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7 Ordinary Time
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Second
Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B - John 1:35-42
Victor Hugo in Les Miserables wrote, "To love
another is
to see the face of God." Hugo was speaking figuratively. But John the
Baptist and Andrew had the good fortune to see the authentic face of
God. Immediately they fell in love with Christ for life and were never
the same again. It was love at first sight.
Today's Gospel is the word painting of two
extraordinary people. One is John the Baptist, who gets much attention
and does not like it. The other is Andrew who is put on
everyone's back burner and could not care less.
At this point, John is the star of the show.
He is
surrounded by great numbers. He is lionized by the press. People travel
hundreds of miles on foot to hear him. Everybody wants a piece of him.
And yet the Baptist is about to throw all that adulation overboard.
Standing before him is One whom he cannot ignore. It is the Messiah. At
this point, Jesus is a non-person as far as John's admirers are
concerned. It is John who puts the spotlight on Him. The only loser
will be himself. Perhaps then we can better understand why John is the
only person of whom Jesus says He stands in awe.
The day before this Gospel opens, John was
surrounded by
a mob of fans. He points to Christ and announces Him as the Main Man.
The Baptist is eager to step back into the desert. His job as Christ's
"advance man" is ending. Life in the fast lane is not to his taste.
In the Gospel, John stands with two fans. One
is our Andrew. The other is not identified. Many scholars assume it was
John, today's author. Modesty forbade him mentioning his own name.
Once again, their leader points to the
Nazarene and
identifies Him as the Chairman of the Board. And, as John foresaw and
even hoped, the two tipped their turbans to their now former guru and
followed Christ. They were unknowingly following out a plan that had
been programmed from day one.
There could not have been an ounce of envy in
the Baptist's person. He had his fifteen minutes of fame. Willingly he
surrenders his notoriety to the better man. If your problem is pride,
John the Baptist is your medicine man. He will teach you "no one has
ever choked to death from swallowing his own pride."
The Christ plays the host and invites Andrew
and his
friend to stay with him. He was hardly bunking at the Jordan
Hilton. In most probability, the Hilton in question was a
primitive hut along the Jordan River. One can still observe
these huts set up along the riverbank. They are built by farmers so
that they can guard their crops from night poachers. I suspect that
both Andrew and his friend kept Jesus up into the early hours with
their questions. When did He sleep? What a pity we do not know even a
fraction of their conversation into that morning! Oh, for even a twenty
dollar tape-recorder.
At dawn, Andrew rolls out of his sleeping bag.
He does
not even take time for cappucino and an onion bagel. He is most anxious
to introduce his brother Peter to their extraordinary Host. Peter too
was bedding down in the area. He had walked down from Caphernaum in
Galilee with Andrew to check the Baptist out for himself. Andrew makes
the proper introductions. Then he willingly surrenders front stage to
Peter.
From this point on, Andrew will lose his
identity. He will be spoken of constantly as the brother of Peter. It
will be his fate to live in his brother's shadow. But there is no hint
of sibling rivalry between them. While Peter will be referred to ninety
times in the Gospels, Andrew will be referred to seldom.
Even though Andrew was a charter member of the
apostles, it
was his fate never to become a member of Christ's inner circle or
kitchen cabinet. Yet, there is no evidence that this ever upset him. He
was willing to play second fiddle.
His gripes about riding in the back of the bus, had
he made them, would have been legitimate. Were we in his sandals,
we would have sounded off. But Andrew was willing to be the low
man on the totem pole. He considered himself a winner just to be
numbered among Christ's company. So should we. Most of us have been
lucky in life but never luckier than to be Jesus's follower.
Andrew advises us that when we tell others what
Jesus can do for them, we should first tell them what He has done for
us.
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
7 Ordinary Time
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Seventh
Sunday: The Reason for our Optimism--Jesus Always “Yes”
“Jesus Christ, whom Silvanus, Timothy and I preached to you is not
alternatively ‘yes’ and ‘no’. He is never anything but ‘yes’” With
these words from our second reading for this Sunday, 2 Corinthians
1:18-22, we come to a fuller understanding of Christian optimism.
I
want to begin with today’s Gospel. The reading paints a vivid scene of
the all encompassing “yes” of the Lord. Jesus was in a house with
a thatched roof. Crowds were gathering around Him. There
were so many people there that the number was spilling outside.
Some were there to learn from him. These were His disciples. Some
were there to challenge Him. These were the scribes, those
professional interpreters of the Law of Moses. But most of the people
were there to be healed by Him. Four men came up to the house
carrying a stretcher. Their friend, a paralytic, lay on it.
They couldn’t possibly get through the door, but they looked up
and saw that the roof of the house was made of thatch. So they
climbed up onto the roof, carried up their friend, then took the roof
apart and lowered their friend in front of Jesus. Jesus realized
that physical healing wasn’t all the paralytic needed. He needed
spiritual healing. He needed to have his sins forgiven. In
fact, he needed that more than anything else. So the first words
the Lord had for him is, “Your sins are forgiven.” The scribes
objected: Only God, or the Messiah of God, the Christ, could possibly
forgive sins. To demonstrate that He was the Messiah, Jesus then
cures the man. Isaiah said that there would be signs of the
Messianic Presence: the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the
crippled will walk and the poor will have the good news preached to
them. This was the all encompassing “yes” of Jesus Christ.
The man was healed spiritually and physically.
And
it is the same with us. When we commit ourselves to the Lord and
continue to choose Him in our lives, this choice turns every aspect of
our lives into a resounding “yes”. That is Christian optimism.
This
is important for us to remember in these days when jobs are difficult
to hold on to, houses are lost, and lifestyles are forced to
change.
There is more to life than the present difficulties. There is the
spiritual “Yes” of Jesus Christ. Recently I heard a commentator
mention the obvious, as they usually do. She said that the
present economic condition in our country should lead people to
re-consider their perception of their self-worth. Self-worth has
got to flow from whom they are and not from what they own. It is
sad, but this would be a radical change for many Americans. Many
Americans equate the success of their lives with the size of their bank
accounts, their houses, cars or other material possessions. The present
economic situation has led many to question their lives, their
self-worth, their very understanding of whom they are. Without monetary
success, with less and less material possessions, many simply no longer
know who they are.
That
should not be the case with the committed Christian, with we who are
here now. We know who we are. Our value, our dignity,
our meaning in life comes from Jesus Christ. It is all “Yes” for
us. Jesus Christ is all yes. Our union with Jesus Christ is
all that matters regardless of what is happening around us.
Jesus Christ is the reason for our optimism. Even when tragedy strikes,
even when a loved one falls gravely ill and then passes on, we remain
optimistic. The yes of Christ is so much greater than the pain of
death. Even though we grieve we still know that with Jesus Christ, and
through Jesus Christ, our loved ones live. We believe in the existence
of the spiritual. We believe that those who die will live forever
in the love of the Lord. Yes, we miss them terribly. Yes, we
grieve deeply. But we also know that they are in peace. We
believe that the souls of the faithful departed, our loved ones,
continue to love us and themselves guide us through their own prayers
to the Divine Lover. We believe that a time will come when we will be
with them again.
It
is all positive with the Lord. We follow our consciences.
We choose that which is proper and moral, not that which is popular but
immoral. Does that mean that there are a lot of “no’s” in our
lives, like “No getting drunk, No sex outside of marriage, No hating
others.” Yes, we limit our actions to avoid the negatives of
life, but we do that so we can live in the positives of life. And by
doing this, by living morally we simplify our lives. Did
you ever notice the chaos that comes into our lives when we sin?
When we sin, life gets complicated. As an example, consider
lying. Who did we tell that lie to? What other lies do I now have
to tell to cover the first lie up? Who knows what about it, about
me? It is the same with all sin. When we sin, be it a lie or any sin,
we complicate out lives. That is why the Bible equate sin with
chaos. But when we just stick to what our conscience is telling us,
when we stick to the Lord, life is simple, and we are happy. God
brings order in chaos. He replaces complication with peace. No
matter what the world throws at us, if we are true to our Christian
core, we will be a peace with God, with ourselves and even with
others. It is all yes with the Lord.
There is no doubt that many people misuse freedom. Perhaps when
they go off to college or the service, or perhaps earlier, in high
school or even in middle school, many get involved in the pagan
lifestyle. The pagan lifestyle is the deification of the
physical, the turning of money, stuff, and selfishness into gods.
The pagan lifestyle assumes that happiness can be bought. The
pagan lifestyle results in people being in turmoil. But Jesus Christ is
far more powerful than the forces of the world. When through the
Grace of God, we just put our trust in the Lord, we receive healing,
and forgiveness, and peace. When we change our lifestyle to that
of a Christian, we don’t feel that we have given up anything other than
turmoil. There is no “no” with the Lord. It is all “yes”,
all peace, His peace.
When
we pray the Mass, we give our struggles over to the Lord. We let
God transform our difficulties into occasions of prayer. We need to
trust God. He is not alternatively yes and no. He is always
yes.
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* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
7 Ordinary Time
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An
Agressive Attempt to Deny Sin
(February 19, 2012)
Bottom line: Today we are witnessing an agressive attempt to deny sin.
More than ever this Lent we need a personal meeting with Jesus who is
God, the only one who can forgive sin.
A popular myth about Jesus runs along these lines: The original Jesus
was a kindly man who wanted to help people face their problems, feel
good about themselves and get along with each other. (Kind of a first
century version of Dr. Phil.) But his followers began to add miracle
stories to this teaching, then gradually divinize him until finally
Paul developed a full blown theology which made him into God.*
Today’s Gospel explodes that myth. By most scholarly accounts, St. Mark
wrote the earliest Gospel. It is certainly the plainest, the most
unadorned. Yet right at the outset we have a strong assertion of Jesus’
divinity: He forgives men's sins.
That may seem innocuous to us, but only because we have forgotten what
sin is. Suppose the man lowered through the roof was a swindler who had
cheated locals out of their life savings. If you were one of the
victims, sorry as you might feel about the man’s present condition, you
would still resent Jesus’ absolution.
It would be as if I ministered to a serial killer and announced, "I
forgive you." Family members of those murdered would react quite
bitterly. In my case their anger would be justified.
However, with Jesus, the matter is different. Robbery and murder offend
him more directly than even the victims. He is the very Source of life
and of all created goods. The people were right to ask:
"Who but God alone can forgive sins?" (Mk 2:7)
Accepting Jesus as God - the only one who can forgive sins - has huge
implications. I would like to draw out one implication, especially as
we enter the season of Lent: If we accept Jesus as God, it means we
stand in a radically different posture from the world. We live in a
society that attempts to deny sin - and thus deny the need for Christ.
I say "attempt" because as J. Budziszewski has shown, conscience has a
way of reasserting itself. (see The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and
the Fall of Man)**
If a person has a guilty conscience (and does not repent) he cannot
bear that others do not accept what he is doing. In recent years we
have witnessed how far some will go to get others to say that there is
nothing wrong with things like homosexuality, abortion, sterilization
and contraception. And that not only that there is nothing wrong with
those things, but that they are positive goods. Thus, acceptance of
homosexuality requires a redefinition of marriage and the acceptance of
contraception, abortifacients and sterilization requires their
universal coverage in health care plans.***
The Catechism says that what is involved are "two irreconcilable
concepts of the human person and of human sexuality." (2370) We are in
a spiritual combat - and the battle line runs through the middle of our
society. And let's be honest: the battle rages in your heart - and mine.
We need Lent 2012. We need the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting
and financial sacrifice. In our society, we are witnessing an agressive
attempt to deny sin. This campaign has powerful tools (media,
universities, courts, etc.) and, without compunction, it uses words not
to express truth, but to beat down dissenters. (For them "truth" is not
a goal - they only acknowledge "my truth" and "your truth." But they
will use the word as a club.) And the campaign is succeeding; it has
subtlely impacted even even those who oppose it.**** More than ever
this Lent we need a personal meeting with Jesus who is God, the only
one who can forgive sin.
************
*Although the letters of Paul come toward the end of the New Testament,
they are not, as this myth supposes, the last written. On the contrary,
they are the first writings. His Letter to the Thessalonians (c. 52
A.D.) is the earliest New Testament text.
**This not something new. In his Confessions, Augustine observes how
Homer "attributed divine attributes to sinful men, that crimes might
not be accounted crimes, and that whoever committed such crimes might
appear to imitate the celestial gods and not abandoned men." (Book 1,
Chapter XVI)
***Along with many other American bishops, Archbishop Sartain has
written a strong letter and an insightful column on this issue. In
spite of this unprecedented attack on the U.S. Church, we need to thank
God for the unity and clarity of our bishops - and for this unique
moment to reach out to our American brothers and sisters. (And to renew
our own understanding of Jesus teaching on marriage, chastity, conjugal
fidelity, marital fecundity, the gift of a child, and the offenses
against the dignity of marriage. See Catechism 2331-2400.)
****They have obviously committed a blunder with the HHS Mandate, but
they will retrench. A conscience that does not repent can never rest.
(For their part our bishops have shown that they will stand firm in
calling us all to repentance.)
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7 Ordinary Time
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February
19th 2012 A.D.
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Mk 2/1-12
"We never saw anything like this!"
Background:
Scripture scholars today generally repudiate the conviction of
scholars from a generation or two that Jesus did not work any miracles
save the conversion of human hearts. They say that the tradition that
Jesus did signs and wonders is just too important and too powerful to
be casually dismissed. They leave open the question of the
precise nature of the miracles which has so baffled rationalists and
believers who want to keep the rationalists happy. Jesus did signs and
wonders to show that the kingdom of God was at hand, about that there
can be no debate.
The issue of how he did them is less important than that he did
them and why he did them. Jesus did miracles to heal human bodies and
to show, as in today’s Gospel, that he came to heal human spiritual
hunger too. In this richly detailed story we see that, like the senior
in last week’s story Jesus like helping others.
Story:
Once upon a time there was a young doctor in a hospital who had
great instincts about what was wrong with people, probably because she
liked them so much and listened very carefully to what they said. She
was so kind and pleasant and cheerful that all the patients love her,
but some of her colleagues and some of the nurses, thought she was a
little creepy. Not exactly a Patch Adams perhaps, but still someone who
spent to much time being nice. So one night when she was on call, she
went into the room of a man who was in for observation because he had a
fever and a diffuse pain. He refused to complain no matter how
bad the pain was (he was Irish and that’s the way they generally try to
react to pain!).
She did her usual pleasant act and noticed that it did not have
much effect. He man was pale and miserable, she could tell that. She
touched his head. Fever was higher. She jabbed at his gut. He
shouted in agony. She called for a surgeon. Hidden bowl obstruction,
she said. Take it out. They did and the man recovered and went home
happy. Which is easier, she said, to smile at people or to catch their
symptoms because they trust you.
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http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lasso
7 Ordinary Time
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February 19, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark 2:1-12, Cycle B
Gospel Summary
This Sunday's gospel passage recounts the story of Jesus' cure of a
paralytic. We must not be distracted by the ingenious efforts of the
paralytic's friends to lower him through the roof because they could
not get through the crowd. After all, this story is about salvation,
not engineering!
Jesus seems to have sought out paralytics because his miracles are so
often for their benefit. This makes good sense when we realize that the
miracles of Jesus were intended to show that he came to liberate and
therefore people with "frozen" muscles were prime candidates for
illustrating this.
The story also makes it clear that the real liberation brought by Jesus
is spiritual and eternal, which is revealed when Jesus declares that
the paralytic's sins are forgiven. This is the only liberation that we
absolutely must have. Cure of a physical ailment is most desirable but
it is only a temporary relief.
The scribes are shocked and scandalized to hear Jesus proclaim
forgiveness of sins. Instead of rejoicing to hear that this wonderful
power is now available, they choose to cling to their own narrow
interpretation of religion. Human knowledge alone is ultimately
pessimistic.
Life Implications
We are all in so many ways victims of paralysis in the sense that we
find it very difficult to realize our potential. Low self-esteem,
expressed usually in our fear of trying something new or of making a
mistake, not only denies others the benefit of our gifts but also
contributes to our own unhappiness. The only solution to this dilemma
is our willingness to trust the goodness that God has put in our
lives--a goodness that is revealed to us by the gift of faith.
This gift of faith is intended to do far more than merely help us
accept the words of the creed. Its real purpose is to enable us to
trust the goodness that comes to us from God, but also from loving
persons and from the beauty of God's creation. Thus, faith enables us
to see the often hidden goodness in life--a goodness that is sometimes
hard to discern but which is always available to those who are looking
for it. The effect of this experience of goodness is to liberate us and
thus to enable us to let go of the evil and hurt that are also a part
of every life.
This power of faith in our lives is not something that we can discover
by simply wishing for it. Like the paralytic in this story, we too need
to count on friends who are usually more than willing to help us to
meet Jesus and to hear those precious words: "Your sins are forgiven,"
and, "Rise, pick up your mat and walk." When this happens, we will
gladly join others in declaring, "We have never seen anything like
this."
Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B.
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
7 Ordinary Time
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SEVENTH
Sunday
Isaiah 43, 18-19. 21-22. 24-25; Psalm 41; 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Mark
2: 1-12
The scribes learned their catechism very well: "Who can forgive sins
but God alone?" Mark 2: 7)
Alas, today many people have no problem believing that they can forgive
their own sins. And they do so. Any Catholic who goes for years without
benefit of the sacrament of Confession must believe so, for as John
teaches, "he who says he is without sin is a liar." Catholics at Mass
go to Communion in large numbers without first discerning through an
examination of conscience whether or not they are spiritually prepared
to do so. To receive the Body and Blood of Christ while conscious of
serious sin is a sacrilege. The Sacrament of Confession is the means
commanded by Christ for the forgiving of serious sins. To reject the
Sacrament of Confession is to reject the divinity of Christ and Christ
Himself. Christ has been revealed that we may believe totally in him,
that we may totally follow him. Salvation comes to us through the
acceptance of love of the whole Christ, in all His Sacraments, in the
whole Gospel, not just those parts that we find personally appealing.
The Eucharist and Confession together work toward the salvation of
souls.
By the same charity that it enkindles in us, the Eucharist preserves us
from future mortal sins. The more we share the life of Christ and
progress in his friendship, the more difficult it is to break away from
him by mortal sin. The Eucharist is not ordered to the forgiveness of
mortal sins -- that is proper to the sacrament of Reconciliation. The
Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion
with the Church. (CCC 1395)
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we
"meet Christ in the liturgy", Father Cusick (Publish with permission.)
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
For further reading on today' Gospel, see also these paragraphs in the
CCC: 1422 and following.)
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http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
7 Ordinary Time
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