23rd Sunday in Ordinary time (Year B)

Twenty-third 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 having, nevertheless, 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 tended to become, as the years passed by and the suffering and humiliation piled up, more and more commonly regarded as fighting talk; and that, certainly, was how many Jews in the days of Jesus, understood them.  Currently experiencing occupation by alien forces of the Roman State they longed for God to help them overthrow -- through the  promised Messiah -- the military might of their hated and despised oppressors. With such expectations, of course, they were pre-disposed to see Jesus’ miracles, such as His most recent feeding the five thousand in the desert, as evidence that He was surely the one they were looking for:

Here is your God, He comes with vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you.

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 themselves well prepared for God’s coming judgment -- and the possible appearance of a popularly-expected political Messiah -- thanks to their meticulous observance not only of God’s Law as laid down in the Torah, but also of their own oral traditions from the elders.  Consequently they regarded 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.   What was much worse, however, was that He did not regard the Pharisees themselves as being purified and justified by their meticulous practices, nor was He afraid to publicly rebuke them for their failings:

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 is suited to both people and Pharisees … people who looked for a warrior Messiah and Pharisees who did not appreciate that they themselves needed a Messiah to heal them of a spiritual sickness they did not recognize.   It was, indeed, a prophecy proclaiming Messianic help for both the frightened and the blind:

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, alone in today’s Gospel reading but surely  accompanied by His disciples as Matthew tells us would have been, in the course of things, a novel and intimately informal group learning-experience for His disciples.  Avoiding the militant enthusiasm of those awaiting the promised Messiah in the Jewish homeland Jesus intended to take them to territory -- the Decapolis -- quite recently freed from Jewish rule by the Romans under Pompey and in that His actions were louder, clearer, and more easily appreciated and assimilated than even most carefully chosen words.  On the way His  teaching would be of the type best suited to free His disciples from the legalistic formalism of the Scribes and Pharisees: with His unfailing Filial awareness of and attentiveness to His Father’s abiding presence and guiding will confirming His unique wisdom and holiness in their eyes, while His sympathetic attitude to and dealings with people they encountered on their way -- the many foreigners (a word Jesus Himself used), and the relatively few and fragile, perhaps even alienated, Jews who approached them -- proved surprisingly and fascinatingly beautiful, delighting them not least because it demanded nothing so much as human awareness and sympathy together with the spiritual joy of a humble and admiring disciple.

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 elsewhere and bringing either one of their own to Jesus or perhaps even a friendly pagan?  Did they bring him because he was not able, or perhaps had not wanted, to come to Jesus himself?  Maybe he had become bitter over the years with his trials and only came ‘under pressure’, so to speak, from good friends?  Perhaps we may have someone here in a situation not unlike like that of the man St. James spoke of in today’s second reading, someone ‘poor and shabby’, someone not immediately likeable.

            Jesus took him off by himself away from the crowd.

The man was being given the opportunity to experience personal closeness with Jesus to overcome his original apprehensions.

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

Jesus was doing things not unexpected by the man, thus calming him down and hopefully stirring up embers of confidence and trust.

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

Here, with that glance up to heaven and the audible groaning of Jesus are we perhaps privileged to glimpse the man’s introduction to faith in the goodness of God and the saving suffering of Our Lord?  Anyhow,

The man’s ears were immediately opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly;

thus he was enabled to join with all in their heart-felt acclamation:

            He has done all things well!

Now, let us look at Jesus as we see Him more broadly portrayed in the Gospel.  He had, quite recently, performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand and then -- in an open confrontation -- discomfited both the Pharisees and Scribes who had sought to accuse Him and His disciples for failing to observe the  traditions of the elders.  Jesus had, at that time, been close to being hailed by the common people as the expected Messiah, their longed-for, victorious, leader, and that experience would seem to have been in the forefront of His thinking, for He went, straightway, out of Israelite territory and set out, ultimately for the Greek-speaking Decapolis, where Jewish expectations and practices were smothered in what could be regarded as a heavy pagan smog.

On the way, Jesus and (according to St. Matthew) His disciples, walking the coastal region near Tyre and Sidon unnoticed and free, had been discovered by a woman who pestered Him and His disciples to heal her daughter and we then learned of that most memorable 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 immediately recognized that such an answer was far above the woman’s natural capabilities:

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

“For this saying” …. Jesus was indeed struck by what the woman said and He continued walking in this pagan district, going, we are told, towards the Sea of Galilee, but not directly, choosing rather to take a long, round-about, route  leading, ultimately, to the Decapolis region.  He had not wanted to be lionized by over-enthusiastic Israelites dreaming of the Lion of Judah crushing Israel’s oppressors, and for that reason had entered this non-Jewish region; and now, having encountered the Syro-Phoenecian woman so beautifully gifted by His Father, He decided to continue on this journey through to the Decapolis …. perhaps His Father still had some further purpose for Him there?

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 miracle fulfilling what the prophet Isaiah had long foretold:

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, looked for His Father’s presence, listened for His Father’s voice, and after this relatively short journey outside Israel He had brought back His immediate disciples to Israel and God’s Chosen  People with greater confidence in, and admiration for, Him Whom they had heard the lips of both suspect Jews and foreign Greeks unite in praise saying:

            He has done all things well!   

Moreover, when the time would come for them to be sent out to baptize all nations they would be able to recall with deep love and inspired confidence what they had originally so lovingly experienced and deeply assimilated in the presence of Him Who had so convincingly shown Himself to be both Perfect God and Perfect man.                        

Let us now take part in the Holy Sacrifice with like appreciation: rejoicing in the presence of Our Lord and Saviour, while confidently reviewing and renewing our own personal calling before the Father, for the glory of His Name, the exaltation of Mother Church and for the true well-being of our world.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary time (Year B)

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary time (Year B) 

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

4-15, 21-23)

Our readings today are centred upon what one might call the art of living in the Church.  We are shown the good things God gives us and does for us, and also how mankind – even those who are religious -- can distort and disfigure, those blessings.  In the words of Fr. Faber, it can happen that: “We make His love too narrow, by false limits of our own; and we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will not own.”

In the first and second readings we were reminded of the great blessings God bestowed, first of all, on Israel, and, subsequently upon the whole of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles:

Observe carefully what I command you, for thus you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’

All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change. He willed to give us birth by the word of truth, that we may be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. … Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.

We should recall that, in the first place, the Law given to the Israelites in the desert had come from God, it was not something the People of Israel had managed to produce of and for themselves; and likewise, the land they were about to enter, would not be won by their own might or valour, but would, likewise, itself be a gift from God.  That is why Moses told them:

In your observance of the commandments of the LORD your God which I enjoin upon you, you shall not add to what I command you, nor subtract from it, that you may live and enter in and take possession of the land which the Lord is giving you.

For us too, the Faith that we have received is not of human origin nor does it propose to us merely earthly aspirations.   This was made abundantly clear for us Catholics and all true Christians by St. Peter when -- in response to these words of Jesus:

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63-64)

he showed -- under inspiration by the Father as Jesus Himself declared –whole-hearted gratitude and wondrous appreciation by answering (Jn. 6:68-70):

Master, You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that You are the Christ, the Holy One of God.

Therefore we must cling firmly to the teaching of the Faith: not only by reverencing it in our words, but also, and supremely – as St. James insists --  by practicing it in our daily living.  And to that end we must, above all else, strive to truly recognize and love, understand and proclaim, Jesus enshrined in the Faith and Sacraments which God has so graciously bestowed upon us in Mother Church:

This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 

Although such intentions may seem clear and indisputable, nevertheless they can prove difficult to carry out because, at times, our minds: so slow to comprehend, our imaginations: so full of self-love and fear, and our emotions: so blind and imperious, will tempt us to depart – even though perhaps only slightly here and just a little there -- from our approved purpose and follow their urgent promptings.  And though we may resist their attractions, nevertheless, their recurrence and unruliness can be wearisome and make it difficult for us to grow and come to our personal fulfilment in the Faith we acknowledge as both true and God-given.

Such difficulties, of course, are due to the fact that the Faith has been given us in order to change us, from what – who -- we are, into what – who -- God wants us to become.  The Faith has been given us to re-form us: no longer in accordance with our own personal preferences, worldly desires and aspirations, but after the pattern, and according to the will, of Him Who is now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, preparing a place for us to live there with Him for all eternity.

Moreover, in addition to such difficulties which arise from our very nature and are therefore the common experience of all disciples of Jesus, there are other difficulties we experience that spring not so much from our common human nature as from our own personal character and that of those with whom we have personal dealings: perhaps difficulties with others who are  in positions of influence and authority, as in our Gospel passage:

The Pharisees and scribes questioned Him, "Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?"

To which words, Jesus answered most vigorously, saying:

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.   And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.  And He said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.”

     

The traditions of the elders to which the Pharisees and Scribes were so devoted were originally practiced -- and subsequently handed down -- as a means of helping and protecting true devotion among the people of Israel.  And there were, undoubtedly, not a few in Israel who had profited, and would continue to profit, from their observance.  The trouble was, however, that the zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes for such traditions and for the letter of the Law led them, at times, to disregard or even reject God’s commands and His broader spiritual teaching given through the Prophets and in the liturgical worship of Israel.  Moreover, this excessive and misplaced zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes pushed them so far as to assert or desire that everyone in Israel should be bound by their traditions.  This amounted, Jesus said as He quoted the prophet Isaiah, to them:

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

In that condemnation you can recognize how zealous Jesus was for the honour of God: men’s commandments were in no way to be compared with doctrines established on the unique authority, and expressing the sublime wisdom and ultimate goodness, of God Himself.

Now, In Mother Church there are many in positions of authority that entitle, and at times require, them to give advice, guidance and even instruction to the People of God.  Such guidance and instruction – because the authority behind it stems from learning, experience, and above all, from the acknowledged and invoked guidance of God’s promised grace – can require obedience at times, and always merits respect and thoughtful attention.  No one can rightly disdain or totally disregarded such teaching.

However, we must always realize that we have been set free by Jesus Christ; free, that is, to serve God, as living members of the Body of Christ in response to the guidance of His Holy Spirit living and working within us; and that no human guides can ever be allowed to cut us off from that freedom to respond personally to God making Himself known to us in our daily experience of life and prayer, so long as we truly remain in Jesus by keeping His commands and following His teaching handed down to us in Mother Church’s Gospel proclamation.  St. Paul makes this absolutely clear:

Let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, the world or life or death,  the present or the future: all belongs to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

As we go through life, striving to listen ever more carefully to God and follow Him ever more closely, we are always advancing to what is -- for us – new and largely unknown territory so to speak.  Therefore it is indeed both humanly good and spiritually necessary that we should have the help of guidance from Mother Church, for on her alone does Jesus bestow the fullness of His Spirit, and for her alone does the Spirit appropriately recall all that Jesus taught and did.  Nevertheless, after prayerful listening to God whispering in our heart and to our conscience, and with abiding respect for the teaching of and our communion in Mother Church, it is up to each of us, personally, to decide finally which way to go, because such responsible commitment is the hall-mark of a personal relationship with God Who wills to be intimately known and Personally loved by us in our life of faith; it is the glory of a Christian which we should not yield, and certainly never abandon, to another.

Jesus once (Matthew 10:19-21) declared to His disciples:

When they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.     

Jesus might have said, ‘the Spirit of My Father will guide you’, but no, He actually said, ‘the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you’ will help you.   As it were, obliterating Himself Jesus shows us how closely He wants His disciples to be united to, one with, His Father, and it is for that end He gives us His Spirit at baptism and renews His Spirit within us at every Holy Communion. Oneness with the Father, in Jesus, by the Spirit, that is the culmination of all Christian life and holiness in Mother Church.

However, never at any stage in our life can we presume that we have heard, understood, and responded aright without regularly checking, as we proceed further, that we are, indeed, not only within the parameters of the Faith, but also walking in the direction of, and in a comforting conformity with, the life-thrust of her who is both the unique Bride of Christ and also our own Mother.  And this constant longing for, and looking to, God; this unceasing watchfulness for the motions of His Spirit within us; this abiding awareness of personal weakness and ignorance together with an ever growing awareness of and reliance upon God’s goodness to us in Mother Church; all these attitudes and experiences gradually build up an ever deeper confidence and abiding joy in Mother Church as the Bride of Christ, and an ever more humbling and grateful experience and awareness of the presence and of the goodness of God in our lives.

The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God: the things which God has prepared for those who love Him; things which God has revealed to us through His Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)A

     

21st Sunday in Ordinary time (Year 2)

Twenty-first Sunday (Year B)                         (Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69)

The Gospel passage today, People of God, refers to the Eucharist and continues last Sunday’s reading; Jesus is addressing certain Jews who, quite understandably with their background, found the words of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man as repulsive and unacceptable.  However, in our Mass today, the continuation of that previous Gospel reading has been put in close proximity to St. Paul’s teaching that, in Christian marriage, the wife must respect and obey her husband who, in his turn, must love and cherish his wife.  Let us therefore take up Jesus’ words with dissenting disciples and allow them to illuminate St. Paul’s teaching on the true nature and purpose of Christian marriage and our appreciation of it.

Does this offend you?   What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

St. Paul has become a “bête noir” for modern feminists who regard his teaching as being degrading for women; but then, what sort of women do those feminists have in mind, women of the world or Christian women?  The devil’s sin is pride, and the easiest and most acceptable way of leading human beings astray is for him to give them a shot or two of pride into the arm, so to speak.  We Christians, therefore, need to be very careful whom we allow to influence us; and, at times, we have to examine the motives of those who put themselves forward as leaders because we cannot allow ourselves to be guided by the thinking of people whose stated aims are inevitably and essentially worldly: gilded over with so-called acceptable pride; polished and presented for easy assimilation and popularity;  promoted by, and serving as safety-valve for, deep-seated emotional tendencies to self-assertion.

Let us then look at Paul’s teaching:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord: as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. (Eph 5:22, 24)

The feminists say, of course: what woman could accept that?

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, nourish and cherish (them), just as the Lord does the Church.

The boys, macho-men, likewise respond immediately with: what man would want that?

Women will, of course, accuse many men of violence; and men, likewise, will complain of most women’s uncontrolled emotionalism.  However the prime target against which the feminists’ inveigh is what they see as the humiliation of woman in Christian marriage, while the boys target the suffocating bondage and responsibility with which they imagine Christian family life would stifle them.

If those views were the only possible interpretations of St. Paul’s teaching it would be very difficult indeed to understand how it has come about that Christianity has raised the status and dignity of women more than any other religious faith.  How could a religion preaching the so-called humiliation of woman in marriage have lifted up the status, and confirmed the dignity, of women to such an extent?  On the other hand, if the bondage of responsibilities and chastity were so objectionable and unsatisfying for men -- as the boys say -- how could it be that Christian family life has shown itself to be the stable bed-rock of Western, indeed world-wide, democratic society?

As you can see, so much depends on how you look at things.  That is why we heard in the first reading Joshua, the leader of the Israelites after Moses, saying to the assembled people, “Make up your minds”:

Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt.  And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."  So the people answered and said: "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods.

Many of our troubles today are largely the due to people who, like the Israelites of old, publicly say they don’t want to forsake the Lord, but who, in their hearts, neither hold Him in fear, nor are willing to discipline their ambitions or their bodies so as to serve Him in sincerity and truth.

Jesus, in the Gospel reading, knew some such people who found His teaching hard because they were unwilling to commit themselves entirely to Him:

When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?  What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?   It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  

What if you see the Son of Man ascending to heaven?  Can’t you understand where I am leading you?  You will see me ascend as your leader to the place where I am preparing a place for all who will follow me.  I am not preparing you to be My disciples for a mere seventy or eighty years’ life in this sinful set-up; I have been sent to help you become, in Me, children of God, My heavenly Father.  I am, indeed, sent to make you -- by the Spirit I will send to you -- His children able to live for ever in an eternal home prepared for you in His Kingdom; but for that you have to be willing to trust me.

Just as there are many rooms in the Father’s Kingdom where Jesus is preparing to receive His faithful disciples, so too, here on earth, there are many ways of learning discipleship and some, indeed, are better than others, as both Mary and Martha learnt; but all acceptable ways involve loving God and one’s neighbour, serving, imitating, Jesus, and obeying His Spirit in the Church. 

Whatever way we choose, the whole of our life as Christians is a time of preparation for our heavenly home, a preparation whereby we are gradually purged and cleansed of our sins and formed in the likeness of Jesus by His Holy Spirit.  It is not a time for the pre-eminent pursuit of worldly vanity and pleasure, nor is it a worldly process we can monitor and appraise to our own satisfaction – even Mary had not been able to observe the full extent of her Son’s manly spiritual development before His heavenly Father.  The progress of life on earth for a disciple of Jesus is a Spiritual work, a work carried out by the Holy Spirit; and it is a faith work, a work that can only be done for those who live by faith in Jesus Christ and in that way open themselves up to His Holy Spirit and allow Him to work, even secretly, in them.

And so marriage, the Christian relationship between man and woman, is a most important relationship for the training of God’s children; it cannot be a relationship which is private to the two concerned, that is, a free-love association.  Marriage is the union of man and woman offered to Jesus, to be lived according to His teaching and for His purposes; and the words of St. Paul today are of supreme importance and indeed striking beauty in this respect.  The wife is to honour and obey her husband so that, becoming a Christian mother she can not only teach but also gently lead her children to, and accustom them in, authentic obedience to their father.  Were the father alone in requiring obedience from his children, he would almost inevitably be thought to be demanding it, and consequently considered as domineering.  The husband is to love his wife so that he can indeed lead and guide his children in tender love and consideration for their mother; for if she were alone in seeking such love she would easily be thought of as neurotic.   Christian children have to learn obedience and disciplined love in the home and there is no more beautiful way than following mother in honouring and obeying father, and joining with father in expressing love and gratitude to mum.  Thus the father can, and indeed must, rightly insist that his children love their mother; the wife can and should ensure that her children honour and respect their father by obedience.

Christian marriage is a privileged preparation ground: it continues and potentially glorifies God’s work of creation, it serves and promotes the salvation of the spouses by forming them for His heavenly family.  Every Christian blessing comes to us through the Cross; consequently, in the whole of Christian life there is the Cross, but as we see in Jesus, the Cross is ultimately something which a Christian -- as a sincere and true disciple of Jesus -- can learn to embrace, with the Lord, for love of the Father; it is something intended and able to lift us up from the earth to heaven.  Just to put it briefly in answer to the feminists and to the lads, Christian marriage is meant to help a Christian man and woman grow in humility on the one hand, and in true, self-less, love on the other hand, both of which demand responsible and enduring commitment, together with willing and patient sacrifice.  To enable them both to do this, the Christian bond of marriage bestows a share in divine love, a gift of grace which enables those who want to receive it strength to live in a way which is more than human; and that is precisely why the feminists and the lads cannot understand Christian marriage and Christian love, because it is for those destined for heaven, not for those intent on, and hoping to be satisfied, with the vanity of human pride or the satiety of worldly pleasures.

In all this however, argument is of limited value, for as Jesus said:

Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.

That does not mean that the Father denies anyone the opportunity or the ability to come to Jesus, but simply that He will not force it upon anyone; while those who do come to discipleship, must realize that it is a gift of God, not their own work.

As in His days in Palestine, Jesus’ message faithfully proclaimed by Mother Church today, still displeases many:

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

However, contrary to the impression given by over-anxious disciples at times, Jesus does not depend on human backing, He does not find it necessary to count “bums on seats”, as the saying goes, in order to be able to trust His Father, and so:

Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"

In reply Peter said what all true believers since then have repeated wholeheartedly:

Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.