, the amazement in the Gospel passage is that Jesus is leap-frogging over all human forms and chains of authority.  This is testified to by the novelty of his teaching.  His teaching doesn’t seem to have been “handed down” from anyone.  It just appears seemingly out of nowhere.

Perhaps part of the amazement at Jesus’ teaching is the contrast between Him and Judaism’s long tradition of prophets.  In today’s First Reading, we hear the first Jewish prophet, Moses, prophesy about the fulfillment of a strange request from the Jewish people:  “‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’”  Apparently, God’s self-revelation was too much for them to accept.  Perhaps they thought that that same revelation when handed down to them by prophets would be more palatable, or at least watered-down.  In any case, Moses explains that God will indeed fulfill their request.  Yet one ought to be careful about what one requests from God.

Jesus Christ is more than only a prophet, of course, but He does fulfill the role of prophecy that began with Moses.  It was Him of whom Moses prophesied in today’s First Reading.  Why, then, are the Jewish people so surprised at Jesus’ teaching?  Wasn’t Jesus’ teaching in line with that of Moses?  Wouldn’t those listening to Jesus have heard Him echoing the prophecy laid down by Moses in the first five books of Scripture?

We might consider two reasons for the confusion caused by Jesus’ teaching.

First, so many centuries after Moses prophesied, his teaching was clouded by the legislation taught by the scribes.  The Jews could no longer see the Law for the laws.  St. Mark the Evangelist points specifically to this contrast:  Jesus “taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”  So if the revelation originally given Moses had become obscured, it’s not surprising that one who fulfills Moses’ prophecy would also seem obscure.  The scribes, for one, weren’t wanting what Jesus had to offer.

Second, even those such as the Pharisee Nicodemus, who perceived in Jesus someone well worth listening to, had difficulty grasping the fullness of Jesus’ words.  Even for those persons who had a clear belief in Moses’ prophecy, something seemed out of order in Jesus’ teaching.

With the hindsight of 2000 years of the Church’s history, we can see what even faithful Jews like Nicodemus could not:  namely, the order of Jesus and Moses.  It wasn’t that Jesus echoed Moses, but that Moses had echoed Jesus.  Before Moses was, Jesus is.  Jesus’ authority comes from the simple fact that He Is Who Is:  He is the eternal God who authored all of creation in the beginning.  Jesus does not come to us, though, in thundering voice or in great fire on Mt. Sinai, but in the silence of Mt. Calvary and the fire of the Upper Room on Pentecost.

Saturday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time [II]
II Samuel 12:1-7,10-17  +  Mark 4:35-41
January 27, 2018

“Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

Is today’s lesson not to wake Jesus?  The miracle in today’s Gospel passage seems to be Jesus rebuking the wind and sea, resulting in “great calm”.  However, it’s not only the wind and sea that Jesus rebukes.  Perhaps more important is Jesus’ rebuke of His disciples.

Jesus chooses not to calm the disturbance in His disciples’ souls in the same manner that He calms the sea and wind.  But He does challenge them:  “Do you not yet have faith?”  His rebuke of the elements and of His disciples seems to have a meritorious effect on them.  “They were filled with awe” at His power over the elements.  But is this the faith He demanded of them?

It’s only natural to be impressed at the power of nature, and of God’s power over nature.  It’s something supernatural, however, to allow God to have power over oneself.  This is the sort of faith Jesus is asking for from His disciples.  Faith is a gift freely given, but it’s also a gift that must be freely accepted.  Jesus will not calm our souls without our consent, or rather, our faith in His power to do so.  The disciples marvel at Jesus as one “whom even wind and sea obey”.  Even more marvelous, however, is a disciple who obeys Jesus as His Lord.

Saints Timothy & Titus, Bishops
2 Timothy 1:1-8  +  Mark 4:26-34
January 26, 2018

“This is how it is with the Kingdom of God….”

Jesus today proclaims two parables about the Kingdom of God.  In wanting to understand these parables, we might wonder what exactly the Kingdom of God is.  Is the Kingdom of God the realm of Heaven, or is it the Church?  Is it some measure of both, or something else entirely, such as the individual Christian’s soul?

Jesus never directly addresses this question.  But even without defining “the Kingdom of God”, we can say that the kernel of each “Kingdom parable” describes in some way the reality of Heaven, and/or the Church, and/or the Christian’s soul.

Take Jesus’ second parable in today’s Gospel passage.  The change from the “smallest of all the seeds” to “the largest of plants” seems more easily applied to the Church and the Christian soul than to Heaven.  Tertullian wrote that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”, a phrase through which we can see how this parable applies to the Church.  With God, all things are possible:  from a natural death, springs supernatural life.  Or as the Church prays to the Father in one of the prefaces for martyrs at Holy Mass:  by “your marvelous works” “in our weakness you perfect your power / and on the feeble bestow strength to bear you witness, through Christ our Lord.”

The Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle
Acts 22:3-16  +  Mark 16:15-18
January 25, 2018

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

The Conversion of St. Paul might seem difficult for us to relate to, especially if we are cradle Catholics.  St. Paul’s conversion was from a strict Pharisaical form of Judaism to a living faith in Jesus Christ.  But we could expand on this by saying that Paul’s conversion was from one understanding of sacrifice to another.  Saul was not a Levite, but his concept of sacrifice as a faithful Jew would have been based on temple sacrifices.

Christian sacrifice, however, is not of exterior things, but of what is most interior and personal.  It’s a sacrifice not of animals, but of one’s very self, and of one’s whole self:  body, soul and spirit.  We might say that when you convert to Christ, your life is over; you live no more, but Christ lives in you [see Galatians 2:20].  This is exemplified impressively in the Order of Saint Benedict, which at religious professions have their newly professed lay prostrate in the sanctuary of their church, and cover the newly professed in a large funeral pall.

What all three readings today (including the Responsorial Psalm) profess is the link between conversion and mission.  “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.”  One of the worst afflictions within the Church today is a privatization of the Faith:  that is, believing that one’s faith should only be a personal matter, something best kept to oneself, for the sake of getting oneself to Heaven.  There are countless forms in which a baptized Christian might evangelize others, but every baptized Christian is called to evangelize those without faith.

St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
II Samuel 7:4-17  +  Mark 4:1-20
January 24, 2018

“But those sown on rich soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit….”

Given that Saint Mark’s Gospel account—the shortest of the four—focuses more on Jesus’ actions than His preaching, we ought to take special note of the preaching that Mark does choose for inclusion in his Gospel account.  We might consider the parables Mark includes as a “best of…” list.

Today’s Gospel passage has three parts.  The first and the last are Jesus’ proclamation of a parable, and the parable’s explanation.  In between, Jesus briefly explains His general purpose in preaching through parables.  Most of the fourth chapter of Mark consists of parables, and today’s Gospel passage consists of the first twenty verses of Mark 4, so today’s parable is of primary importance.

The Parable of the Sower, Mark’s telling of which is a mere six verses, has inspired dissertations hundreds of pages long.  Like the mustard seed (to allude to a different parable), its size belies its potential.  To choose one simple facet of today’s parable:  who is the sower?  There are at least two answers.  The parable can be thought of in terms of the sower being either God the Father, or you as an individual.  Here consider the former scenario.

The sower is God the Father.  He sows His Word (God the Son) prodigally.  What seems like foolishness or imprudence in His manner of sowing is in fact a measure of His love’s depth.  He offers His Word even to those of us whose souls are rocky or otherwise inhospitable.  The challenge here is for each individual to till the soil of the soul, or otherwise clear and tend it as needed to allow the word to take root there.

Tuesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time [II]
II Samuel 6:12-15,17-19  +  Mark 3:31-35
January 23, 2018

“For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

The heart of today’s Gospel passage is “the will of God”.  Jesus explains that doing the will of God is what forms the bonds of kinship within God’s family.  In doing so, Jesus is not downplaying the significance of His Blessed Mother or any other blood- or legal relatives.  After all, why did God the Father choose the young Mary to be the Mother of God if not because her response at the Annunciation—“Let it be done unto me according to thy word”—is the perfect embodiment of understanding and carrying out the will of God.

When you pray the rosary today and meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries, ask Our Lady for an outpouring of grace from her Son.  Ask her that you might use this strength not for your own desires, but only to accomplish what the Lord deems necessary in your life to draw you and those you love closer to Him.

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children
II Samuel 5:1-7,10  +  Mark 3:22-30
January 22, 2018

“And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”

Jesus’ parables most often describe the Kingdom of God.  But today He preaches about the Kingdom by what in theology is called a “via negativa”:  that is, describing someone or something by what he, she or it is not, rather than what he, she or it is.  Jesus today describes what the Kingdom of God is not in rebutting the claims of the scribes.

The chief point of the parables we hear Jesus preach today is that Satan can have no place in the Kingdom of God.  He begins by debunking the scribes’ claim with simple logic.  But Jesus moves by the end of today’s passage to a “via positiva”, in which He points out why Satan can have no place within the Kingdom:  because the Kingdom is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, the new creation in which the Holy Spirit hovers over the face of the Kingdom [see Genesis 1:2].

Still, in our own day we have to put Jesus’ parables in context.  We cannot help but realize that the Kingdom of God which Jesus so often preaches about is not strictly identical with the Church that Jesus founded when He walked this earth.  Would that it were so!  How clearly we can see the sins of members of the Church.  Through these sins, the absence of the Holy Spirit makes itself known.  Our sins can be forgiven, and our charity can point to the Kingdom of God, but both are possible only through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Jon 3:1-5,10  +  1 Cor 7:29-31  +  Mk 1:14-20
January 21, 2018

“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Consider this thought experiment.  Three men are standing side-by-side.  The one in the center is a married Catholic layman.  The one to the right is a Catholic priest.  The one to the left is a married man who doesn’t believe in God.  The $64,000 question is:  which two men are more alike?

If you tried to answer that question by watching their every move for a week (let’s imagine you had DVD’s of their lives, like a reality show), you might conclude that the two married men have the most in common.  After all, when each of these husbands returns home from work, he gives his wife a kiss.  Each of them shares with his wife the chores of their home, and each of them shares the responsibilities of rearing their children.

However, granting all these similarities, there’s still an argument to be made that the priest and Catholic married man have the most in common. Although the actions that the two husbands carry out look the same, beneath the surface of each human action—in the human heart, mind, and soul—lies the human motive.

In ethics, the word “motive” refers to motion, just as it implies in the word “automotive”.  The human motive is what gets the ball rolling. It moves the abstract idea out of the human mind and into the world through the work of the will. So ultimately, the motive that brings about a particular action has more significance than the appearance of that action.  Both are important, but the motive is primary.  This is why the priest and the Catholic married man have the potential to be more alike than the two husbands.

Put it this way:  because of his Baptism, the Catholic person’s motive can be—if he allows it—elevated by grace.  The Catholic person can search for his motive in the Holy Spirit.  On the other hand, while the motive of the atheist, when he does good, is still connected to God at least by virtue of his human nature, he doesn’t recognize it as such.  He bears limited fruit.

But the person who wants his will to cooperate with the Holy Spirit can bear limitless fruit.  He may appear to do the same actions as an unbeliever, but the love he is receiving from God and the love he has for God in his heart are the driving force behind these actions, and so they benefit not only his soul but the souls of the entire Body of Christ.  Not only this, but eventually even the appearance of his actions will change and reveal more clearly the work of the Holy Spirit.  The motive of love will become more obvious because the limitless nature of the love of God will reveal itself visibly in his actions.  He might start attending daily Mass, or decide to take his family on a mission trip, or perhaps start sharing about his faith at his place of work.

God told Jonah, in our First Reading, to “set out for the great city of Ninevah, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” He walked through this “enormously large city”, announcing to them that it would be destroyed in forty days.  We know his motives were pure, because to outward appearances, this would seem crazy.  In the Gospel passage, Jesus called the fishermen Simon, Andrew, James, and John:  “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  They left everything—boats, nets, fish, family—and followed Him immediately.  Again, this would not seem to a worldly man to be a well thought out, sane action.  But consider what motivated them.  God in the souls of Jonah and the first apostles moved them to action.

It’s within Jesus—that is, within His Mystical Body—that the Holy Spirit most powerfully works in the world.  Within the Church the Holy Spirit calls and empowers us who are members of this Body.  Through the Church we know that the Psalmist’s call will be fulfilled when we ourselves sing, “Teach me your ways, O Lord.”  Through the Church the Holy Spirit will enlighten and inspire each of us who is willing to allow God to motivate us for the sake of accomplishing His divine will.