27th Sunday of the Year (B) 2018

27^th. Sunday of Year (B)

 (Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-12)

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Moses gave permission for a man to divorce his wife; however, Jesus declared that it was:

            Because of the hardness of your heart (Moses) wrote you this precept.

The Law had been given through Moses to prepare the People of Israel both to bring forth and be able to embrace the Lord and Saviour of mankind when He should come, and this they did, supremely, through the Virgin Mary of Nazareth.  However, the vast majority of Israelites, because of their hardness of heart, did not recognize and consequently were not able to embrace the Lord when He came.

Jesus, the Son of God made flesh was sent by His Father to live among God’s Chosen People, with the immediate aim of leading back to His Father, by the Spirit, those who were wandering far from their God as a result of the dominion that Satan held over their lives; His ultimate purpose, however, was to bring the whole of sinful mankind back to the God Who created them as to their loving Father by His, Jesus’, re-making of them into true children-of-God.  To this end, Jesus did not base His teaching upon the Law of Moses for, although He did not deny the validity of the Law for those to whom and for whom it had originally been given through Moses, He Himself deliberately chose to by-pass the Law of Moses by invoking the Father’s original law of creation for His children, the law eternally enshrined in their original make-up, by recalling that:

From the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.'  'For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'; so then, they are no longer two but one flesh.

He then added His answer to the Pharisees question about the current standing of Moses permission for divorce under the Law:

What God has joined together, let not man separate.

We can see clearly that Jesus had only one purpose in mind: to secure and save true children-of-God for His Father, and for the fulfilment of this He showed Himself adamant, admitting no compromises even though Moses had set a precedent.  Jesus’ Gospel was not to be in any way preparatory for something that might come later: His Gospel was definitive and its sole function was to further the formation of true children-of-God: the Holy Spirit was to lead those who would believe in Jesus’ Good News to their heavenly Father as members of the mystical Body of His incarnate Son, that is, as adopted children nourished by the teaching and by the very Body and Blood of His only-begotten Son.  Jesus could not envisage spurious children-of-God: only those given to Himself by the Father and formed according to His Gospel teaching by His gift of the Holy Spirit, would be able and fit to follow Jesus to the kingdom of heaven and, indeed, into the very presence of His and their heavenly Father.

This attitude and purpose of Jesus was made devastatingly clear by His subsequent words which removed any possibility of misunderstanding or prevarication concerning the supremacy of divine truth with regard to political, social, or personal, expediency:

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

Those words were spoken to His disciples in private: they were the ones who would teach Jesus’ future disciples after He had gone, and there had to be no hesitancy or uncertainty over a matter of such importance, a matter that so clearly brings into possible confrontation men’s weakness and wishes with the exigencies of fellowship with God: proximity to the Father in union with Jesus.

Moses had allowed the Jews a certain relaxation because they had been subject to a Law which was meant to help them become aware of their own sinfulness and frailties and acknowledge their need of a Saviour; and in fulfilling such a function the Law allowed a degree of licence and bestowed a measure of holiness.  The Gospel, however, is concerned with the ultimate degrees of holiness, because it was and is meant to bring believers into union with Jesus, and into the family of the heavenly Father as His true-children-in-Jesus, by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit.  Likewise, the fullness of the Holy Spirit could only be given to God’s Church in order to protect and promote the fullness of truth in all its purity: for only such fullness and purity of truth could lead human beings to an appreciation of, and gradual sharing in, the fullness of heavenly glory which is divine charity.  Previously, under the Mosaic dispensation, certain compromises could be made for human weakness and ignorance, since the Law was still preparatory, what would be definitive was yet to come.  The Gospel dispensation, however, is the final and immediate preparation for fellowship with God.  Under the Gospel law, never would believers in Jesus work alone, for they would always be endowed with, empowered and enlightened by, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Holiness, and thus enabled to walk the ways of holiness leading into the presence of Him Whom Jesus addressed in prayer as ‘Holy Father’.  It is for such reasons that Jesus commanded:

You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

People of God, today we are given an opportunity to appreciate something of the divide that many are continually attempting – unconsciously perhaps -- to set up between our modern Church and the intention and will of Jesus.  For, today, emphasis is placed, so often, on numbers and ‘compassion’.  Teaching, it is claimed, has to be adapted in order to bring more people into our churches; it should be relaxed, not only in unessential details of Church law and discipline, but even in matters of doctrine, so that the Church might be more accessible and welcoming to modern attitudes and mores.

This emphasis on numbers, this solicitude for popularity -- which is the true project modern ’compassion’ pleaders have in mind -- is far different from Jesus’ attitude with regard to those who thought His doctrine unacceptable:

Therefore, many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?"             (John 6:60)

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.  Then Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:66-68)

The Gospel message of salvation is, indeed, for the whole of mankind, but the mystery of human freedom is still relevant.  In Jesus’ own time and among Jesus’ own native people only a relatively small number accepted Him, and so no one knows, nor can anyone know, how many will ultimately respond positively to God’s offer of salvation.  Therefore, the attention of the Church should, must, always be turned to authentic doctrine: Jesus’ teaching, as Jesus meant it then, and as Jesus wills it to be heard and understood by mankind today.  Teaching can never be undermined by thoughts and fears about numbers nor must it ever be subjected to the prevalent preconceptions, prejudices and passions, of modern society.  Gospel truth has always to be the pure air we breathe not mere words to be argued about; it is not a commodity put at our disposal, to be watered down, topped up, coloured or flavoured, as we think best suited to current times and requirements.  Mother Church deals – so to speak – in God’s teaching, she dispenses God’s grace; no mere men, no individuals however authoritative, can ‘fiddle’ with what is not theirs, and what is for all men of all times.

There is only one Who can guide us into the fullness of Gospel truth: the Holy Spirit bequeathed to His Church and to be poured out on His Body, by Jesus.  The Good News of Jesus was first proclaimed by His own voice and understood by His own divinely-human mind; no merely human mind is either able to adequately understand its fullness and profundity, or to appreciate its wisdom and beauty; and that is why He gave His Holy Spirit to guide His Church into all truth:

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.  All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore, I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13-15)

Therefore, the Gospel message can only be rightly understood and proclaimed by those imbued and endowed by the Holy Spirit: is not to be grasped like some apple from a tree by intellectual prowess; it can only be known, loved, and gradually experienced, in the life of the Church which we are called to serve, above all, by serving the Lord Jesus Himself in and through her, by faithful obedience and humble perseverance in love. There are, alas, far too many in positions of prominence whose primary concern seems to be that they should be able to make their own mark, with the result that they are always seeking to adapt what has been handed down over centuries in order to proclaim their own gifts by attempts to popularize and debase the straight and narrow, the light of life, and the gift of the Spirit.  They would have the Body and Blood available like French fries and Coca Cola; heaven would be easily accessible to all, indeed, it would be unavoidable, since for them, hell would no longer exist, being totally out of consideration in their system.  God, however, might prove a problem for them, since He twice left the Jewish Temple because of the human sinfulness of faithless guides and pastors.

People of God, the Church of Christ, our Mother Church, can never be diverted from her purpose, because she is protected by the promise of Jesus and His gift of the Spirit.  But the work of the Church can be thwarted for a time, and that is why the Spirit -- Who leads men and women of good will towards Jesus’ heavenly promise -- also leads and needs men and women of good will to defend the Church.  Let us, therefore, pray for Mother Church, let us love the beauty of her God-gifted truth and the splendour of His grace at work in her.  Let us disdain the tawdry prospects of all those who offer us what is cheap and worldly for that heavenly promise made to us by Jesus and won for us at the cost of His most Precious Blood.

                             

26th Sunday Year B 2018

26^th. Sunday (Year B)

(Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48)

Something of the beauty of Moses’ character can be seen in in our first reading today.

The people of Israel had been very troublesome to Moses and the Lord had accepted his prayer for help, and told him:

I will come down (in the cloud over the tent) and speak with you there. I will also take some of the spirit that is on you and will bestow it on seventy of the elders of Israel, men you know for true, that they may share the burden of the people with you. You will then not have to bear it by yourself. 

The Lord did according to His word and sixty-eight of the chosen seventy elders prophesied as some of the spirit on Moses came to rest on them.   However, two of those chosen -- Eldad and Medad by name -- had not gone out to the tent with the others and yet, the spirit came to rest on them also, so that they prophesied, apparently independently and of themselves, inside the camp.  

When a young man told Joshua son of Nun -- who from his youth had been Moses’ aid -- what was happening, Joshua rushed to Moses and said, “My lord, stop them.”  But Moses answered him:

Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow His spirit on them all!

Moses had no thought whatsoever about his own prestige or standing with the people, he was quite satisfied, indeed totally content, with the sublime privilege of being at one with God and of seeing God glorified in and by His people.

We have more of that fulfilling joy in God brought out in the Gospel passage today, where Jesus strives to guide the Twelve into an awareness and appreciation of the wondrous beauty and special dignity of their own relationship with Him as His Personally chosen disciples-cum-Apostles: after all, hadn’t three of them just witnessed His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, hadn’t they heard Him speaking there with Moses and Elijah!

John and his brother James had been indignant about, and probably somewhat jealous of, an unknown person drawing attention to himself by performing apparent miracles:

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out
demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” 

Whereupon, Jesus replied:

Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in My name who can at the same time speak ill of Me.  For whoever is not against us is for us.

John and James had been concerned about someone apparently stealing their thunder.  Of course, they could excuse their displeasure and explain-away their annoyance as zeal for the honour of Jesus and, no doubt, that would to a certain extent be true, since they did indeed love Him.  Nevertheless, John and James were not called ‘Sons of Thunder’ for nothing, and something of their naturally fiery temperament had been stoked up to streaming-point by the unknown and, above all unauthorised, worker-of-wonders.

Let us take close note of Our Blessed Lord’s wisdom, patience, and goodness in His reply.   First of all, with regard to their concern about His good name:

Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in My name who can at the same time speak ill of Me.

Notice, then, how He deals with their personal disturbance and exasperation:

Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against us is for us.

What wonderfully chosen and beautifully phrased words, able both to restrain and correct whilst at the same time giving comfort and offering encouragement!

In our first reading Moses had been fully content with his lot as a servant acceptable to and appreciated by the Lord his God; Joshua had, on the other hand, been most solicitous for Moses’ prestige in the eyes of the people.  Now, in our gospel passage, John and James -- like Joshua -- had not thus far reached the spiritual heights of Moses; they did not as yet fully appreciate and treasure their relationship with Jesus above all else, they had not thus far come to recognize the transcendent worth and beauty of the grace and truth to be found in Him as would St. Paul later:

I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith, to know Him and the power of His resurrection and (the) sharing of His sufferings by being conformed to His death.  (Philippians 3:8ss.)

The supreme value of oneness with Jesus, so esteemed and longed for by Paul, was not fully appreciated by the young Apostles and today, that failing, in a most exaggerated and pernicious form, is widespread in Mother Church among so many frail and/or nominal Catholics who have been brought up in a world become excessively aware of merely human rights and dignity, privileges not understood according to the Gospel of Jesus, but as defined and established by worldly, totally secular and political, authorities. Such vulnerable ‘followers of Jesus’ consequently find themselves unable to truly appreciate the privilege of friendship with a transcendent God, in-and-through the Person of One Who is both God and man, Jesus of Nazareth, uniquely beloved of God and uniquely devoted to the salvation of mankind.

Our world and indeed the whole universe is God’s creation: it is wholly from the God of infinite goodness, it silently witnesses to God’s unimaginable and endless beauty, it unceasingly praises God’s sublime majesty; moreover, it is also for the whole of mankind.   But for those who can only recognize human values, God’s sublimity is both shocking and challenging for human pride, and friendship with Him in and through the God-made-man-for-us can seem a frightening responsibility. Such fear and fright easily lead such vulnerable disciples to begin to question not only God’s majesty and presence in the physical world around us but, even more, His healing and saving power -- in and through His Church -- for human society and for their own individual lives in particular.  Quiescence in such a state can only lead to Jesus’ saving grace and His promise of eternal life and fulfilment, becoming not only side-lined and gradually ignored, but even being denied and ultimately hated: all in total compliance with the world’s yearning for pseudo freedom to be what they want to be and for pseudo love to delight in whatever pleasures and pleases them.

In such a situation it behoves us to return to Our Blessed Lord Jesus again for guidance, comfort, and strength.

He understood fully the Zebedee brothers’ feelings for Him and for themselves, and so, He lovingly and most humbly opened up for them a beautiful insight into the possibilities of their relationship with Himself by His use of one tiny word, ‘us’.   Jesus did not speak to them of what they had been privileged to see on Mount Tabor because the ‘sons of thunder’ had had their nose put out of joint (as the common and somewhat vulgar phrase has it) by the fact that this stranger had DONE something himself, and in doing something he had shown himself to be a somebody whereas they, James and John, had done nothing, they had merely SEEN something taking place before them.  The fact is, dear People of God, those two ‘sons of thunder’, though called to become Apostles, were still potentially proud, and actually very self-centred.  But, for all that, notice how Jesus so patiently, so compassionately, deals with these two!   He draws their special attention to one, tiny, word, minuscule in size but full of, capable of embracing, endless possibilities of the deepest sensitivity, most startling beauty, and totally self-forgetting power of commitment and peace:

            Whoever is not against US is for US!

The anonymous miracle-worker is not included in the embrace of that one word ‘us’ as used by Jesus.   And having said that, Jesus had no need to say more …. the Spirit was at work in His few words and His disciples now humbled hearts.

Although that unknown man had been immensely privileged to work wonders in the name of Jesus – works far beyond his own natural abilities,  John and James were now being called to recognize and treasure the ‘pearl beyond price’ in the Christian experience of life before and with God … that is, oneness with and love for Jesus, a pearl so graced as to able to burn away all thoughts of self and self-interest in a furnace of total love for and commitment to One supremely and sublimely beautiful, holy, and true.

It is the same for Catholics and Christians being persecuted openly or deceptively in our world today; and the question before each of us is that put to James and John, and ultimately to Peter and the whole Church:

Do you love Me more than yourself and the world?  Do you truly want to love Me?

Dear People of God, for all of you who can humbly and sincerely answer that last question with a ‘Yes’ there is only one further question, and that is inevitable:

            Are you therefore willing to work on and try to develop   your desire to love Me.

‘Yes’ to that question, is the life’s work and joy of all true Catholics and Christians. 

25th Sunday Year B 2018

                        25^th. Sunday (B)                   

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

Jesus was teaching His disciples and telling them, "The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill Him, and three days after His death the Son of Man will rise."   But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question Him.

The words of Our Blessed Lord were clear enough, People of God, but the disciples seemed not understand what He was saying.  Why?  Surely it must have been because they did not want to accept that suffering should come into the life of Him Whom they acknowledged as the Christ of God, the glory of His People Israel, and their own, much loved and even more revered, Lord and Master.

It is still the same today: so many people are unwilling to accept that suffering can have any salutary role in their own lives as Catholic Christians, thinking it wrong and totally incomprehensible and that anyone living, or trying to live, a good life as a disciple of Jesus the Lord, should have to experience unjust and undeserved suffering; and consequently, when suffering comes into their lives they are easily scandalized and too frequently turn aside from discipleship in a greater or lesser degree.

Now, this they do because they have allowed themselves to become worldly in their thinking, as Jesus reproached Peter:

Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle to Me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.  (Matthew 16:23)

Having become worldly in their thinking, such people soon come to love not the Lord so much as themselves, and the world for which success -- in its many variations such as plenty, power and pleasure -- is the only fruit of life considered as acceptable and fitting for them.  In that way having begun as just weak Christians, fearful and tremulous at the very thought of any cross, they can easily end up as knowing participators in what is commonly referred to as life’s rat-race.

Saint Augustine has a remarkable sermon which touches on this subject, let me quote you something from it.

A sheep is weak, that is, it lacks courage, with the result that it may give way to temptations if they come upon the sheep when incautious and unprepared.  The negligent shepherd does not say to a believer of that sort: ‘My son, when you come to serve God, take your stand in righteousness and fear, and make ready your soul for temptation.’  One who speaks thus, strengthens the weak and makes him strong instead of weak, so that when he has found faith he will not hope for this world’s prosperity.  For if he has been taught to hope for this world’s prosperity, he will be corrupted by the prosperity itself: when adversities arrive, he is wounded, or perhaps utterly crushed.  One who so builds is not building him on a rock, but setting him on sand.  ‘The rock was Christ.’  Christians must imitate the sufferings of Christ, not seek for pleasure.  What kind of men are such shepherds who, fearing to hurt (or displease) those they speak to, not only do not prepare them for imminent temptations, but even promise the happiness of this world, which Christ did not promise to the world itself?

Those who, in their promotion of self, would avoid all suffering either try to lie low throughout their lives, or else they seek to ignore what others may think and gradually learn to ride rough shod over what others may want.  A life thus spent in promoting and ‘defending’ self makes life something of a battlefield where arguing and quarrelling are common weapons, and the subtle and secret art of maligning others is quickly and easily learnt, being less dangerous than openly accusing or condemning others regarded as opponents or rivals.   Ultimately, of course, such protagonists in the ‘struggle for life’, come to embrace lies as their preferred version of the truth, and hate truth as being permanently twisted against themselves and to their detriment. 

Let us now return to Jesus and learn how He persuaded His disciples to overcome their fears and change their ways:

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, He began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.  

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 and publicly much abused.  Therefore, when Jesus took one such person, so insignificant and singularly unimportant in the eyes of the world, and said:

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

He thereby gave His disciples a picture that was so easy to remember as to be unforgettable, and yet at the same time one that offered them teaching of inexhaustible riches.

For those well-disposed and well-intentioned, for those -- above all -- small in their own conceit, even the smallest work is able to bring such a disciple to Jesus’ attention: there is nothing too small, nothing too insignificant, which -- when it is received, embraced, or done, for Jesus’ sake -- does not bring such a disciple close to his Lord. To be appreciated by the world one has to be, or try to make oneself, significant, great, successful; such endeavours for personal renown are, however, of no advantage 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.

Again, dear People of God, observe what sort of relationship the disciples had with Jesus.  We hear it said today: “Why are our churches so quiet?  We should be greeting our friends and the Lord there!”   Notice the disciples and Jesus in the Gospel passage:

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, He began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

They had walked the way to Capernaum, but, quite obviously, they had not been walking like a group of mates chatting on the way, because, on their arrival at the house, Jesus had asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  He would appear to have been walking ahead and alone, and they had been following as a group.  Why?  There was, obviously, something very different about Jesus, nobody walked alongside Him, shoulder to shoulder, as His equal, His special companion, not even Peter or John.  There was a distance between the disciples and their Lord: not one of separation, but rather, one of reverence.  We can see the same attitude in another detail mentioned in the Gospel reading: for, though the disciples did not understand His teaching concerning His future Passion and Death:

they were afraid to question Him. HeHHhhhhhhHhhhh

Now this was not a fear such as we usually have in mind when we use the word:  for it was a fear which in no way hindered them from following Him wherever He went.  It was such a fear as rises in every humble human heart in the presence of the One who is far greater than they, the presence of the One of Whom Jesus spoke when referring to the Temple in Jerusalem, the pride and joy of the Jewish nation, known and admired far and wide in antiquity, whose very stones still fill modern engineers with admiration and amazement:

I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the Temple (and He is speaking to you at this very moment). (Matthew 12:6)          

Before such a One, only the blindness of culpable ignorance and devilish pride could have rendered the Apostles incapable of feeling and of appreciating an instinctive fear rising in their hearts in His presence.

People of God, we should never be ashamed to fear the Lord, for it is proof of the authenticity of both our knowledge of ourselves and our appreciation of Him.  However, let it be a fear like that of the disciples on the way, a fear which, far from repelling them, drew them after Him, irresistibly, wherever He went: pray that you too may progress along their way of discipleship, experiencing a like, reverential, compulsion to follow Jesus ever more faithfully, ever more closely, even though it lead to your sharing in His sufferings.  Indeed, look beyond the disciples, and pray that your reverential fear may become ever more and more like the reverential love which Jesus Himself, our Blessed Lord and Saviour, had for His heavenly Father when He said:

You have heard Me say to you, 'I am going away and coming back to you.' If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I. (John 14:28)   

Finally, may your appreciation of the glory of the Risen Lord in His Temple, the Church, lead you to shun all worldly attitudes of mind and heart, and fill you with a fearful reverence before her proclamation of His teaching and her dispensing of His grace; such a fear, such a reverence, that grows within you until it becomes a totally consuming love which can find its truest and fullest expression here on earth only in devoting and sacrificing self, in her service and for His glory:

That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. (John 14:31)

Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.  No one takes it from Me but I lay it down of Myself.  I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.  (John 10:17-18)