6th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; 1^st. Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45)

Our first reading told us that, in Jesus’ times, after a priest’s examination;

When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or  an eruption or a spot, he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’  He shall live alone.  His dwelling shall be outside the camp.

And, in order to prevent any further contact with ordinary, healthy members of society:

The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, he shall cover his upper lip and shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.'

As a result, a leprous person was -- in the popular estimation -- as good as dead so far as normal society and normal human contacts were concerned. 

Now this law of exclusion embodies a divine principle, both Jewish and Christian, whereby the good of the whole transcends that of the individual, and the individual good should be conducive to the good of the whole.  This was one of the guiding lights for St. Paul throughout his missionary labours, as we heard in the second reading:

I try to please everyone in everything, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

Today however, this principle is neither clearly understood nor readily accepted.

Consequently, even though the common good is at stake, nevertheless, today, it is mainly religious bodies who alone have sufficient conviction to resist present western hedonistic tendencies such as abortion, and social doctrines presenting homosexuality as an alternative life-style to that of heterosexual love and marriage.  Heterosexual love in marriage is the bedrock of human society, fulfilling the spouses and serving the whole human race through the children they raise as wholesome family members.  Homosexuality, on the other hand, when practised as an optional, sexual life style -- as distinct from friendship, an emotional and spiritual but non-sexual relationship  -- satisfies only the passions of the individuals concerned at the expense of society which is thereby debilitated: professional surrogate mothers, and frustrated: children in unnatural homes -- as experience shows at home and abroad.

The rabbis considered the cleansing of one suffering from leprosy to be as impossible as raising the dead, and a story concerning Elijah (2 Kings 5:6-7) shows how clearly Israel and the ancient world recognized that none but divine power could cure it:

(Naaman brought a letter from the king of Syria to the king of Israel), ‘When the king of Israel read the letter,  he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?’

However, St. Mark in today’s Gospel reading told us that:

A leper came to Jesus, imploring Him, and kneeling said, "If You will, You can make me clean."  Moved with pity, He stretched out His hand, touched him, and said to him, "I will; be clean."

There, we can recognise the faith which sustained the leper; for, risking public disapproval and official punishment, with humble confidence and firm faith he sought out Jesus and begged Him: ‘If You wish, You can make me clean’.  In response, Jesus  reached out and, touching the man said, “I do will it”; whereupon the man was completely cleansed of his leprosy.  Jesus’ very deliberate touch restored the leper’s contagion!  Holiness curing the contagion of sin! The very essence of Jesus’ Gospel of Good News and salvation!!

If we continue to look more closely at Jesus, trying to understand and learn from His human attitude, it can be of much help and might save us from many errors.

Our modern Western society is so ostentatiously committed to human rights -- the rights of the individual -- that the good of the whole is easily overlooked; and individuals become, in ever-growing measure, out of control, to the detriment of both the security and the cohesion of society as a whole.  This is the case because individual rights are only valid – as we have noted --  to the extent that they are conducive to the well-being of the whole of society, and the validity of this principle is being vindicated in our day by the fact that now, at last, the social evil of abortion is becoming manifest to all, as the European birth rate is unable to support the continuing viability of its member nations: several of which are dying out, dying on their feet, so to speak.   Again, lack of discipline in our schools – due in no small degree to the doctrinal application of so-called human rights of children who are, as yet, unable to truly appreciate that rights and duties are inevitably co-related -- is leading to an educational and social crisis; because any educational system that is not able to teach its children and students self-control and personal responsibility by the imposition of recognized and necessary discipline cannot produce true citizens.  Indeed, such a system is liable to turn out an ever-growing number of young adults who are a potential danger to their neighbours and to society as a whole, because their emotions are not sufficiently subject to their control, and the only rights they are aware of are their own ‘personal’ rights, rights which -- they like to think -- should in no way be restricted or overruled by any ‘supposed rights’ of the larger body of society. 

And now, taking up our Gospel reading again, we heard there, that Jesus -- having cured the man -- warned him sternly not to tell other people about it; however:

            The man went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news. 

One can easily think-up excuses for the man cured; but, in fact, his publicising of the cure made things much more difficult for Jesus, because it meant that:

Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but (had to be) out in desolate places.

Before this incident it was the leper who had been obliged to remain in deserted places;  but now the former leper was free to mingle with men, while Jesus had to behave as if He were the leprous one, being unable continue His saving mission in the towns, and villages of that area.

That incident is again a helpful insight for us in our understanding of Our Blessed Lord Who later on, dear People of God, would even become ‘sin’ and ‘a curse’ for our sakes!!

For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.   (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, by becoming a curse for us -- for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is  hanged on a tree”.    (Galatians 3:13)

Jesus had come to cure the whole of Israel -- and ultimately the whole of mankind -- from the supreme uncleanness of sin, but the cleansed-leper was only able to think of his own cleansed body.  Jesus had cured him, and he felt he had to tell others of what had happened to himself; and, as a result of such forbidden praise, we are told that: 

Jesus could no longer openly enter a town.

Of course, people today like to think that because the man was obviously so grateful to Jesus, so happy in his new-found health, he is therefore not to be blamed.  But in fact, although that man’s ignorance of Jesus’ overall purpose is perfectly understandable and blameless, nevertheless, the fact that He ignored Jesus’ express command to ‘keep quiet’ turned out to be positively damaging for others: because He -- the Healer, the Master -- was no longer able to continue His healing, saving, mission in that vicinity.

Dear People of God, what unknown harm do our sins, our failures to obey the Lord’s commands in our lives, cause for others in need of God’s saving help and strength?

At this point we should call to mind Our Blessed Lord’s words which explain His own Personal attitude in all such matters of obedience, an attitude that would lead Him to embrace death out of loving obedience to His Father and for our salvation:

I know that His (My Father’s) commandment is eternal life!   (John 12:50)

Jesus came to take away the sins of the world, and our personal needs and desires are but elements, however important to us, in God’s overarching universal purpose, and they must, therefore, be subject to its requirements.

As in the case of today’s cured-leper, that steadfast and unnoticeable-to-men obedience which God wants above all, calls for a moral strength, a humble selflessness, and a devout faith of a much superior order, which, far from meeting with human praise, can often enough lead  to disapproval and judgemental words, “how ungrateful!”.

Because we are so very self-centred, we need to constantly remind ourselves that none can cure mankind from the malady of sin but Jesus the Christ, sent by God His Father for that specific purpose; and, that Jesus -- though now in heaven -- is ceaselessly at work by His Spirit in and through His Church; and if we want to be His co-workers, we have to resolutely seek only His glory, await patiently His will, proclaim always His goodness.

In His time Jesus was regarded as a rebel because He was never intimidated by the expectations of contemporary popular thinking nor by the pressures of self-serving officialdom; and we, as His disciples, should likewise practice independence from the pagan attitudes of people around us whilst maintaining, with Him, a right humility before lawful authorities established for the good governance of society.  Throughout His life Jesus recognized His Father as the exclusive Ruler over all the decisive events of His life on earth, as the only Guide for all His Personal attitudes, and as the supreme Goal for all His Personal actions and decisions.  And so for us, the true good of the individual, though included in God’s plan for the good of the whole, is nevertheless subordinate to that good of the whole. And that balance is an integral and necessary part of the true and ultimate good prescribed and wanted by God the Father and proclaimed by Our Lord Jesus Christ; a good that we, as living members of His Body, have to seek, work and pray for, in the power and under the inspiration of His most Holy Spirit of Truth and Love. 

5th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1^st. Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-398)

Simon and his companions searched for Jesus and, on finding Him, they said:

“Everyone is looking for you.” 

He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.”

We can appreciate from that passage of the Gospel that Jesus considered His preaching to be of supreme importance; and that most probably led that great disciple of Jesus, St. Paul, to make this otherwise surprising declaration in his first letter to the Corinthians:

            Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. (1:17)

Throughout His public ministry Jesus’ preaching was a cause of astonishment to those who heard Him.  They reacted in this way both because of the content of His preaching -- many, for example, would say after hearing Him:

            Where did this man get this wisdom? (Matthew 13:54),

and also, because of the manner in which He addressed them, as you heard in last week’s Gospel passage:

The people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

Now, this was not just the reaction of simple people perhaps too prone to religious excitement, it was also the response of the Temple guards – servants of the chief priests and Pharisees -- notoriously untouched by any such religious sensitivities, as St. John tells us in his Gospel (7:46):

            The officers answered, "Never has a man spoken the way this Man speaks.”

Indeed, St. Mark tells us (11:18), that the religious authorities themselves -- proud aristocrats and determined enemies of Jesus -- had a like appreciation of His preaching:

The chief priests and the scribes began seeking how to destroy Jesus; they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching.  

When the scribes -- learned in the Law and in the Jewish oral tradition -- addressed the people on some brief passage of the Law, they frequently did little more than string together a few quotes, taken them from earlier authorities or currently influential teachers, without themselves making any personal statements or commitment.

With Jesus, however, it was quite different: He might, indeed, quote on occasion, but only from the Scriptures;  other than that, He might proffer His own observations on everyday events and occurrences of human life, or make Personal references to the wonder and beauty of the natural world around, before finally -- by the fullness of the Spirit that was in Him -- delivering a teaching uniquely based on His own Personal authority, that was both sublimely expressive of God’s presence and purpose in the Scriptures, and yet most harmoniously in tune with nature, and with the experiences, the religious expectations  and aspirations, of ordinary men and women.

His was, indeed, an absolutely unique authority on, and interpreter of, divine realities, as both St. John (3:11-13) and St. Matthew (11:27) tell us:

Truly, truly, I (Jesus) say to you, We speak of what We know and testify of what We have seen, and you do not accept Our testimony. No one has ascended into heaven, but He Who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.

All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 

Now, St. Paul, by virtue of his God-given vocation as Doctor of the Nations, recognized and appreciated the absolute necessity of this aspect of Jesus’ teaching, as we can tell from the advice he gave to Titus (Titus 2:15), an early convert of his whom he later established as head of the church in Crete:

Say these things.  Exhort and correct with all authority. Let no one look down on you (because of your youth).

Today, the proclamation of the Gospel by public preaching is frequently mocked by those who foolishly and proudly ‘think they know it all’; or by others (more important ecclesiastically?) who think they have reasons more compelling than Our Lord’s own express example.  Nevertheless, public proclamation through authoritative Sunday  preaching  is absolutely essential for Mother Church, and it should not be abandoned for fear of jibes or unpopularity!   The authority so desirable in Mother Church’s preaching can only come from enlightened faith based on her witness to authentically Apostolic and Catholic Christian teaching: a faith which has been gratefully received, wholeheartedly believed over thousands of years, and is now -- even in a paganized West -- so deeply loved and revered that it has to be most reverently handed on to subsequent generations in the fulness of its wondrous beauty and divine truth.  Such authority in priest-and- people’s Catholic proclamation and Christian witness cannot be based on some stirred-up, emotional novelty, justified by any ‘paternal assurance’ of personal, compassionate, inspiration; it must come from a total commitment to what is traditional and transcendent in Mother Church, and yet, what is essentially part of, and indeed the only key to, our deepest human self, made in the image and likeness of God.  This total commitment to the God proclaimed by our faith can only come about to the extent in which we realize that our duty and glorious calling  as Catholics and Christians is to know the God of our proclamation p/Personally:

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9)

This knowledge is not just some awareness of certain facts about God, the Scriptures, or about the Church; it must aspire to be a deeply personal appreciation of and love for God Himself, as manifested to us in the Person of Jesus Christ, witnessed to us by Jesus’ revelation of the Father, and confirmed by His Gift of the Holy Spirit in Mother Church.  This is a knowledge that can only be received by those who consistently and perseveringly seek to follow their Lord’s own example of commitment and love as shown by His constant communing with His Father in prayer:

Rising very early before dawn, He left and went off to a deserted place, where He prayed.   

It is the lack of such loving knowledge of, communion with, and whole-hearted response to, the Personal God Who deigns to dwell within His faithful servants, that bedevils the proclamation and the witness of Catholic priests and Christians today.

In the book of Hosea (4:6; 6:6) we are told:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest.

I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

The world’s ‘religion’ today is above all a proclamation of self-sufficiency and mutual self- approbation: ‘we can do good of ourselves without any God’.  And because God is rejected as not-necessary, there is no authority able to give peace, strength, and coherence to the common man’s experience of life, all we have is woke doctrines and human (especially feminine) sensibilities.  The laws that would govern the nations all too often give expression to the lies and deceits of unconsciously ludicrous pride (as above) and corrosive self-interest; and the laws that would govern our own society is, at the best, only a series ‘ad hoc’ solutions quite unable to cure the root-ills of an irreligious, no longer God-fearing, nation.  For an ever-growing number of individuals there is no rudder to guide or govern their personal lives: only the  compulsive pressures of profit, the personal passions of pleasure, and social aspirations for power and popularity, all leading to an experience of Job’s words:

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to an end without hope.

Nevertheless, let us, People of God, take to heart the words of the great prophets:

He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him; so, let us know, let us press on to know, the LORD. (Hosea 6:2-3)

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9)

Above all, of course, we must learn from Our Blessed Lord Himself (John 10:15):

As the Father knows Me, I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

You (Samaritans) worship what you do not know; we  worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.   (John 4:22)

This is eternal life, that they should know You the only true God, and the One Whom You sent, Jesus Christ.  (John 17:3)

        I do know Him (God) and I keep His word. (John 8:55)

 

The Son of God knew His Father’s infinite goodness-and-love for what He had originally created in His own likeness, and – loving Son that He was -- He willed to suffer in His humanity for love of us, and to die as Man for love of His Father, thus becoming Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Word of God, born of the Virgin.

 

Dear People of God, let us pray that our Blessed Lord and Saviour may give authentic authority to both the preaching and proclamation of Mother Church and of us, her, individual, witnessing priests and people, in our troubled world of today.   

4th Sunday Year B, 2024

  

(Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1^st Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28)

Moses had found the Israelites both hard to teach and reluctant to obey the words given him by the Lord for their observance; so perhaps there was some overtone of irony in his voice when, as we heard in our first reading, he said to them:

A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen.

We, however, are not like those Israelites of old; and so, let us recall and try to profitably consider what is of supreme importance from that first reading today:

Moses spoke to the people saying: ‘The LORD said to me, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put My words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him”.

We then heard why it would be so very important for them to listen to the promised prophet better than they had listened to Moses himself:     

If any man will not listen to My words which he (the prophet) speaks in My name, I Myself will make him (that person) answer for it.

After Moses, the Lord did indeed raise up a series of prophets: great prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others, whose messages live on in the Bible, and yet others whose names alone are remembered; but even though they spoke faithfully, and -- at times -- most beautifully, in the name of the God of Israel, we find throughout the Bible that their message was largely ignored:

I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you have not inclined your ear, nor obeyed Me. (Jeremiah 35:15-16)

Or, as Isaiah put it more dramatically (42:18-20):

Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see.  You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; your ears are open, but none hears.

A prophet was called and sent to speak a message given him by God.  However, should a prophet betray his calling by substituting his own words for the word of God – which was always a possibility because of human sinfulness and the importance and attention accorded to a recognized prophet – God had also most solemnly warned:

If a prophet presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.

And so, though the Lord took great care to have His word faithfully proclaimed and publicly appreciated in Israel, nevertheless, His true prophets were frequently ignored by the people; and indeed, opposed, and even physically oppressed, by their leaders who were inclined to listen only to what they wanted to hear, rather than to the word the Lord their God chose to send them (Matthew 23:37):

O Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!

Nevertheless, Moses’ promise of a special prophet to come was not forgotten by pious Israelites, neither was their conviction that his message would be of decisive

importance for the fulfilment of Israel’s destiny.  You can, therefore, appreciate the significance of the question put to John the Baptist by a delegation of Jews from the authorities in Jerusalem:

 Are you the Prophet?”   

Recall also, in this connection, the voice of the Father speaking from heaven to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Jesus’ transfiguration:

This is My beloved Son.  LISTEN TO HIM!  (Mark 9:7)

Believers of today now know the reason why the Prophet promised by Moses would speak infallibly in God’s name: it is because that Prophet was the very Word of God Himself Who became one of us as Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth:

Jesus answered, "My doctrine is not Mine but His Who sent Me.  I and My Father are One."  (John 7:16, 10:30)

So, People of God, you are in a position to understand that when Jesus spoke, He did so with authority, a God-given authority, not as the scribes; and that why, as we were told:

The people were astonished at His teaching.

Now, that same Jesus speaks to us today, indeed, He is speaking now, in your midst, as I proclaim His word in His name; and we must always bear in mind that He was, and still is, the Saviour of those, and only those, who want to be saved, who will “Repent”.  Many to whom He spoke and who heard His teaching would not accept His teaching-with-authority and, consequently, did not acknowledge His Person; those He left them to themselves, He did not seek to force Himself upon them.

And now today, each of us here must be prepared to answer a question arising from the  secret depths of our Catholic mind and heart: “Do I want Jesus to be my Lord and Saviour, or do I want to be left in the indolence of my own comfort and indifference? Do I want to be rescued from my sinfulness or not?  What, indeed, do I want, here, before God?”

Yes, dear People, if you really want Jesus to be your Saviour, a Rock of strength and support for you, a Light to reveal the authentic beauty of God’s saving will for you, and to guide you into the joy of walking, by His Spirit, along the path He has traced out for you.  If you want God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- to be your earthly joy and promise of eternal blessedness, your earthly light leading to heavenly glory; IF you want to become -- in Jesus -- a true child of God, then you must give Him authority in your life now, here on earth.  Jesus is no tyrant, He will not arrogate such authority to Himself; but if you humbly and faithfully give it to Him, He will use it for your great, eternal blessing.

Listen now to Our Lord Himself again (John 7:16-17):

My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone wants to do His will, he will know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.

“If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know, he will realize …”  God has done His work by giving us His Son --- Who suffered, died, and rose again for us --- and His Spirit, to guide and form us as His children in His beloved Son; and now, we have to choose: “If anyone wants”, Jesus said, “to do God’s will, he will know the truth of My teaching.” Jesus never fails His People;  but not all those who call themselves Christians and Catholics actually want, or do choose, Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour.  Far too many concede Him the titles of Lord and Saviour indeed, but not the authority of Lord and Master in their lives. 

In a sinful world, ‘authority’ easily brings to mind an objectionable, domineering attitude, that has to be resisted, or at least submerged and forgotten in a flood of emotional words and deeds. And yet, true love cannot be exercised without right authority: God the Father sent His Son among us; His Son obediently came into our world at the behest of, and out of supreme love for, His Father; and in every Christian household, loving parents must guide, and when necessary correct, with right authority their children.

See, dear People of God, when Jesus used those words, The Father and I are One: He was speaking about authority and obedience, command and love, as being complimentary manifestations of the absolute one-ness of divinity; He was speaking about the dignity,  understanding, and the totally selfless mutual commitment, uniting the Father and Himself as Son, in the work of our salvation, through their most Holy Spirit.

Dear People of God, Mother Church’s traditional faith, is God’s saving truth.  Mother Church’s sacraments give us God’ grace.  We recognize and acknowledge that Truth; we follow, and are grateful for, that grace, in our lives.  But our hearts are moved to love -- in return -- by Beauty.  Our Blessed Lady loved Jesus as God’s ‘gift’, as her own Son, but ultimately, above all, she loved Him for being the sublimely beautiful Person she had seen, come to know ever-more-deeply, and experienced -- full heart-and-soul -- Him to be.  We recognize and acknowledge the traditional faith of Mother Church, we are grateful for her God-given sacraments which are God’s chosen channels of our salvation … but, the supreme fulfilment of our Christian and Catholic being is only to be found in the measure-of-our-awareness of the Personal Beauty of the God behind them; the God Who supports them; the God and Father of us all Who bestows them.