26th Sunday Year B 2021

 

26^th Sunday of Year (B)

(Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-8)

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My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: in today’s Gospel reading we were offered  wonderfully comforting teaching, a promise, and a warning.  Which should we look at first?  As is usually the case with Jesus, let us consider the teaching to which all else is directed.

                         He who is not against us is for us.

In the first reading from the book of Numbers we were told a remarkable story of seventy elders being enrolled and endowed to help Moses.  We do not know what can possibly have hindered or prevented those two elders Eldad and Medad, who had indeed been enrolled, from going with Moses and all the other chosen elders to meet the Lord at the Tent of Meeting?  Nevertheless, despite their absence from that official gathering, we are told that, because they had been enrolled with the rest who prophesied around the Tent of Meeting, they themselves:

Prophesied also in the camp when the Spirit came to rest on them.

And so, all those chosen to help Moses were given the Spirit, and the sign of that gifting was that they all prophesied, even those not present around the Tent of Meeting; however, since they were only to be helpers, not prophets like Moses, therefore we are told that, all of them, whether present at the Tent of Meeting or not:

When the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they never did so again.

The Spirit was manifestly given that these chosen elders might be acknowledged and accepted as divinely-appointed helpers of Moses, God’s prophet for His People; they themselves did not become prophets, they were simply God-chosen helpers of Moses the Prophet.

Perhaps that was in Jesus’ mind when the disciple John told Him of a man performing miracles in Jesus’ name:

Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.

Whereupon, Jesus answered with those memorable words we are considering:

Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me.  For HE WHO IS NOT AGAINST US IS FOR US.

Let us now look more closely at those words, ‘who is not against us, is for us’.

Notice that this man who is ‘for us’ is, nevertheless, not one of those to whom Jesus relates Himself when saying ‘us’.  If you remember, Jesus was, at that time, walking with His disciples as a private group through Galilee trying to avoid being recognized by the crowds; He was using this special opportunity to give His disciples fuller understanding and guidance concerning the nature of His mission and their calling, and it was this chosen group of disciples, walking together and bonding so closely with Him in order to face the future together, to whom He was referring when He said:

            He who is not against us is for us.

The unknown miracle-worker was ‘for us’ indeed, Jesus said, but not ‘one of us’.  What a privilege it was for the Twelve, to have Jesus thus speaking of Himself and of them as ‘us’!

In our first reading, the Spirit had been given to the seventy elders to enable them to be of suitable help to the great prophet Moses, and also as a public sign of their authority before the people.  They themselves had indeed prophesied in the power of the Spirit gifted them, but only once; never again, because they were simply very privileged helpers of Moses, nothing more. Likewise this stranger, whom John the beloved disciple had noticed performing a miracle, he too was a privileged helper of the Lord, thanks to the Spirit given him to thus glorify the name of Jesus, but he also, was not -- for all that -- one of the group Jesus called ‘us’.  The Spirit had not been given him in the manner and fullness He would ultimately be given to the Twelve, making them one with, like, Jesus as members of His Body, become -- by that Gift of the Spirit -- sons of God in the only-begotten, supremely beloved, Son of God. 

So, People of God, be well aware of what and where your treasure is: the pearl of great price that you have received, is the Gift of the Spirit of Jesus Who enables you to love Jesus and, by obeying His commandments and answering His calls, live as a true disciple of His and hopefully die as a child of God, our Father in heaven.   That, dear friends in Christ, is the treasure you have to protect above all and make full use of while you can.

So great is that dignity bestowed upon all made one with and in Christ, that Jesus went on to say, as you heard:

Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

That is a measure of your dignity, People of God!  A dignity not given, of course, to enable you to boast before men; but one that should impel you to most sweetly give thanks, constant thanks, to God, whilst, at the same time, helping you to acknowledge, wholeheartedly before Him, your unworthiness.

Such is your dignity; what then is your worth?  Listen again.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.

‘One of these little ones who believe in Me’: that is what I just mentioned when I spoke of the Gift received pushing you to wholehearted awareness of your personal unworthiness, because, in that awareness, believers become humble as little children before God.  Jesus gives a most dire warning to any who would harm, bring down, such humble believers: that is your worth in His eyes.

But now it is time to give our attention to the warning given, not to others, but to ourselves, because, as I said, this gift of the Spirit making you one, in the group of whom Jesus speaks with the word ‘us’, is not only a pearl bestowed, given, but a treasure entrusted, to be guarded, protected, and used for the purposes and glory of Him Who bestows it on us.  Therefore, Jesus warns us, and all of His disciples, that each of us can become an obstacle to ourselves if we do not exercise proper self-discipline:

            If your hand, if your foot, causes you to sin, cut it off.

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

And the reason He gives for this is well known: It is better to enter into life, into the Kingdom of God, maimed or lame, than to fail to enter there; because nothing on earth could possibly compensate for such a failure, such a loss.

Notice, however, People of God, that here, Jesus does not speak directly about the joys or the blessings of heaven, He limits Himself to warnings against possible failure to attain them.  Today, warnings are interpreted as threats, and no irreligious worldlings or non-practicing Christians or Catholics want to consider Jesus as anything but loving and kind in a most sentimental or even mawkish way.  But Jesus, we should note, is not interested in the opinions of men, He is entirely centred on the facts, the realities, involved: the facts of life, both earthly and eternal, and the fact of His eternal Father’s loving will that earthly beings such as ourselves – made by Him in His own image and likeness – should actually become His children in heaven by earning the right to become such by loving-and-living as Jesus' true disciples here on earth.  Therefore, Jesus does not try to cajole us with flowery words and sentimental pictures unable to help us triumph over the earthly, and compelling pleasures offered by sin.  Jesus speaks in the way that penetrates deepest into the psyche of all human beings, who, despite all their aspirations, are weak and short-lived: He speaks of the one supreme threat to our well-being, both spiritual and physical, that is, hell.  And He does not just leave open the possibility of that which moderns so fear to mention or think about that they can only scoff whenever it might be forced upon their attention, no, He emphasises its very nature, not only once but twice, with words that paint an indelibly powerful and dreadful image for all who consider them seriously and humbly, by telling us that it is indeed possible for men and women:

To go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where 'Their worm does not die, And the fire is not quenched.' 

People of God, whatever moves and guides you along the right way, whatever serves to protect you  in the love of God, is good; be it the message of the treasure that has been given you whereby you are one with Christ, a message able to provoke gratitude in every warm and humble heart; be it the consoling message of the great dignity and worth of all  children of God that inspires you with a confidence and trust; or be it finally, if you are undergoing great trials and temptations that would clamp you to sin, the awesome warning of Jesus (Matthew 10:28), a message that should sink into the depths of your mind and heart:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  But rather fear Him Who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.   And then St. Luke adds (12:5)  Yes, I tell you, be afraid of Him!

The people of this world hate such warnings and to bolster themselves scoff most loudly at them; nevertheless, for a sincere Christian they can be a source of securely and advancing steadfastly along the way of Jesus, despite the Devil’s deceits and the many trials of life.

How blessed is the man who fears (the Lord) always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.  (Proverbs 28:14)

 

 

 

 

 

25th Sunday Year B 2021

 

 25^th. Sunday of Year (B)

(Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16 – 4:3; Mark 9:30-37)

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One of the high points – perhaps the high point – of the O.T. revelation of God is to be found in the book of the prophet Isaiah, where we read (44:6 and 48:12):

Thus says the Lord: I am the first and I am the last; there is no God but Me.  

Listen to Me, Jacob, Israel: I am He, I am the first and I am the last.

And in the book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament we read (1:8) likewise:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega” say the Lord God, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.”

Now, the highlight of today’s Gospel reading are words of Our Blessed Lord spoken to the Twelve for their immediate correction and for their establishment as His future Apostles chosen to serve and proclaim His Gospel of Salvation in all truth and understanding, patience, strength, and humility:

If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

There are some very reputable modern translations of the Bible which change those words, specially chosen for our consideration today, from: ‘he shall be last’, to, ‘he must be last’, or even to ‘he must make himself last’:

“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all”;

“If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.”

However, the original Greek and the authoritative Latin translation are perfectly clear and, following them closely, our more literal and indeed scholarly Church translation gives us a truly full and accurate understanding of those words in accordance with traditional Catholic theology and Christian spiritual teaching:

            If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

We only need to compare John 7:17 where the Greek words are the same as ours today but the translation is always “shall”, never “must”:

If anyone is willing to do His (God’s) will, he shall know whether My teaching is from God or whether I speak on My own (authority).

The difficulty for some modern attempts to appreciate these words of Our Lord is Jesus Himself, so deeply loved but also reverentially feared; and in this instance recorded in today’s Gospel reading we can appreciate why His disciples had such feelings in His regard.

For the words of Jesus were, first of all, and most literally, a statement of sheer fact, and as such, a warning for those He most specially loved. He was not commanding, yet neither was He merely offering teaching for their consideration; His words were, first of all -- I repeat -- a warning for immediate attention, understanding, and practice:

‘Whoever, as My disciple, sincerely wills to become truly first, will be – that is, My Father will lead him, cause him, in the achieving of that his God-given aspiration -- to become last of all and servant of all.’

Jesus claimed to be first in the divine sense when He said to the Jews (John 8:54, 58):

It is My Father Who glorifies Me, He of Whom you say, ‘He is our God’. Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM

But at the Last Supper (John 13:13), while asserting Himself to be, humanly speaking, first with regard to His disciples:

            You call Me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am;

nevertheless, showed Himself last in their regard by His ceremonial washing of their feet, before finally allowing Himself to be made last of all men when Isaiah’s prophecy (53:3) was fulfilled in Him on the Cross of Calvary:

He was spurned and avoided by men, a Man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held Him in no esteem.

Notice People of God, the God of Heaven declared Himself to be the first and the last. Jesus, Son of God made man, knowing Himself to be first, showed His willingness to become last at His baptism by John in the Jordan and then allowed Himself to be made last, publicly, by His heavenly Father in and throughout the course of His public ministry, by the contradictions, insults, and opposition He received from sinful and foolish men.  He did not, however, set out to make Himself last; He even prayed in the Garden that His Father would take the cross of suffering and death from Him if He so willed it.  What Jesus wanted, supremely and solely, was that His Father’s will be-done-in-Him.   His own Personal will as Son was that He might obediently become such as His Father willed Him to be in His humanity.

All that God made and makes, was and is, good; sin makes nothing new and is ever destructive.  And so, man’s desire to be like God was not evil in itself, it only became evil in Adam and Eve’s case by their embracing it as a suggestion dripping with venom from the Serpent’s mouth.

In the case of the Apostles arguing in today’s Gospel reading about which of them was the greatest, they were behaving most foolishly, indulging a spirit and using a word  improper for them to use as Apostles of Jesus; because their childish -- Jesus  used a child to teach them – human aspirations to be greatest were leaving out of consideration the divinely concomitant thought of ‘being last’, which they – as disciples, and above all, as Apostles of Jesus -- would have to fully appreciate and love if in their subsequent lives they were to exemplify, and inspirationally proclaim, the full meaning and beauty of Jesus’ Gospel of Truth.

God is first and last; and Jesus, knowing Himself to be One with His Father in Heaven, knew Himself to be first as God:

            I am the first and I am the last; there is no God but Me.  

As man, however, under the limitations of His assumed creatureliness, Our Lord willed Himself to be made ‘last’ by His Father in view of the purpose for which He had been sent, that is, to save sinful mankind who, along with their chosen lord Satan, naturally willed only to be first.  Therefore, Jesus’ Apostles needed to learn quickly and appreciate deeply the divine meaning of the words He was now addressing to them, because at present they were flirting with Satan by acting so childishly.

Peter had been severely corrected for taking himself too seriously and now the rest of the Apostles, who all looked up to Peter as we have seen, were being severely corrected for their childish levity.

Jesus knew what had been going on, literally behind His back, as He and His disciples had walked along, and:

Taking a child He placed it in their midst, and putting His arms around it He said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in My name, receives Me.”

In the ancient world children were thought little of and frequently much abused.  And at present the disciples -- superficially wanting to be ‘greatest’ seriously enough as to be willing to argue about it without embarrassment – obviously feared human disdain and contempt.  Therefore, when Jesus took one such person, so insignificant and singularly unimportant in the eyes of the world, as a child, and said:

Whoever receives one child such as this in My name, receives Me,

He thereby gave His disciples a picture that was so surprising and yet so familiar as to be unforgettable, one that offered them teaching of inexhaustible riches; and right now, the Apostles were beginning to learn how to aspire to being first in a true, divine, sense.

To be appreciated by the world one has to be endowed, by outstanding talent and ability which is, of itself, a great gift of God given for the benefit of human society as a whole, but one which can be so easily corrupted into self-service, and forgetfulness of the Giver of such gifts.  One can also try to make oneself noticed by cravenly repeating and embellishing what is generally acceptable, and always walking along, and speaking politically correct words about, socially approved and popular paths; indeed, some individuals can even seek notice by outrageously disregarding normal decency and defying customary opinions and practices.  Any such endeavours for personal recognition and renown are, however, of no advantage whatsoever in the Christian life, for God exalts the lowly and humble of heart, while pride -- inevitably and invariably -- separates from the Lord those who pursue it. 

How utterly different, on the other hand, is the simple desire for renown before God!!  Why?  Because all self-seeking is ultimately totally excluded by the very sincerity of any such desire.  Renown before God can only be God’s gift – utterly free and un-determinable – given as Love in response to love.  The Apostles had to, as indeed all modern disciples of Jesus must, learn from Jesus one thing above all: how, in Jesus and by the power of His Spirit, to recognize and respond to His Father’s initiatives, His gifts and blessings, in their lives!

            If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all;

Thus says the Lord and Father of us all: I am the first and I am the last; there is no God but Me

People of God, we have little time, so we must let Mass proceed with our loving devotion and self-commitment, for the only power that will ultimately change us for the better and for our fulfilment is not the clarity of our thinking nor even the sincerity of our desiring, but Jesus’ example, sublimely manifest in the sacrifice, and the power of His Spirit so generously offered us in the sacrament, we are pursuing, soaking ever more deeply into our minds and hearts.   May we be able to leave Church today in the fellowship of Jesus, and go in peace before the world by the power of His Spirit, to love and serve God and our neighbour as the Father wills.            

           

 

             

 

           

24th Sunday Year B 2021

 

24^th. Sunday of Year (B)

(Isaiah 50:5-9; James 2:14-18; St. Mark: 8: 27-35)

Jesus specially chose twelve disciples most intimately associated with Himself as His Apostles to be sent out to preach in His name and cast out demons by the power of His Spirit, and the first of these, when their names are listed, is always Simon Peter. 

Most significantly of all, however, Simon Peter was chosen by the Father in heaven to recognize and confess on behalf of all the Apostles that Jesus was the Christ, that is, the long-awaited Messiah from God for Israel:

When Jesus asked them, ‘Who do you say that I am?’, Peter said to Him in reply: ‘You are the Christ.’

We find St Matthew in his Gospel account tells us more of that event :  

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My heavenly Father.   And so, I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:17–18)

And it is St. John who tells us of words spoken by Jesus to all the Apostles indeed, but pre-eminently appropriate for Peter as chosen by the Father:

The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God. (John 16:25–27)

Now, why does St. Mark make no mention of those words of Jesus to be found in both Saint Matthew and Saint John which so particularly praise Saint Peter??

It was out of the warmth and glow, so to speak, of that deep personal bond between Simon the disciple and Jesus the Master that Peter rebuked Jesus when He began to teach His disciples that:

The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days?

Peter so wanted, out of his love for Jesus, to turn his beloved Master away from what seemed to him a tragic course, that he remonstrated with Jesus in words which St. Matthew (16:22) gives us:

Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to You.”

Words again unreported by St. Mark, why?  Surely because Peter was almost immediately totally ashamed of them when Jesus answered him so deliberately and decisively.  Now Jesus answered Peter not out of human passion, but from divine intensity of purpose; for we are told that He first of all turned away from Peter in order to look at His other disciples before turning back to look Peter in the face and say:

Get behind Me, Satan!  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  

Oh, dear People of God, we are here engulfed in passion most understandably human and by a purpose most mysteriously divine, creating a tension beyond human comprehension but absolutely essential for our divine vocation and formation in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, as children of God.  Jesus’ words, literally, ‘Away, behind Me, Satan’ repeat exactly the words He used at His temptation in the desert at the beginning of His public ministry when speaking to Satan himself.

Peter – God bless him -- seems to have drunk so characteristically deep of Jesus’ medicine correcting him, that the Gospel message he gave St. Mark as his, that is Peter’s, personal awareness and appreciation of Jesus, tells us nothing of Jesus’ exaltation of Peter as reported by St. Matthew and implied by St. John. But Jesus’ correction of Peter had to be told in total clarity because it contains an extraordinary wealth of teaching for us who want to follow Jesus as true disciples.

What hurtful words of Jesus in response to such affectionate concern!  What apparently degrading words, indeed!!  And yet, Jesus is here, giving us His most decisive and immediately-necessary salvific warning, and He chooses also to show us how to distinguish between the sinner, Peter, and the sin, Satan’s deception of Peter.

Consider, dear People of God, WHY did Jesus – as St. Mark alone tells us – on hearing Peter’s words, and yet before immediately answering him, so decisively:

            Turn around and, looking at His disciples, rebuke Peter?

It could only have been that Jesus was fully aware of the effect -- the immediate shock and perplexity – that the words He was about to say would have on those other disciples who looked-up to Peter as their leader; it also showed how much He regretted that He had to deal so publicly with Peter in a manner He would rather have done with Personal sensitivity in private.

And notice, dear friends, how very Catholic are the issues involved here, we are speaking of SCANDAL: Jesus overriding His own natural feelings and those of Peter in order to spiritually protect and guide all of His disciples,  most emphatically teaches them and us about the evil of scandal:

You Peter are (now) an obstacle (a ‘scandalum’, a scandal) to Me (because) you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  (Matthew 16:23)

Jesus knew full well how esteemed Peter was in the eyes of his fellow Apostles, and how His Father’s choice of Peter to proclaim Jesus as Messiah-come-from-God had confirmed that impression.  That was why Jesus deemed it absolutely necessary for Him to correct Peter immediately and without any possibility of misunderstanding:

He summoned the crowd with His disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and that of the gospel will save it.  (Matthew 16:24-25)

Jesus, as we heard from St. Mark, had been teaching His disciples, the Apostles, that:

The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days;

and Jesus had always insisted that His Gospel was based, not on His own Personal authority, but on that of His Father:

The Father who sent Me commanded Me what to say and speak.  And I know that His commandment is eternal life. So, what I say, I say as the Father told Me.   (John 12:49–50)

Peter was, therefore, as Jesus said:

An obstacle to Me (because) you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  

Jesus was always perfect God and perfect man, and here, Peter was trying to pull on the human heart-strings of Jesus by his own ‘emotionality’:

God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to You.

Peter– unbeknown to himself -- was actually trying to turn Jesus aside from His divine love of His Father’s will by ‘stoking up’ His natural, human, dread-awareness of what His Passion would involve!   Here, human ‘soon-to-be-seen-as-mistaken’ passionate emotion is set against divine, timelessly enduring, compassionate love.

As we would expect, Peter in the event, so whole-heartedly drank of Jesus’ medicine that Mark – whose Gospel is generally regarded as giving Peter’s awareness and appreciation of Jesus as distinct from the other Gospels – does not pass down to us words of Jesus’ exalting of Peter; we find those only in St Matthew’s and St. John’s Gospels.

Our present-day Western-world and irreligious society mocks (and too many popularity-seeking Catholics weakly follow suit) the very idea of bad example, scandal, causing supremely real harm of a spiritual nature.    

For Jesus, however, and for all true Christians, dear People of God, it is not enough to have good intentions, as did Peter; it is not enough to have warm feelings of human affection or seemingly sincere love in one’s heart; we have got to learn from Jesus how to love both God and man, how to find that authentic love that wills to walk in and along God’s way, that is -- by the Gift of Jesus’ most holy Spirit -- to know God’s truth, His loving purpose, and saving plan, that we may adapt ourselves to it.  For, if we do not seek His truth, His will, we become all too easily Satan’s ever-useful, perhaps even sometimes favourite, tools.  In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus Himself witnesses to that beginning to happen with Peter!

Jesus saw Satan abusing Peter, using Peter to sow Satanic seeds of spiritual harm, and Jesus could not simply explain the situation to Peter, He had – in order to destroy those seeds from Peter’s heart and the disciples’ minds – to SHOW IN ALL ITS INTENSITY His own hatred of Satan, now presuming to attack Jesus once again, this time through the person of misguided Peter: 

            GET BEHIND ME SATAN!!

Today, dear friends in Christ and fellow Catholics, we are bombarded on all sides by emotionalism: the Pope smiles and embraces a child, he is so good!   If women are shown weeping, whatever questions or matters are involved, those issues are thereby, immediately, prejudiced.  Self-displaying young women and girls are so charming and pretty; surely their parents have every right to be so proud of their good looks despite innocence being discarded and Christian decency being mocked by their manifested beauty.  Children can be badly behaved, but after all they are still children and must be allowed their childhood pleasures and ‘mistakes’ (even through to 16yrs. old or more!!) what is the harm, who am I to correct them, whoever would want to correct them??

Jesus spoke harsh words to Simon Peter, but He spoke them plainly and without the slightest apology.  Why?   Because of the reality, the dreadful reality, of the spiritual harm that could have arisen from scandalous words and a seemingly loving attitude.  His disciples must not think like men but learn to think as God would have them think; they must not speak as men do, but as God wills.  Popularity is no aim for Christians, obedience is Jesus’ Personal example.

Where are we today, People of God?  Disciples are attacked for thinking and speaking to the best of their ability in line with the teaching of God and the Scriptures, the traditional teaching of Mother Church in her Saints and doctors: such doctrine is considered as inhuman for today’s version of humanity where  disciples are called upon  to please the multitude: to think as people think, and speak only what comforts them most.

To whom are these words of Jesus addressed to today?

You are an obstacle to Me (because) you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do;

to whom are they words of true significance, saving importance, and divine purpose?

Time allows me to add only this, dear People of God:  they mean that to me, and I pray they mean that also to you true disciples of Jesus, and children of Mother Church founded on the rock of Peter by Jesus according to His Father’s will.

 

 

 

 

23rd Sunday Year B 2021

 

23^rd. Sunday (Year B)

(Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37)

 

 

 

In our reading from the prophet Isaiah we heard:

Say to those whose hearts are frightened, "Be strong, fear not!  Behold, here is your God, He comes with vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you."

For a small nation -- conscious of being God’s Chosen People and, despite that, having a long history of suffering as a pawn in the conflicting endeavours at empire building by the surrounding powers in the Fertile Crescent -- such a prophecy of salvation became, as the years passed by and the suffering and humiliation piled up, more and more commonly regarded as fighting talk.  That, certainly, was how many Jews in the days of Jesus, experiencing a long-standing occupation by Roman forces, understood them: they longed for, many even expected, their God to help them overthrow the military might of their hated and despised oppressors.  With such expectations they were pre-disposed to see Jesus’ miracles -- such as His recent feeding the five thousand in the desert -- as evidence that He, surely, was the one for whom they were looking.

However, the reaction of the religious authorities to Jesus, especially that of the Pharisees who were most influential with the people generally, was different.  The Pharisees thought they were well prepared for God’s judgment and the Messiah’s coming thanks to their meticulous observance of God’s Law as laid down in the Torah and as understood and interpreted for daily living by the many oral traditions from their elders.   They regarded the person of Jesus with suspicion, despite His miracles, because He was not one of them, and quite evidently did not consider Himself or His disciples to be bound by Pharisaic traditions.   Moe than that, however, was the fact  that He did not regard the Pharisees themselves as being purified and justified by their meticulous practices:

You nullify the word of God in favour of your tradition that you have handed on.   And you do many such things.  (Mark 7:13)

And so, the prophecy from Isaiah with which we began our readings today serves to highlight the mistaken aspirations of both the ordinary people and of their religious leaders in Jesus’ times: the people, frightened of Rome, were looking for a warrior Messiah, and the blind Pharisees did not appreciate that they themselves needed a Messiah to heal them of a sickness they could not, or would not, recognize:

Say to those whose hearts are frightened, "Be strong, fear not!  Behold, here is your God, He comes with vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you.  Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.”

Jesus, journeying beyond the confines of Israel in today’s Gospel reading, was teaching His disciples by His ordinary words and every-day behaviour, gradually enlightening their minds and stirring their hearts by the gentle inspiration of His Spirit:

And people brought to Him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged Him to lay His hand on him.

Why did ‘people bring the man’ to Jesus?   Were they perhaps Jewish people living abroad, so to speak, and their friend a pagan whom they hoped might convert to Judaism?  Or did they perhaps bring him because he was a fellow Jew who had not wanted to come to Jesus himself?  Had he perhaps become bitter over the years with this his trial and only came to Jesus ‘under pressure’, so to speak, from good friends?    Whatever the case, sensing His Father’s will behind this unsolicited incident:

            Jesus took him off by himself away from the crowd.

The man was being given the opportunity through his experience of personal closeness with Jesus to overcome his original difficulties or mistaken apprehensions:

            Jesus put His finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue.

Jesus was calming down his possible anxieties and stirring up any embers of confidence and trust by doing things not unexpected in those days by one hoping to be healed.

Then Jesus looked up to heaven, groaned, and said to him “Ephphatha!  -- that is, ‘Be opened!”

That glance up to heaven by Jesus and His accompanying groan or deep sigh may have constituted the irreligious man’s introduction to faith in the goodness of Israel’s God or the saving suffering of Jesus, for:

Immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.

Now, let us look yet more closely at Jesus as we see Him broadly portrayed in this whole seventh chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, for He has so much to teach us: most eloquently by His words and most instructively by His actions.

He had, recently, performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand, and then He discomfited both the Pharisees and Scribes who had wanted to confront Him and His disciples for failing to observe the traditions of their elders.  Jesus had been close, at that time, to being hailed by the common people as the expected Messiah, the longed-for and irresistibly victorious, leader.   That seems to have been in the forefront of His mind, for He went – straightway -- out of Israelite territory and entered the region of Tyre and Sidon where Greek-speaking was prevalent and any worship was pagan.

There, as Jesus and His disciples were walking unnoticed and free, they were suddenly accosted by a woman who began to pester Him and His disciples to heal her daughter and provoked that memorable and, I think, divinely beautiful, conversation:

Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.   Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs. (Mark 7:27-28)

Jesus, habitually alive to His Father’s influence , immediately recognized that such an answer was way above the woman’s natural capabilities:

He said to her, "For this saying, go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."

He had not wanted to be lionized by over-enthusiastic Israelites imagining the Lion of Juda crushing Israel’s oppressors, and therefore He had entered this non-Jewish region.  And now, having encountered this Syro-Phoenecian woman so surprisingly gifted by His Father, He decided to continue on His journey going towards the Sea of Galilee indeed, but not directly, rather by a long, circuitous route through further Decapolis territory: perhaps His Father might still have some further purpose for Him there?

And such was indeed the case, because, in our Gospel passage today, Jesus was invited by His Father, to perform yet another miracle: this time upon a deaf-mute man, a providential miracle that would fulfil what the prophet Isaiah had long foretold and would serve to emphasize the holiness and sanctifying capacities of the sacred humanity with which Jesus had clothed His divine nature:

Then will the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.

Jesus always walked before His Father, seeking to know and do His Father’s will at all times and in all things, and during this relatively short journey outside Israel He gave a priceless example for all future Christian apostles, missionaries, and even ordinary, humble yet active, disciples – including you and me hopefully -- to respect and sympathetically adapt themselves to all who they might be privileged to meet, to evangelize, or just spiritually help. 

Jesus brought His immediate disciples back to Israel and God’s Chosen People, inspired and better equipped to follow the example of Him Who, it was said:

            He Has done all things well!                                                                            

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let us now take part in the Holy Sacrifice with like appreciation for what Our Blessed Lord continues to do among us and in Mother Church in our deeply troubled times.