Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 26, 2021
INTERPRETING JESUS’ WORDS ABOUT SELF-MUTILATION?
William Barclay says that the Jewish rabbis had sayings based on the way in which some part of the body can lend themselves to sin. They said that the eye and the heart are two brokers of sin, the two handmaids of sin. And also there are instincts in man and certain parts of man’s physical constitution which minister to sin. Our hands become instruments of sin according to what we touch and how we touch, in lust or greed or violence. Our feet are used for sin according to the places we have them take us. Our eyes become doorways for sins according to what we choose to look at or refuse to look at. However, it is important to understand that, in these passages about "plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand," Jesus is not speaking literally. Jesus is using a figure of speech here, one very common in the Semitic world of first century Palestine -- hyperbole, that is exaggeration – to make a special point.We have more sins than we have bodily parts. Besides, even if all offending parts were removed, our hearts and minds -- the source of all sins, as Jesus points out elsewhere -- would still be intact. Hence, these sayings are actually about our attitudes, dispositions, and inclinations. Jesus is inviting us to integrate our bodies into our following of Christ, so that our hands become instruments of compassion, healing and comfort, our feet help us to bring the Gospel to the world, and our eyes learn to see, and our mouth to speak the Truth, Goodness and Beauty all around us.
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 19, 2021
THE CHRISTIAN CRITERION OF GREATNESS
Jesus says that people who serve humbly are the greatest. He uses a play on an Aramaic word that can mean either servant or child. Presenting a child before them, Jesus explains that one who wishes to be the first among them must be a servant to all.True greatness consists in serving one's fellow men and is never self-centered. It lies in the ability to see and respond to the needs of others, and it presupposes compassion and sympathy. The two conditions of true greatness are humility and service. This vocation to service belongs to the Church as a whole and to every member of the Church individually. In other words, the Christian vocation is an apostolate of bearing witness to Christ through loving, humble service. Christian history teaches us that whenever the members of Christ’s Church have forgotten or ignored this call to service, the Church has suffered. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, gives us this motto on service: “Do all the good you can; By all the means you can; In all the ways you can; In all the places you can; At all the times you can; To all the people you can; As long as ever you can.”
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 12, 2021
THE THREE CONDITIONS FOR CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP
To counter the opposition expressed by Peter and to emphasize the fact that Jesus was not the political, conquering Messiah of Jewish expectations who would bring perfect peace and justice, put an end to all suffering and death, and provide perfect joy and happiness in this world, Jesus turned to the wider audience of the crowd gathered with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi and emphatically declared the stringent conditions to be met by his disciples. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Christian discipleship demands honesty of a disciple in order for him to practice self-control (“to offer our bodies as a willing sacrifice to God”), willingness to suffer, and readiness to follow Jesus by obeying Jesus’ commandment of love. A) Denying self: This means, with God's grace, evicting selfish thoughts, evil desires and tendencies from our heart and filling it with God. In addition, also with God's grace, it means cleansing ourselves of all evil habits, enthroning God in our hearts, and sharing Him with others. B) Carrying of the cross with Jesus: First, it means gracefully accepting that suffering without bitterness, as a part of our lives. Second, it means that we may not, in our suffering, pass on any bitterness to those around us. Third, it means that we must accept some other deaths before our physical death, that we are invited to let some parts of ourselves die. Fourth, it means that we must wait for the resurrection to receive the eternal reward for our suffering. A Christian life of service is carrying one’s cross in the footsteps of Jesus. Our sufferings become the cross of Jesus with its saving power when we suffer with Jesus by dying to our self-centeredness through serving others selflessly, enduring physical or mental pain and illness without complaint, and offering these sufferings to God in reparation for sin. We also offer penitential practices to God for the same intentions for ourselves and for the world. C) Following Jesus: This means that, as followers of Christ, we should live our lives according to the word of God by obeying what is commanded by Jesus. Jesus’ predictions about Christian suffering would have had particular meaning for Mark's audience who would experience their fulfillment in both the horrors of the Jewish war against Rome and the persecution under Nero, when Christians were used as torches to light Nero’s garden.
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 05, 2021
GOD’S LOVE IN ACTION
What we see is not simply the healing of a physical defect, but a concrete sign of the transforming power of God's Love. The power of God's Love is working in our lives to transform sorrow into joy, sickness into health, death into new life. The dumb man who is unable to communicate also symbolizes our own communication problem vis-à-vis God. In order to perceive and proclaim God's message, we need to be transformed. The miracle is not only about the physical healing of a person who was deaf and dumb. It also points to the opening of a person’s ears so that he may hear the word of God and loosening of his tongue so that he may speak his profession of Faith in Jesus. The miracle has great relevance to us, because a person can have perfect hearing, and yet not hear the word of God, have perfect speech, and yet be unable to make an act of Faith. God wants the ears of your heart to be opened. He wants you to hear what He is saying. He wants you to listen to His Words. Be opened to receive His truth. God wants your mouth to be opened. He wants you to talk to Him. He wants your mouth to open with praise, thanksgiving, request, and intercession for others. God wants your life to be opened. Open to where God would send you. Open to what God wants you to do. Open to changes and new directions for your life.
Twentysecond Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 29, 2021
THE REAL MEANING OF RELIGION AND PRACTICAL LIFE
Jesus describes true religion as serving God and all His children with a pure and holy heart. The Gospel explains the encounter of Jesus with the Sanhedrin observers and the Pharisees who had been sent to assess Jesus’ unique, controversial teachings. These experts had found Jesus’ teachings an open violation of the “Traditions of the Elders,” and judged Jesus’ implied and spoken claims blasphemous. They also noticed that Jesus’ disciples omitted the required ritual washing before meals. It was in the fifth century BC that the scribes started adding oral traditions as interpretations and practical applications of the Mosaic Law. The Pharisees observed them and insisted that all the Jews should do so. The original noble purpose was to sanctify the daily lives of the people, making them “holy as God is holy” (“You are a priestly kingdom, a holy nation” --Ex 19:6), and different in lifestyle from their pagan neighbors. Jesus uses the occasion as a teachable moment to give them the following lessons: 1) Don’t teach human doctrines as dogmas of Faith. 2) Sincerity of heart, internal disposition, purity, and holiness are more important than mere external ritual observances. 3) Keep your heart holy as it is the source of sins, vices and evil habits. The observance of traditions and of washing rituals does not correct the internal motivations and inclinations that really defile people. 4) External piety without internal holiness is hypocrisy.
Twentyfirst Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 22, 2021
Martyrs’ choice for God, for Christ and for His teachings:
The Old Testament, the New Testament and the history of the Church tell the stories of brave men and women who heroically exercised their freedom of choice for God and His Commandments and courted martyrdom. II Maccabees 6:18-31 describes how the 90-year-old saintly scribe, Eleazar, welcomed martyrdom rather than eat the flesh of a pig. The same book describes another heroic Jewish mother and seven of her brave children who lost their lives by resisting the order of the Greek commander to reject their Jewish Faith. The martyrdom of St. Stephen is described in the Acts of the Apostles. The first three centuries saw thousands of Christians heroically choosing Christ and courting the cruel death inflicted by the pagan Roman Empire. St. Thomas More was the second-in-power in England and St. John Fisher the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. Both were executed by King Henry VIII for choosing the teaching of the Church on marriage and divorce instead of choosing their king’s view. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and pastor, chose to resist the anti-Christian and non-ethical doctrines of Hitler and was executed at 39. Today’s readings challenge us to make a choice for God and His teachings or against God.
Assumption of the Blessed Viirgin Mary: August 15,2021
MARY IS OUR STAR OF HOPE
In pre-Christian times, the pagan religions of ancient Greece and Rome had a very interesting insight into the human soul. Some of their myths described how great heroes from past ages used to do battle with the gods, either physically or through a contest of wits. And when a human being won such a battle, one's reward would be to avoid death and hell (there was no belief in heaven) by being turned into a constellation of stars in the night sky. By becoming a constellation, one achieved a kind of immortality, because the divine stars, so they thought, never change. In that way, one would also inspire and guide future generations, because the stars were used to guide ocean navigation before the invention of the compass. This charming ancient sentiment was purely mythological and legendary, but it appealed to artists and poets for many centuries. It seemed to be in harmony with a basic human instinct: the instinct for Heaven, and they felt the need for help to get there. -- When Christianity came around, this image from pagan poetry found its true fulfillment. The Blessed Virgin Mary, a human being just like you and me, conquered evil, with the help of God's grace, through her humility and obedience undoing the ancient sin of Eve. And God rewarded her by assuming her, lifting her, into Heaven. And from Heaven, she is an inspiration and guide for us who are still traveling through the troubled waters of life on earth. And so, from very early times, the Church began to call Mary, the "Star of the Sea", "Stella Maris" [in Latin]. (Adapted from Pope Benedict XVI).
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 08, 2021
Christ’s offering of himself to God was “a gift of pleasing fragrance.”
The Bible often refers to our good deeds as a perfume pleasing to God. In the Book of Sirach, Wisdom personified is quoted as saying, “Like cinnamon or fragrant balm, or precious myrrh, I give forth perfume.” We can appreciate that. Don’t incense and the scents of flowers charm us with moments of contentment? Among God’s miracles are the sweet odors which He has time again caused to come forth from the bodies of saintly people. Sometimes the fragrance occurs after their death, as it did in the case of St. Martin De Porres. Sometimes it occurs while they are alive. When a priest-friend of St. Theresa of Avila first noticed a fragrance surrounding St. Teresa of Avila, he thought she had been wearing perfume! One of the holy people gifted recently with this miraculous gift was the Capuchin priest, Padre Pio Forgione (1887-1968). He had the stigmata, or wounds of Christ’s crucifixion in his hands and feet, and these often gave off a sweet scent. Even more marvelously, he seemed to be able to “broadcast” perfumes of one sort or another, to indicate to people far away that they were in his thoughts and prayers. On February 15, 1950, for instance, an Italian physician was visiting with the Bertolo family, who knew Padre Pio well and had often experienced this perfume phenomenon. That day another caller at the Bertolo’s had just returned from a visit to the friar at his monastery in San Giovanni Rotondo. He was describing the great humility of the Padre despite his fame, when suddenly the physician recalled “an intense perfume of violets enveloped us all, lasting about a half hour, although the doors and windows were wide open.” Another physician who was there, Dr. Edoardo Bianco, signed an affidavit about the same waft of violet perfume. He said that on other similar occasions he had smelt the perfume of roses and carnations; and he declared there was no scientific explanation for what had happened. Today St. Paul tells us that Christ’s offering of himself to God was “a gift of pleasing fragrance.” By Jesus’ “perfume miracles” is not God reminding us that no incense we offer Him is sweeter than the total gift of ourselves? (Eph 5;2).
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 01, 2021
“THE SON OF MAN” AND “WORKS OF GOD” AND “I AM”
These expressions have been the subject of considerable debate by scholars over the last 30 years. 1) “A son of man,” in its original Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic form), was simply a human being, generically speaking. 2) However, Jesus’ use of “THE Son of Man” as a title to refer to Himself seems to suggest, either that He Himself is the ‘paradigm’ of what it is to be human, or that the title is perhaps an allusion to the “one like a son of man” who is seen by the Old Testament prophet Daniel (7:13, “one like a human being” in the NRSV translation), mounted on the clouds, and coming with God’s power to judge the earth. The exact meaning that Jesus intends this phrase to carry continues to be argued by scholars. 3) “The works of God:” Although this phrase can be understood in several possible ways, it seems from the context here to mean “the works commanded by God and expected of His people.” “I AM the Bread of Life”: throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus uses the expression “I AM …” seven times (indicative of completeness), to introduce various key images by which He describes His person and His mission: “I AM … the True Bread … the True Light … the Gate … the Way … the Good Shepherd … the Resurrection and the Life … the True Vine.” However, on an even deeper theological level, the Greek expression egô eimi (“I am”) relates back to the scene (Ex 3:14), when God tells Moses to use this name (a shortened form of the Divine Name YHWH, “I AM Who I AM”) in asking Pharaoh to free the enslaved Israelites. “I AM” is, therefore, an explicitly Divine title, and by using it repeatedly throughout this Gospel, Jesus is making a radical claim to BE the God that the Israelites had known in the time of Moses and the Exodus.
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 25, 2021
A MESSIANIC SIGN OR A MIRACLE OF GENEROUS SHARING
The traditional teaching of the Church is that Jesus literally multiplied the bread and fish to feed his hungry listeners. At the beginning of this century in his classic book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, Schweitzer suggested that what we have here is a "sacrament" rather than a full meal. All the people received was the merest crumb of food, and yet, somehow, with Jesus present among them, it was enough. That, however, does not explain the baskets full of leftovers from the five loaves and two fish. A few Bible scholars even suggest that the "miracle" may be interpreted also as Jesus’ success in getting a group of selfish people to share their personal provisions with others. According to this interpretation, it appears strange and unnatural that the crowd had made this nine-mile-long expedition to such a desolate village without taking anything to eat. When people set out on a journey, they usually took their food with them in a small basket called a kophinah or in a bigger wicker basket. Butif they had done so in this case, each one might have been unwilling to share what he had brought with others. If such were the case, Jesus might have deliberately accepted the five loaves and fish from the little boy in order to set a good example for the crowd. Moved by this example of generosity, the crowd might have done the same: thus, there could have been enough for all. This view was propounded by the famous preacher-novelist Lloyd C. Douglas, author of The Robe. This rather fanciful explanation may still be considered a “miracle”: it might show that how the example of the boy responding to Jesus “miraculously” turned a crowd of selfish men and women into a fellowship of generous sharers.