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.

 

22nd Sunday Year B 2021

 

 22^nd. Sunday (Year B)

(Deut. 4:1-2, 6-8; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

 

Moses was encouraging the People of Israel to enter and take possession of the land God was about to bestow upon them by giving them God’s Law whereby they might prosper in that land and give glory to Him Who had brought them thus far, through all their troubles and despite all their enemies:

What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon Him?  Or what great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

Notice the priority given by Moses: first, the closeness of Israel’s God whenever they call upon Him; second, no nation has statutes and decrees so wise and just as the law Moses is now giving Israel from their God.  The relationship between God and His Chosen People is determined first of all by the way His people relate to Him in their minds and hearts, communing with Him and calling upon Him in all their needs; secondly by their observance of the Law He has given them for their prosperity and His Glory before the nations.

Let us now turn our attention to Jesus in His confrontation with the Pharisees as we heard in the Gospel reading. 

At that time the politically powerful Sadducees were, by the grace of Rome, the authorities in charge of the internationally renowned Temple worship in Jerusalem, but it was the Pharisees who were the popular spiritual leaders in Israel – the Sadducees were aristocrats way above the ordinary people, lords of all they saw and owned, while the Pharisees were much closer to the peoples’ level, and they were most proud to be recognized as zealous for observance of the Law of Moses rather than for the law of Rome.  Nevertheless, the Law came down to them along with a multitude of oral traditions from elders with the result that their concern for the Law did not lead them to God so much as it made them ever, and ever more, mindful of what their elders had said about the Law.  They communed more with those elders in pride of spirit than with God in humility of heart:

Jesus responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’  You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition

Then Jesus went on to show the absolute importance of that inner turning to, communing with, God …. for only God, thus invited into men’s hearts, could purify them and cleanse us:

From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.  All these evils come from within and they defile.

The Law might regulate external behaviour, but only communion with God in the heart could purify from inner defilement.

Even for Our Blessed Lady, who, as St. Luke (2:19) tells us:

            Kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart,

that heartfelt loving communion with God had to be perfected before she could follow her Son’s Ascension into heavenly glory: she received the Gift of the Holy Spirit, to glorify her within and without in preparation for her Assumption into heaven to be with her beloved Son.

And for us Catholics, obedience to the Church, regular reception of the sacraments, will produce little where our heart is not open to welcome and cherish the Gift of God’s Holy Spirit there.  The Spirit is God’s Invisible Gift to each of us, and only a personal, spiritual, response to His majesty and power, wisdom and love, a response that God Himself sees and appreciates before ever it strikes human eyes or ears, can provide a fitting return gift to God on our part.

An ever-present -- usually secret -- sickness among not a few Catholics who try to be worthy of the name, is a feeling of being burdened, even suffocated, by recommendations, prescriptions, regulations, that seem to threaten us with failings here, faults there, sins, indeed, which -- even when small -- are considered to be significant because leading to others more threatening and serious.   It is a sickness that results from spiritual ignorance and robs sincere religious observance of any spontaneous joy.

Where is the freedom of which St. Paul spoke so ardently:

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery?  (Galatians 5:1)

How can it be that when the Christian life for some seems so unfree, oppressive, that St. John can write:

No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God’s seed remains in him.   (1 John 3:9)

Such an anomaly is due to that against which Moses warned the People of Israel, that about which Jesus accused the precious and proud Pharisees: it is something that for today’s more humble and sincere Catholic sufferers might be described as ‘taking one’s eye off the ball’.

For Christians are not meant to struggle alone in their imitation of Jesus; we are called and expected to allow the Spirit of Jesus to guide us along the way He alone knows, even to carry us – unknown to ourselves -- along that way.  We are not meant to be ever looking out for sins and occasions of sin: rather we are intended to keep our minds on God who is our Father, really and truly, our Father Who wants to show Himself as such for us.  We should fix our hearts on Jesus Who died for love us and rose in glory for us; we should set our hopes on the Holy Spirit of Jesus, given to us, the Spirit Who will form us secretly indeed but sublimely in an authentic likeness of Jesus for the Father.

People of God, we are not called to be rich in worldly consolations and satisfactions: we are believers whose faith and provisional experience of God are strong enough to fill us with a desire for that of which Jesus has spoken and for which He has given us His promise.  We are not individuals confident in our own ability and strength: we are called to be disciples who find our comfort and strength in the Spirit Jesus has given us and the hope which He inspires within us.   Above all we are children; children of God who know most surely that there is a Father Who has already spoken to us, and Who is still drawing us to Jesus; a Father Whom Jesus has assured us we can, in Him, call ‘Our Father’, a Father Whose heavenly kingdom will be our eternal home.

We are a people called to gratitude for God’s innumerable blessings and gifts, not to complaisance in our own achievements; a people called to confidence in His goodness, not to pride in our own self-sufficiency; a people called to aspire to and hope for the supreme joy of His loving presence, not to selfish anxiety and fear for our present freedom from trial and trouble, and the certainty of our future eternal safety.

Dear People of God, let us learn in prayer to look for and praise God’s wondrous beauty; re-discover and constantly remember His many blessing to you personally over the years; and never be surprised at His enduring and ever-erupting goodness in your lives.