The Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle
Acts 22:3-16 [or Acts 9:1-22]  +  Mark 16:15-18
January 25, 2021

“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:  a member of Israel’s priestly line.  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 has those new members lay prostrate in the sanctuary of the abbey church.  Then they are covered by 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, and which is merely 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.

Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 9:2-3,11-14  +  Mark 3:20-21
January 23, 2021

“He is out of His mind.”

Today’s Gospel passage is only two verses long.  But what it lacks in length, it makes up for with punch!  Jesus’ relatives “set out to seize Him, for they said, ‘He is out of His mind.’”

What were these relatives thinking, and who exactly were they?  We cannot imagine the Blessed Virgin Mary doing and saying such things.  But Jesus of course was from a large extended family, a fact made clear by the Gospel narrative of the finding of the boy Jesus in the Temple.  Being related by blood to Jesus clearly was no guarantee of understanding His identity.

Then again, most of those whom Jesus chose to be His Apostles abandoned Jesus in disbelief during Holy Week, after having followed Jesus for three years, witnessing His miracles and hearing His preaching of the Gospel.  So perhaps we need to cut His relatives some slack.  We might, then, realize that while you and I may not exactly be in “good” company when we ignore Jesus’ Lordship over our lives, we at least can point to a biblical precedent, and give thanks for Jesus’ patience with the failures of even those closest to Him.

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children
Hebrews 8:6-13  +  Mark 3:13-19
January 22, 2021

He appointed Twelve, whom He also named Apostles ….

The Gospel account of Saint Mark the Evangelist is by far the shortest of the four accounts of the Gospel.  The brevity of Mark’s account is complemented by its fervor.  Jesus in this account appears as a man of action.  Consider today’s Gospel passage in this context.

From the third of Mark’s 16 chapters, we hear today of Jesus calling His Twelve.  They are meant themselves to be men of action.  Jesus names them “Apostles, that they might be with Him and He might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.”

There are two points one might note in this sentence.  Given that the word “apostle” literally means “one who is sent”, the evangelist describes the type of mission these twelve will have.  But more primary than this being sent forth is the One who sends them.  Their “apostleship” is rooted not only in the person of Christ, but in their being “with Him”.  In our own manner, each of us as a baptized member of the Church is called to serve, but is called first to be “with Him” each day.

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Jonah 3:1-5,10  +  1 Corinthians 7:29-31  +  Mark 1:14-20

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

+     +     +

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

CCC 51-64: God’s plan of Revelation
CCC 1427-1433: inner, ongoing conversion
CCC 1886-1889: conversion and society

+     +     +

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 allow his motive to be animated by 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 tells Jonah in Sunday’s 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 its people that it would be destroyed in forty days.  Jonah’s words and action here might seem crazy to someone who knows nothing of God.  In the Gospel Reading, 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.  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.

St. Agnes, Virgin & Martyr
Hebrews 7:25—8:6  +  Mark 3:7-12
January 21, 2021

He warned them sternly not to make Him known.

At the end of today’s Gospel passage, after healing many persons, Jesus “warned [the unclean spirits] not to make Him known.”  Why does Jesus issue this warning?  “The Messianic Secret” is a phrase sometimes used to refer to the identity of Jesus, which fact He commands others—both friend and foe—not to reveal.  This warning/command comes from the nature of Jesus’ mission on earth.  How is this so?

God the Son was sent into our sinful world to become man, so that man might share in divine life.  In itself, this mission is not scandalous, even if it seems incredible.  However, the means by which God the Son would accomplish this mission did scandalize most of His friends and foes.  The folly of the Cross turned away many whom Jesus came to save.

If Jesus revealed His identity, it was only to advance His mission.  If Jesus was to advance His mission, He must reveal the glory of the Cross.  In this sense, Jesus’ identity and mission were bound up together during His earthly life.  To reveal one was to reveal the other.  But to reveal His mission was to risk driving away persons whom He wished to save.  The purpose of the “Messianic Secret”, then, is the prudential progression of His self-revelation.  That is, the purpose seeks to save as many as possible from their own self-delusions of grandeur:  delusions by which man believes that he can save himself, and that salvation comes from any source other than carrying one’s cross in union with the crucified Christ.

Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 7:1-3,15-17  +  Mark 3:1-6
January 20, 2021

But they remained silent.

In today’s Gospel passage Jesus asks, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”  His question is rhetorical.  The Pharisees understand Jesus’ question, and are very sure of His answer.  What they seem unsure of is whether Jesus would practice what He preached.

Keep in mind that today’s Gospel passage is from the third chapter of Mark.  In terms of the entire Gospel account, today’s Gospel passage is significant in that it’s Jesus’ first step towards Calvary.  There were three scenes in the second chapter where Jesus’ ministry provoked opposition.  But the last sentence of this passage is plain in announcing the plan of the Pharisees and Herodians “to put him to death.”

Jesus knew this, of course.  But He didn’t just accept the Cross as the price for practicing what He preached.  For us to think so would be putting the cart before the horse.  The Cross was Jesus’ vocation, the purpose for His descent from Heaven into our world of sin and death.  We can consider His three years of public ministry to be the prologue to or preparation for Holy Week.  We can consider those three years to be time during which Jesus invited others, by His words and deeds, to follow Him to Calvary.  In this we see that the Cross was Jesus’ vocation.

Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 6:10-20  +  Mark 2:23-28
January 19, 2021

“That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

This year, in these first weeks in Ordinary Time, we are hearing at weekday Mass from the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews.  This letter is unique in the whole of the Bible in how it bridges the two Testaments.  Early in the history of the Church a heresy existed called Marcionism, whose believers rejected the entire Old Testament.  They did not believe the Old Testament books to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes Christians even today reject every aspect of Jewish belief and thought.  The Letter to the Hebrews beautifully helps us to appreciate our Jewish heritage as members of Christ’s Body.

One of the more common themes of Hebrews is Jesus as our great High Priest.  Many Christians reject the belief that Jesus means for there to be an ordained priesthood within His Church.  Hebrews helps us to see how and why men are called by ordination to share in Jesus’ priesthood.

In today’s First Reading we hear about Abraham, who himself foreshadows the priesthood of Jesus Christ.  The reading specifically mentions the virtues of faith and patience by which Abraham carried out the priesthood he had received from God.  The sacrifice called for from priests—whether those who live out the baptismal priesthood or the ordained priesthood—seems taxing at times.  Yet priestly sacrifice always need to be carried out in light of “the promise” of which we hear in today’s passage.  “And so, after patient waiting, Abraham obtained the promise.”  Keeping in mind God’s promise to us not only gives us hope in the midst of sacrifice.  It helps us offer sacrifice rightly.

Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 5:1-10  +  Mark 2:18-22
January 18, 2021

“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?”

Today’s Gospel passage might seem confusing to those who wish to be devout Christians.  Along with the contrast between Jesus and John, there is a contrast between feasting and fasting.  Jesus’ disciples in this passage do not fast because He is with them.  Should Christians today, then, take part in the discipline of fasting?  Or would fasting imply a denial of Jesus’ presence and power in our lives?

Jesus gives us the key to applying this contrast to our own lives as 21^st century disciples.  He explains, “the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.”  But what exactly is “that day”?  In one sense, we could consider “that day” to refer to Good Friday, when Jesus offered His life.

But in a broader sense, you and I need to understand “that day” as referring to the lives of all members of the Body of Christ here below in this vale of tears:  all of us who are members of the Church Militant here on earth.  Although through Baptism and the other sacraments we worthily receive Christ so that He dwells in our souls, as wayfaring pilgrims on earth, we are called to fast.  We fast because our share in Christ’s life is not full.  Only in Heaven may we feast fully on the life of God as members of the Church Triumphant.

Saturday of the First Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Hebrews 4:12-16  +  Mark 2:13-17
January 16, 2021

As He passed by, He saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post.

In today’s Gospel passage from the second chapter of Mark, Jesus lays down part of the foundation for His public ministry.  The events of today’s Gospel took place not long after Jesus’ Baptism, which inaugurated His public ministry.  The last sentence of the passage holds several clues for us about Jesus’ earthly mission.

“I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”   If we took these words at face value, we might consider “the righteous” to be the Pharisaic scribes who provoked these words from Jesus.  Obviously the scribes considered themselves so.  But like Jesus’ parables and so much else in His preaching, there is a paradox at work.  Jesus turns the popular notions of who is righteous and who is a sinner on their heads.

We could certainly not say that the tax collectors and other “sinners” were made righteous simply by the act of physically dining with Jesus.  But the physical proximity, and the closeness it suggests, make clear that neither Jesus nor the “sinner” shuns the other’s company.  We cannot receive spiritual and moral righteousness from Jesus if we don’t enter His presence and spend time with Him, especially in the sacrificial banquet of the Eucharist.  To shun him there would be to stand like the scribes, aloof and self-righteous.