Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Genesis 1:20—2:4  +  Mark 7:1-13
February 9, 2021

“Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”

If you were to ask a Catholic third grader, “What’s the first of God’s Commandments?”, the child might dutifully reply, “I am the Lord your God:  you shall not have strange gods before me.”  While we might congratulate Johnny for his studiousness, we’d assume he meant we were asking about the Ten Commandments.

Of course, the Ten Commandments first appear in the Book of Exodus.  But God gives many commands before that point in the Bible.  In today’s First Reading—from the first two chapters of the Bible—we hear the “original first commandment” to His human children, who were created in His Image and likeness.  “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”  Note that there are two elements to this command, each shedding light on the other.

The first is God’s command to be fertile.  In honoring this command, man—male and female—reflect the abundance of God’s own love.  That’s why the Church teaches that deliberately thwarting the gift of fertility is a grave offense against God’s loving creation of man in His own Image.

The second is man’s subduing of the earth.  The following sentence clarifies the meaning of “subdue” through God’s command to man to “have dominion”.  “Dominion” is related to the Latin word for “Lord” (“Dominus”).  Mankind’s dominion over the earth is an on-going act of stewardship, caring for God’s creation with respect for God—not man—as the Creator.

Monday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Genesis 1:1-19  +  Mark 6:53-56
February 8, 2021

God saw how good it was.

In today’s First Reading the Church proclaims the first nineteen verses of the Bible.  The Church proclaims the First Reading at weekday Mass from Genesis for almost two weeks during Ordinary Time:  this week and next.  Today and tomorrow the First Readings present the narrative of God’s six days of creation, and His rest on the seventh.

Today’s Responsorial is a commentary on the First Reading.  To some degree, this psalm repeats what we hear in Genesis 1:1-19.  But the psalm also does more.  The Responsorial’s refrain points to this something “more”.

“May the Lord be glad in His works.”  Regarding each of the created works of the first, third and fourth days, “God saw how good it was.”  Within the narrative of God’s work of Creation, this sentence serves as a refrain, repeated over and over.

But today’s Responsorial refrain adds something more.  To God’s “seeing” the goodness of creation, the psalm refrain points to the Lord being glad in His works.  This “being glad” (the Latin Vulgate uses the verb ‘laetare’, meaning ‘to rejoice’) tells us something about God Himself, and likewise about us who are created in His Image and likeness.  Indeed, we can imagine that God’s “rest” on the seventh day was not some sort of “Sunday afternoon nap”, but a “day long” rejoicing in the works He worked by His divine Word.

St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
Hebrews 13:15-17,20-21  +  Mark 6:30-34
February 6, 2021

“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”

In listening to the words of the Gospel passage and applying them to our lives, perhaps we have not listened as carefully—or as fully—as we should have.  In this passage Jesus says to us what Jesus says to His apostles:  “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  He invites them by His words to imitate Him:  He calls them to follow Him to a deserted place.

Jesus leads the apostles there, but when they arrive at the place, Jesus sees a vast crowd.  What does he do?  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, begins feeding the flock with his teaching.  Again Jesus is speaking to His apostles, but this time He invites them by His actions to imitate Him:  He calls them to follow Him into the midst of the crowd.

Jesus’ life in this passage teaches us the meaning of the words sometimes attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi:  “O Divine Master / grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console / to be understood as to understand / to be loved as to love.  / For it is in giving that we receive….”

These words lead us back again to the scene of the Gospel.  Can we see that Jesus is teaching us that to be a faithful shepherd is to be a faithful steward, to offer everything to God, both our work and our rest?  Nothing, not a thing, is ours, not even the rest that we enjoy in the midst of a busy day, for even the rest we are granted prepares us only to serve both God and others more fully.

St. Agatha, Virgin Martyr
Hebrews 13:1-8  +  Mark 6:14-29
February 5, 2021

When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

Today’s Gospel passage presents a long flashback to the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist.  It’s notable that St. Mark the Evangelist, so concerned with brevity in his Gospel account, gives so much attention to this narrative.  St. John was obviously a figure of importance in relating the Good News to early Christians, even in regard to his death.

What distinguishes St. John the Baptist as a saint?  We might say that it’s his particular combination of humility and courage.  Sometimes humility (and also meekness) are seen in opposition to courage.  In this false light, humility is a form of weakness and submission, involving an inability to stand up for oneself.

In one sense, humility truly is a form of submission.  Humility truly means not seeing oneself as the center of the universe, or the king of the hill.  In turn, humility truly means recognizing one’s true place in life.  This truth tenders a capacity for strength that doesn’t consider earthly life as one’s purpose in life.  This truth leads to a courage willing to forfeit one’s earthly life for eternal life.  St. John the Baptist witnessed to Christ in his penitence, in his preaching, in his knowing that Jesus must increase and he must decrease, and in his acceptance of the gift of martyrdom.

The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Job 7:1-4,6-7  +  1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23  +  Mark 1:29-39

“For this purpose have I come.”

+     +     +

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 547-550: healing as a sign of messianic times
CCC 1502-1505: Christ the Healer
CCC 875, 1122: the urgency of preaching

+     +     +

In Sunday’s Gospel Reading, the people around Jesus seem to believe that the cures He’s working are the “good news” of the Gospel.  We have to remember that the word “gospel” literally means “good news”, and that Jesus had gone around Palestine for some time preaching that he had a message of “good news” for them.

But here we see a common misunderstanding among those who heard Jesus.  They didn’t exactly understand what Jesus’ “good news” concerned.  Was it good financial news?  News of good weather for the crops for the next hundred years?  Was it news of Israel’s freedom from its slavery to the Roman Empire?  The people in today’s Gospel Reading focus their attention upon the “good news” that Jesus has for them about their physical suffering.

Now we as Catholics living in modern times know that the meaning of the Gospel is that we are freed from slavery to sin, not simply that we are freed from the slavery of our bodies to disease.  The people in Palestine, however, were so caught up in the wonder of Jesus’ physical cures that they couldn’t understand that Jesus was simply using these cures as signs.  These miracles were healings of the body that foreshadowed the more radical healing of the soul.

We shouldn’t fault these people in the Gospel.  After all, who among us, when faced with disease, doesn’t find it easy to get caught up in the misery and suffering it brings about?  All you want is for the suffering to be over.  “Life on earth is a drudgery,” as Job says in the First Reading.  Suffering seems to consume your life.

So it’s easy to see why a person in the first century, suddenly and dramatically freed from serious sickness, would look upon Jesus as his Messiah for that very reason.  Nonetheless, Jesus’ purpose in working these cures is to point our attention beyond them to something infinitely greater.

By putting our faith in Jesus—that is, by believing that through His holy Cross He has redeemed the world—we are freed from the slavery of our souls to sin.  But the larger question that Jesus points to in this Gospel passage is not, “What are you a slave to?” (the correct answer being, “Sin”).  The larger question that Jesus points to is, “Who is it who has enslaved you to sin?”  This isn’t a question that the people in the Gospel were ready to hear, but we as Catholics ought to consider this question seriously.  “Who has enslaved you to sin?”

The answer is:  “you have.”  Practically speaking, this is one of the hardest teachings of the Church.  It’s a teaching that often derails a Christian’s efforts at spiritual direction.  We might take it for granted that we are responsible for our actions.  But if we look closely at our actions, we might be surprised how often we deceive ourselves.

Like our first parents, Adam and Eve, there is a constant tendency within us to shift the blame.  “Who ate the apple?  Well, I did, but she made me do it.”  We may not even shift the blame to another person, but rather to the circumstances in which we find ourselves in life.  “If only I didn’t have to be around that person so much, I wouldn’t be so bothered by him,” or “if only if I didn’t have to finish that work by next week, I would do a better job on it.”

There is no denying that we are influenced by others, even at times perhaps by the Devil himself.  Nonetheless, each person must accept responsibility for his or her sinful actions.  A good Examination of Conscience each night can be a great help in this regard.

When we recognize how powerless we are to do good on our own, and when we accept the fact that it is through God’s grace that we can both be saved and do good works, then we are moving in the direction that Jesus points in today’s Gospel Reading.  He is pointing us, through His Cross, towards the very source of all good:  namely, Jesus’ own eternal Father, who, as the priest names Him in the confessional when giving absolution, is “God, the Father of mercies.”

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 12:18-19,21-24  +  Mark 6:7-13
February 4, 2021

[Jesus] summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two.

The meaning of Jesus’ two-fold action of summoning and sending in today’s Gospel passage is based on the literal meaning of the word “apostle”, which is “one who is sent”.  But today’s summoning and sending, in chapter 6 of St. Mark’s Gospel account, is different from a second apostolic mission on which these men will be sent.  That latter mission occurs in the final chapter, where in fact only eleven apostles remain.

The key distinction is what the Twelve here are sent to do.  This is a preparatory mission:  to preach repentance, drive out demons, and anoint and cure the sick.  Here the Twelve turn people around from the negative, to prepare them to receive the positive.  Their mission here is something akin to the vocation of St. John the Baptist:  to prepare for something—Someone—greater.

In Mark’s final chapter, the apostles are sent to accomplish something radically different.  They are sent not just to the sick, but to “the whole world”.  They are sent not just within the Holy Land, but “to the whole world”.  They are sent not to preach repentance, but to “proclaim the Gospel” [16:15].  For each of us, in the on-going conversion of our lives to Christ, we need to listen and be receptive to the works of both of these missions:  turning away from our sins, so that we within our own vocations can proclaim the Gospel by living the Gospel.

Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 12:4-7,11-15  +  Mark 6:1-6
February 3, 2021

He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Today’s Gospel passage, from the sixth chapter of Mark, doesn’t really end on a high note.   In His native place, Jesus was not able to perform any mighty deed, apart from curing a few sick people.  He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Why did they lack faith?  Why do we lack faith?  Why do we focus on the less important things in life:  the less important types of freedom?  St. Mark begins his Gospel account by answering this question.  The first recorded words of Jesus are proclaimed immediately after He spends forty days in the desert, tempted by Satan.  He emerges from the desert, and the first words He speaks frame the entire Gospel.  Jesus proclaims, “This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” 

Repent, and believe in the Gospel.  We might say that these two demands of Jesus sum up the entire Christian faith.  They lead us to faith.  They lead to true freedom.  And they require us to exercise our freedom in its deepest sense:  that is, in our relationship with God.

True repentance means to turn oneself around 180°:  to turn oneself away from sin, and towards God, not simply towards ourselves, and what we think we want.  This is the highest type of freedom:  to be able to do things for others, or in other words, to give our very self to another (another human person, or God).

The Presentation of the Lord
Malachi 3:1-4  +  Hebrews 2:14-18  +  Luke 2:22-40 [or Lk 2:22-32]
February 2, 2021

“… for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples ….”

Today’s feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple draws us back into thoughts of Christmastide and Epiphanytide, even though those seasons ended some weeks ago.  Yet today we celebrate another mystery of Jesus’ early life:  the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  February 2nd falls forty days after Christmas Day, creating an obvious parallel to the Resurrection and Ascension.  Nonetheless, no matter how long Christmas lasts, today’s feast points our attention towards the giving of presents.     Just as the name of today’s feast is the “presentation” of the Lord, the meaning of the feast shows that the Lord is a present to be given to others.  On the one hand, God the Father gave His only Son as a present to the human family.  But on this feast of the Presentation, we see humans giving this present of Jesus to others, both back to God and to other humans.

For Joseph and Mary this presentation was what we in our day might call a supreme act of stewardship:  they recognized that not only were their time, talent, and treasure from God, but their first-born son as well.  The gift of human life, like a marriage between a man and a woman, only exists through the grace of God.  As an act of stewardship, then, Mary and Joseph present their new-born son back to God, recognizing that God is the ultimate Father of Jesus.

Joseph and Mary’s presentation of Jesus to God the Father was a sacrifice not offered only once.  Joseph and Mary continually offered this sacrifice as Jesus continued to grow.  When Jesus was twelve and Joseph and Mary lost and then found Jesus in the Temple teaching the scribes, Jesus expressed little concern about their worry.  He asked them, “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?”  This was not callousness on the part of Jesus, but a call for Mary and Joseph to recognize that as parents, they were not the ultimate meaning of their child’s life.

But even that event of the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, as much as it may have initially shaken Mary and Joseph, was almost nothing in comparison to the event that would take place on the Cross on Calvary some twenty years later.  It is there, on Calvary, that the greatest presentation took place.

Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 11:32-40  +  Mark 5:1-20
February 1, 2021

… 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 Back Yard”.  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 to SportsCenter.

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.