Tuesday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, March 1, 2022

Mark 10:28-31

Peter began to say to Jesus, ‘We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

“We have given up everything and followed you.”  Peter’s declaration could be better translated from the Greek as: We sent away all things and have followed you.  The differences of this with what is found in the lectionary may seem subtle, but in the Greek they are quite meaningful.  “We sent away” is in the aorist tense, which means it was a single action carried out once in the past and so was completed then.  It is no longer being carried out.  Peter and the Apostles separated themselves permanently from their former lives when Jesus called them.  The verb is “to send away” or “to dismiss”, not simply to give up.  “To give up” means to walk away from something.  The Greek verb means a rejection of something, not as though a person had found a new interest in something else.  The second verb in the sentence is “We have followed”, which is in the perfect tense, meaning that we did this in the and have continued to do this to the present time.  The sense of the sentence is that we cast aside for good our former lives and since then we have accompanied you continuously.  Peter says they have given up “all things”.  The Greek word admits of no exceptions.  They have held nothing back or kept anything for themselves.  The effect is quite plaintive and there is a sense of shock and terrible hurt in these words.

“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age.”  The items the Lord lists here are what the Jews of the time counted as signs of their success and prosperity, and their wealth.  Apart from the love of family members, there was great benefit in a large family.  Many brothers and sisters and children meant plenty of workers on the farm or in the vineyard or orchard or whatever the family enterprise was, bringing in profit and fortifying security.  Parents guaranteed stability, too.  Land meant a way to make a living as well as a heritage within the Jewish world.  To reject this in order to continuously follow a teacher would have been considered madness, no matter who the teacher was.  The Lord assures his Apostles, who have done this very thing, that their “investment” in him would be well repaid “in this present age”.  And certainly it was, as we see from the words of St. Paul to those whom he converted: “I write not these things to confound you: but I admonish you as my dearest children. 

For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the Gospel, I have begotten you” (1 Corinthians 4, 14-15); and “My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4, 19).  St. John also: “My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Just” (1 John 2, 1).  The Apostles received many thousands of children in this way.  They did not call their converts “children” lightly, either, but suffered on their account.  As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians after having scolded them for their waywardness: “Out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears: not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the charity I have more abundantly towards you.”  The persecution the Lord speaks of is fitting among the blessings listed in that it is a certain sign of belonging to Christ and of doing his work.

“And eternal life in the age to come.”  The blessings God will bestow upon his faithful ones in this life presage the eternal life they will receive in heaven.  Our brothers and sisters in heaven will be the saints and angels.  Our lands will be the vast reaches of the Kingdom of God.  Our parents will be Almighty God and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And persecution will become ecstasy.

“But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  The Lord speaks of the difference between those who treasure what the world does versus those who treasure what God does.  Those who pursue and possess wealth, pleasure, and power in the world are considered highly successful by the people who belong to this world, but they are in grave danger of losing their souls because they have not pursued the will of God.  Those who have lived for God with little to show outwardly for their time on earth will be among the greatest saints in heaven.

We might wonder at Peter’s words if we have not given up “all things” for Christ.  What about us?  The main thing we must give up is doing our own will in order to do God’s.  This is what “all things” really means.  Jesus specially called Peter and the other Apostles to reject or send away all their physical things and their people.  He does not call all of us to do this same thing.  We look at the vast array of saints and see that they lived in all classes and conditions: kings and queens, craftsmen and peasants, soldiers and monks, housewives and heiresses.  Among the Lord’s disciples was the wife of Herod’s steward and Joseph of Arimithaea, both wealthy individuals.  The key for all of us is following the will of God and using what he gives us as he wishes us to do.

 Monday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, February 28, 2022

Because of the very troubling events of recent days it seems like an opportune time to consider some of the signs given to us in the Sacred Scriptures about the end times.  We should take some comfort in that they have not yet occurred.  At the same time we ought to keep in mind that great kingdoms and empires have fallen and will continue to fall as history rolls along, and the world is still here with other kingdoms and empires intact.  A given people, nation, or culture is a temporary thing, as all mortal things are.  

One of the more prominent signs that the end of the world is imminent is the conversion of the Jews.  St. Paul prophesies this in Romans 11, 25–26: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: ‘There shall come out of Zion, he that shall deliver and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.’ ”  St. Paul is explaining to his Gentile Christian readers that they are receiving the Gospel from him only because the Jews had shown themselves intransigent.  But after “the fullness of the Gentiles” have converted, the Jews will be converted.  That this will occur near the end (and so act as a sign of the end) is clear from the words of Jesus: “And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations: and then shall the consummation come” (Matthew 24, 14).

An important sign of the world’s end is the coming of the Antichrist.  St. John speaks of “antichrists” in his Second Letter, but these are mere precursors to the one spoke of in 2 Thessalonians 2, 3-4 and Revelation 13.  In 2 Thessalonians St. Paul writes to a Gentile Christian Church which has many questions about when the Lord will return, or even if he has already returned and they missed him.  St. Paul consoles them with the teachings he sets forth here.  In particular, in 2 Thessalonians 3-4, Paul declares: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition who opposes [Christ] and is lifted up above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the Temple of God, showing himself as if he were God.”  In passing, this verse is used by some Protestants to teach that the Temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt to inaugurate the second coming.  However, there better explanations.  Revelation 13, 1 describes the Antichrist in terms of his ferocity and power: “I saw a beast coming up out the sea, having seven heads and ten horns: and upon his horns, ten diadems: and upon his heads, names of blasphemy.”  The third verse of this chapter helps us to understand the imagery: “And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death: and his death’s wound was healed. And all the earth was in admiration after the beast.”  The Antichrist is described as a travesty of the Lord Jesus, who appears thus in Revelation 5, 6: “Behold in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the ancients, a Lamb standing, as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes: which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth.”  A travesty resembles its model sufficiently that the Lord warns us: “There shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Matthew 24, 24).  The Antichrist will seemingly perform wonders, but these will be mere illusions accomplished with the aid of the demons.  His hatred for the Lord and the Church will boil over into a great persecution which will reach to the furthest ends of the earth.

This final, terrible, persecution that will take place is another sign.  The Lord speaks of this as a sign of his imminent return inMatthew 24, 8-12 and 24-25.  Although the Church has suffered persecution in some part of the world throughout her history, this will be world-wide and will be far worse than all the others.  It will be directed by the devil through the antichrist at all who do not worship him.  The Scriptures speak of the stars falling from the heavens at this time.  This is understood by the Fathers as Church leaders apostatizing.  A great many Christians will fall away during this tribulation.  St. Paul speaks of a “revolt” among believers (2 Thessalonians 2, 3).  St. Luke quotes the Lord as hinting at this: “But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18, 8).

Another sign of the end will be the appearance of the two witnesses spoken of in Revelation 11, 3 and the verses following: “And I will give unto my two witnesses: and they shall prophesy, a thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”  The number of days comes to about three and a half years, which is evidently the number of years John considered that Jesus had preached the Gospel.  The two witnesses come during the time of the final persecution.  They preach and perform miracles, and at the end of their allotted time they are killed, but then come to life again and are taken up to heaven in a cloud (cf. Revelation 11, 12).  Traditionally, these are understood as Enoch and Elijah who return to earth to conclude the work in which they were engaged before taken up to heaven while still alive.  They are allowed by God to die in the persecution because all men must die eventually as the price for sin.  Whether or not they are Enoch and Elijah, the witnesses will preach in their spirit.  They will be quite extraordinary individuals.

Let us pray for peace in the world that will allow the continued preaching of the Gospel, and let us pray for spiritual stamina so that we may be ready if we are still alive for the terrible days at the end of time.

 The Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 27, 2022

I am sufficiently well that I just spent a few days at home with my sister.  Thanks again for your prayers!

Luke 6, 39–45

Jesus told his disciples a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thorn bushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass is a collection of the Lord’s sayings.  St. Luke calls the following a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?”  This may seem a commonplace, but the question raises questions.  Did the blind person deliberately seek out another blind person to lead him?  Did a person offer to lead him not knowing that he himself was blind?  Did the blind person have no one else to lead him?  Where did he want to go?  The blind person is one without faith.  If he follows another faithless person, both will fall into hell.  It is inevitable.

“No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.”  The Lord himself had no teacher, and this was well known at the time: “And the Jews wondered, saying: How does this man know letters, having never learned?” (John 7, 15).  Even so, he teaches his disciples that they will never grow wiser than he, nor anyone else.  The disciple can become like the teacher, but no more.  All those who teach what is contrary to what he teaches is blind.  

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye?”  The “splinter” and “beam” could be moral or doctrinal.  Now, a splinter may fall into a person’s eye, but a beam going into an eye requires negligence or deliberate action, either by the self or another.  The Lord warns that a person who has left the Faith has no standing for assisting someone who struggles with Church teaching or making moral choices.  “You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”  We remove the beams from our eyes by returning to the Faith and through absolution in the Sacrament of Penance.  

“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thorn bushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.”  This may also seem a commonplace, but how often we fail to apply the lesson!  We are attracted by the apparent beauty of a person, philosophy, or movement without examining whether it is true or not, and this we can see by its application or “fruits”.  We might wonder why we so often fail to do this, whether we find something appealing because of our own inward turmoil or  through peer pressure or through wishful thinking.

“A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”  We find this saying only in Luke’s Gospel.  It is related to the saying about the trees and their fruit.  A person may seem unattractive, unusual, or backward and yet may act with great charity.  We can tell something of what is in the person’s heart by his actions, especially over a period of time.  The Lord himself seemed primitive, uneducated, and smacked of the back country to the sophisticated Sanhedrin.  We should be careful not to dismiss a saint simply because he does not look like what we think a saint should look like.

 Saturday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 26, 2022

Mark 10:13-16

People were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” Then he embraced the children and blessed them, placing his hands on them.

We are not told why the people brought their children to Jesus that he might touch them.  We assume that they wanted him to bless them, but this might also have been their pledge of their allegiance to him as the promised Messiah who would liberate Israel.  “The disciples rebuked them.”  The Fathers reflected that they “rebuked” them out of their concern for the Lord’s dignity.  This brings to mind how Michal, the daughter of Saul, saw a loss of dignity in her husband David’s dancing before the Ark of the Covenant and rebuked him for it (cf. 2 Samuel 6, 20).  “When Jesus saw this he became indignant.”  The Greek word translated here as “became indignant” actually means something much stronger, as “incensed”.  The Lord did not show mere annoyance but outrage.  “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”  The Lord uses the situation to show how the Pharisees tried to “prevent” the people from “going” to Jesus, and how this angered him.  As the Apostles rebuked the parents and children, so the Pharisees slandered the Lord and challenged him wherever he went, striving to drive the people from him.  The Lord allows the people to come to him, whatever their motivation so that they might “touch” him — that is, be touched by him so that they come to faith.  

“The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”  The one thing these children wanted was to be with Jesus, and when they came to him they twined their arms around him so that they might never be separated from him again.  The Kingdom of God belongs to those who have this single-hearted desire for the Lord Jesus.  “Whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”  The Greek word translated here as “accept” is better translated as “welcome”: Whoever does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.  We might think of a child “welcoming” Christmas morning: joyously.  If we do not look forward to the Kingdom of God — heaven — with all of our being will not welcome it — or be welcomed in it — joyously, when it does come.  “Then he embraced the children and blessed them, placing his hands on them.”  This is the destiny of those who seek the Lord: first, to be blessed by him in Baptism and made a member of his Body; second, to be embraced by him as they enter heaven.

 Friday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 25, 2022

Mark 10:1-12

Jesus came into the district of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds gathered around him and, as was his custom, he again taught them. The Pharisees approached him and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied, “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

“Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?”  This question seems strange because the Mosaic Law clearly set out the ritual for divorce. However, the Pharisees were convinced that Jesus was attempting to abolish the Law (cf. Matthew 5, 17) based on his dismissal of their teaching on the Sabbath and ritual purity.  They seem, then, to be seeking his views on other matters of the Law to determine just how subversive, in their view, he was.  “What did Moses command you?”  The Lord most often spoke on his own authority, but here he points to Moses as the starting point for the teaching he will give.  “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.”  The Pharisees answer by referring to the ritual which effected the divorce, affirming it as originating with Moses.  “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment.”  The Lord Jesus does not dispute the fact that Moses wrote the commandment, but contests that he wrote it in view of “the hardness of your hearts”, due in part to the fallen condition of human nature.  The Lord adds, “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.”  That is, of all the ways God could have created humanity, he created it as consisting in males and females.  As Mother Teresa said, these are the two ways of being human.  He says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  A man and a woman — the two ways of being human — then come together in unity that is expressed in a wonderful intimacy.  This unity is also signified by the unity of the original “Adam” (human) before he was divided.  The Lord affirms this, saying, “So they are no longer two but one flesh.”  And then he concludes: “Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”  It is God who joins the man and woman together in marriage, not humans.  Only God can make a unity.  The Lord may have been revealing marriage as holy in that it is God joins the man and woman together for the first time, here.  Where marriage is spoken of in the Law the language is not particularly religious.  

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”  The revolutionary nature of the Lord’s teaching on marriage causes the Apostles to ask questions when they get alone with the Lord.  The Lord puts his explanation in a succinct form so that it can be most easily understood.  Throughout this encounter with the Pharisees we see how the Lord fulfills the Law.  An aspect of the Law is presented.  The Lord explains what it means.  Then he commands a strict observance of the Law as he has taught it.  

 Thursday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 24, 2022

Mark 9:41-50

Jesus said to his disciples: “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”

In Mark 10, 32, the Evangelist tells us that Jesus and the Apostles returned to Capernaum and went back to Peter’s house.  While there, the Lord addressed them concerning leadership in the Church.  Following this, St. Mark provides us with an assortment of short teachings and sayings that the Lord delivered.  It is uncertain from the context whether the Lord is still speaking to the Apostles in the house or if he is instructing a crowd in some town.  These teachings are only superficially connected so the Lord may have delivered them at various times and Mark felt that this was the best place to give them. “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.”  Here we have a rare instance in which Jesus refers to himself as the Christ — the Messiah.  The infrequency in which he does so reveals his reluctance to use title, charged as it was with the expectation of a military deliverer.  Jesus teaches here that even those who assist the Apostles will receive a reward, so how much greater the reward the Apostles who “belong to Christ” will receive.  

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  By “little ones” the Lord evidently means the same people as when he says, “my least brethren” (Matthew 25, 40).  That is, those whose faith is newly acquired or fragile through the scandal of wicked Christians and heretics.  “Little” is in no sense derogatory but rather indicates the need for strengthening and growth. It would be better for a person to die and disappear completely than to cause one of these to sin or to lose their faith.  We can also understand the wicked as already wearing millstones of hatred, anger, jealousy, lust, and so on.  Eventually their vices will wear them down and they will drop into the depths of hell.  

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.”  The Lord uses hyperbole in calling for sinners to cut off their hands rather than to sin.  We know this is hyperbole because just as the Lord teaches that he who lists after a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart, so he who covets something belonging to another has already stolen it in his heart.  The cutting off of hands does not prevent this coveting.  The Lord means that we must do whatever is necessary in order to avoid sin, which begins in the intellect and will.  Thus, walking away from an occasion of sin, distracting ourselves with some interest or work, or joining in the safe company of others.  “Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”  “Gehenna” is the Aramaic name for a valley beyond the walls of Jerusalem which God cursed through his Prophet Jeremiah for the false gods worshipped there and the child sacrifices offered to those gods: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place: so that whosoever shall hear it, his ears shall tingle for they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place and have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, nor the kings of Judah, and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall  . . . be called . . . the valley of slaughter” (Jeremiah 19, 3-5, 6).  From that point on, the name of the valley became the name of the place where the wicked dead were punished.

“Everyone will be salted with fire.”  The Greek means that everyone will be “seasoned” or “kept fresh” through “trials”.  This might strike us as strange, but threats to our faith make it more precious to us, just as threats to our lives make life more precious.  Jesus both promises and warns that we will experience trials as believers, but they are ultimately for our good, for our faith will be “alive”.

“Salt is good.”  This is a separate saying from the above.  Salt (the Christian) is “precious”, “useful”, “beautiful”.  “But if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor?” The Greek word translated here as “insipid” means “tasteless”, “flat”, “saltless”.  The “salt” is the life of grace.  If it becomes “flat” or “saltless” through its abuse, it becomes itself useless.  Nor can any human “restore its flavor”.  If the life of grace dies because of our sins, only God can restore it to us.  “Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”  The Greek verb translated here as “keep” can mean “be as”, so, “Be as salt and you will have peace with one another.”  That is, the Lord says to his followers, Live the life of grace and soul will be in peace with one another.  Virtuous behavior in Christ results in inner and outer peace.

 Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 23, 2022

Mark 9:38-40

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

We see the zeal for Jesus which filled the Apostle John’s breast in this saying as well as in Luke 9, 54, when a Samaritan town refused the Lord passage: “Lord, will you that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”  It is no wonder that the Lord called him and his brother James “the sons of thunder” (Mark 3, 17).  “We tried to prevent him”.  The Greek simply says, “We prevented him”, no “trying” about it.  The “we” certainly also means his brother James, but other Apostles may have been involved.  It is not clear when this took place, since John took for granted that Jesus was unaware of this fact, meaning that James and John  and Jesus were apart.  Possibly the Apostles saw this man attempting to exorcise in the marketplace where they had been sent to purchase provisions.  “He does not follow us”, that is, accompany us physically, or adhere to Christ’s teachings.  For John, the two would be the same: those who accompanied Jesus were the ones who lived according to his teachings.

The Lord’s reply would have surprised John: “Do not prevent him.”  That is, do not hinder him in what he is doing.  Whether this man is successfully casting out demons, he is in fact doing a remarkable thing: he is using the name of Jesus to do this.  The man recognizes power in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and so acknowledges that power resides in Jesus himself.  Down through the ages and to this very day, demons are cast out through the invocation of the name of Jesus.  It is a name so powerful that, as St. Paul says, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2, 10-11).  We do not know if the man was using the name of Jesus as a magic word or through belief in him.  Jesus commends the good of the man recognizing his power as in some way divine, and the man’s public use of his name in this way amounts to a kind of preaching.  St. Paul rejoiced when those who were slandering him were publicizing the power of Jesus: “Some out of contention preach Christ not sincerely, supposing that they raise affliction to my bonds. But what then? So that by all means, whether by occasion or by truth, Christ be preached: in this also I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1:17–18).

“There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.”  The Lord says much the same thing when he is accused by blasphemy: How does Almighty God enable him to perform miracles if he is speaking against him?  Rather, the miracles validate that God is with him.  We do not know if the man actually succeeded in exorcising demons.  St. Luke tells a story that may shed light on this question: “Now some also of the Jewish exorcists, who went about, attempted to invoke over them that had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying: I conjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.  And there were certain men, seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest, that did this. But the wicked spirit, answering, said to them: Jesus I know: and Paul I am familiar with. But who are you?” (Acts 19:13–15).  The demon then causes the possessed man to leap upon them and beat them.  However, if the man of whom John is speaking is using the name of the Lord in faith, we might hope for better results.

“Whoever is not against us is for us.”  In context, the Lord is speaking of those making his name known one way or another.  In this way, many will seek him out if only out of curiosity, and through the tiny window these people offer, the light of faith may begin to shine.

 The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Matthew 16, 13-19

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  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. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

This ancient Feast primarily celebrates the ancient authority of St. Peter as the Bishop of Rome over the Universal Church, handed down even to the present time.  The English word “chair” is to be understood in terms of the word “seat”, as in “the county seat” — where the county governing body meets.  It ought to be mentioned, though, that a certain wooden chair, made from oak, does exist that is said to have been used by St. Peter.  It is kept in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”  Reading the Lord’s words, we must recall that just recently, the Lord had rebuked the Apostles for failing in their faith in trust that he could feed them: “Why do you think within yourselves, O ye of little faith, for that you have no bread?” (Matthew 16, 8).    This failure in faith came shortly after they had seen the Lord feed thousands of people with a few loaves and some fish.  Thus, the confession of Peter could only have as a response to a revelation by the Father.  The other Apostles would have marveled over this as over any of the Lord’s miracles.  Perhaps Peter himself wondered at what he said.  Yet the confession of faith demonstrated clearly that Peter had been chosen for the revelation of God as the one most fit for it.  Jesus then reveals to him and to the other Apostles what this meant: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”  The Lord changes Simon’s name just as he had changed Abraham’s and Sarah’s names long, long ago.  This change of name shows a change in destiny.  By calling Simon son of Jonah “Rock”, the Lord gives him a name or a description that was used for himself: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress” (Psalm 18, 2).  The Lord also uses a word that recalls the conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount: “Every one therefore that hears these my words, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock” (Matthew 7, 24-25).  The Lord makes clear that he is giving Peter an enduring authority that will protect and spread his Gospel.  It will indeed move against the gates of hell and dispel the evil and unbelief in the world, and making the land fruitful with Christians.

“I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.”  These “keys” are the Sacraments, through which all grace comes into the world.  Through possession of these keys popes down through the millennia have consecrated bishops who have ordained priests to whom is entrusted the power to confect and dispense the Sacraments to the people.  First among these is that of Baptism: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Those baptized here on earth are unbound from sin to enjoy freedom in heaven.  And for those who sin after baptism, the Sacrament of Penance restores this freedom.  The successor of St. Peter shares this power with the bishops who share it with the priests.

We thank God for the Office of the Papacy which safeguards our unity, defends the Holy Faith, and seeks to extend it to all the world.

 Monday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 21, 2022

I had a fairly good day, though I still suffer from weakness.  Thanks for your prayers!  I’m hoping to begin Bible Study again in March.  My plan is to study the callings God gives us: marriage, priesthood, and the single life.

Mark 9, 14-29

As Jesus came down from the mountain with Peter, James, John and approached the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. Immediately on seeing him, the whole crowd was utterly amazed. They ran up to him and greeted him. He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit. Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.” He said to them in reply, “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.” They brought the boy to him. And when he saw him, the spirit immediately threw the boy into convulsions. As he fell to the ground, he began to roll around and foam at the mouth. Then he questioned his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” He replied, “Since childhood. It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus said to him, “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.” Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering, rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!” Shouting and throwing the boy into convulsions, it came out. He became like a corpse, which caused many to say, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up. When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private, “Why could we not drive the spirit out?” He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

St. Mark details for us two very dramatic, detail-filled accounts of exorcism.  The first is that of Legion in 5, 1-20; the other one is here.  These are dark, grim stories that, as frightening as they are, only hint at the horror of the actual situations.  From the amount of coverage Mark gives them, we can see how they must have gripped him.  He shows the terrible hold that evil takes on people, and then the great power that Jesus possesses to cast the possessing demons out.  Here, in addition, he emphasizes the essential part of faith in the struggle against evil.

“O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?”  This response of Jesus to the manifest failure of his Apostles to cast out the demons afflicting the child seems excessive.  The demon has complete control over the child and shakes him like a dog shakes a toy.  The fact that the Apostles are even trying to cast the demon out strikes one as very brave.  And yet, they fail.  Why do they fail in this instance? In Mark 6, 13 we learn that when Jesus sent them out on mission “they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.”  It seems that they did possess authority from Jesus to exorcise demons, and that they succeeded in doing so at that time.  But here, they fail.  This may indicate that the authority was temporary and meant only for that mission.  On the other hand, the authority may have persisted, but they erred in their method of exorcism.  The response of Jesus to their failure indicates that they failed because their faith was so shaken by the manifestation of the demon that they could not drive it out.  This is similar to the episode in which the Lord was walking on the sea and Peter, in the boat, asked the Lord to grant that he come to him on the water.  The Lord did, and after a couple of steps Peter’s faith failed and he sank into the sea.  That is, Peter’s faith that he could do what the Lord authorized him to do.  Peter looked to himself and not to the Lord and allowed himself to think that his weakness was greater than the Lord’s greatness.  Now, the Lord indicted the Apostles who failed in their attempted exorcism as a “faithless generation”.  The Greek word translated here as “generation” can also mean “race” and  “family”.  In this case, the Lord addresses the Apostles as members of his extended family who ought to have learned better from him, as from an older brother or their father.  He has brought the Apostles into his life so that they can hear his every word and see his every deed.  After two years of this intense experience it is as though they had never even heard of him.  

“But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”  Even the boy’s father, who has managed, undoubtedly with difficulty, to get his child out to the deserted place where the Lord had left nine of his Apostles when he went up the mountain to be transfigured, shows a lack of faith.  This is odd.  It is as though a sick person were to go to the doctor even though he thought the doctor could not heal him. The Lord’s rebuke of the father tells us of the importance of faith not only by the one to be cured but by members of his family and his friends.  “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”  Faith — the firm and abiding belief that God can do whatever he wills to do — is the foundation of the Christian’s life, for by it we believe that he can forgive us our sins and bring us into heaven.  The father’s desperate prayer, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” is answered by the Lord’s expulsion of the demon.  The climactic moments of the exorcism are very dramatic.  The boy is as though dead.  The Lord’s raising him up from this state reminds us of how we are purged of evil in baptism and raised out of the water as pure children of God.  We ought to recall that the rite of baptism contains an exorcism and the explicit rejection of the devil.  

“This kind can only come out through prayer.”  The humbled Apostles ask the reason for their failure.  The Lord tells them of the necessity for prolonged prayer to drive out “this kind” or “level” of demon.  That is, the prayer would increase and fortify the faith necessary for them to drive it out.  Some manuscripts, including those used by St. Jerome for the Vulgate, include “fasting” with prayer, but the present translation eschews this tradition.  In fact, fasting is a very important preparation for those who are to exorcise.

We very often launch into our daily work and even into very difficult activities without prayer.  By praying first, we gain the grace of solidifying our belief in God’s power to help us.  We need to do this because otherwise we run the risk of instead believing that we can do things on our own.  This, of course, is false, for without Christ, we can do nothing (cf. John 15, 5).

 The Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 20, 2022

I’m sorry to have missed a few days.  These have been very hard days, but I feel very much better now.  Thank you for your prayers!

Luke 6:27–38

Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

The Lord Jesus does not merely tell us to love one another, leaving us to guess at what that means: he explains love to us so that we can carry it out.  And although it may strike us as unloving that we are to “carry out” our love, we must remember that love has to be expressed in actions, just as faith and hope do.  What St. James says about faith applies equally to love: “But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2, 20).  The Lord commands us to love one another, including those who hate us.  That is because in order for us to become perfect we must love as he does: “Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and slander you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5, 44-45).  We love for the sake of the One who loves us.  This requires untwisting our twisted human nature — difficult work which we can do only with the help of God’s grace.  That this is possible at all is shone us not only in the life of Christ but also in the lives of his saints.  We can do this, and we must do this.  Loving as Christ loves is for our good and ultimately God’s glory.  It is for our good because it results in an eternal reward of unimaginable ecstasy.  Only those who love perfectly can bear this ecstasy and be transformed by it.  All others will back away from it as yet without the capacity for it.

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”  Here, the Lord lays out the general principles of our love for others.  “To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.”  Next, he uses hyperbole to emphasize the imperative of this love.  He sums up his teaching with, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  That is, consider in what way you can serve a given person, according to your abilities and within your already existing responsibilities, and then act accordingly.  The most important action we can perform is to pray, although it is often the last action we think of.  We should, in fact, pray in our considerations and for the other’s good.  “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.”  That is, Even the secular-minded people around us love those who love them.  “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.”  This is a much misunderstood commandment.  The Greek word translated here as “judging” means “to bring to trial” or “to decide innocence and guilt”, in a judicial context.  It is to be compared with “condemning”.  We are not to set ourselves up as God as though to judge another soul, for God alone is the Judge: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12, 19).  Vengeance, or, punishment, is God’s, not ours, to hand out. 

“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”  This is the ecstasy of heaven.  It will pour over and through us in an everlasting torrent.  Some will experience it more keenly than others, for “the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  If we love without measure, we will experience love without measure to our fullest ability to receive it.

This love that our Lord so wants us to enjoy that he commands us to show it so that we can receive it, is not the mere natural love all people are capable of, but the supernatural love that only the children of God can love with.  We pray that we may love fully with this love, itself a gift of God.

 Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 16, 2022

Mark 8:22-26

When Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethsaida, people brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on the man and asked, “Do you see anything?”  Looking up the man replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.” Then he laid hands on the man’s eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly. Then he sent him home and said, “Do not even go into the village.”

“People brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.”  We ought to consider the strangeness of this scene.  Jesus and his Apostles make their way to Bethsaida, just off the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee.  He is recognized on the road and the news of his arrival spreads quickly.  Men put down their work, women and children emerge from their houses.  A great crowd forms around the entrance of the town in order to greet him — not a public official, a general, or even a rich private citizen, but a preacher without credentials from any of the schools who had a reputation for performing miracles.  This preacher did not distinguish himself by his dress or appearance, nor did he sport an educated accent.  Members of the crowd bring to him, partly leading and partly pushing, a blind man.  They have heard that Jesus cured the sick; here was a sick person.  It is not as if Jesus was expected to go to the patient, as doctors of the time did.  Here, the suffering man is brought before one who could cure him.  It is hard to think of a modern equivalent to this scene.  It might only occur where a deep religious atmosphere existed and where people that in miracles.  

“He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.”  Jesus led this afflicted man “by the hand” outside the village.  An often overlooked feature in the life of Jesus is how often we see him touching someone or being touched by someone.  St. Mark tells us that the people of Bethsaida “begged Jesus to touch” the blind man.  Now, he tells us that Jesus led the man by the hand. In the next verses he tells us that Jesus laid hands on the man’s eyes not once but twice.  We can think of ourselves as blind through our ignorance and sin, and yet Jesus takes us by the hand and leads us where he wants to go in order to heal us.  We can also think of him taking us by the hand as we strive to make our way through the darkness of this world until we come to heaven, where we will see him “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13, 12).

“Looking up the man replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.” This verse startles because it seems as if Jesus has failed to perform the miracle.  In fact, the failure is not that of Jesus but of the man whom he is trying to heal.  Jesus wills for the man to receive his sight, but if the man himself does not wish to be healed or lacks faith that God can heal him, then he will not be healed or will be healed only partially.  God does not force his gifts on anyone.  The man does see, but poorly.  At this point he could go his way with what sight he now has, but he remains.  This remaining tells Jesus that he wishes to be fully healed, and so the Lord lays hands on him a second time so that “he could see everything distinctly.”

Then he sent him home and said, “Do not even go into the village.”  This verse tells us that the man did not live in Bethsaida itself but in a hamlet or farmhouse outside the town.  The Lord thus tells him to go straight home, not to go into the town to show off his sight to the people there.  Jesus often tells the people he has healed not to talk about their healing by him.  The main reason for this is that some of these folks would embellish or otherwise distort some aspect of what had happened and so act as poor witnesses of God’s glory.  Another reason, probably, was to protect the cured person from the curiosity of others.  Whatever the reason for the Lord’s instruction, we note that he does not make the continuance of the cure contingent on whether the person obeys him.

One way to interpret this cure is that a Gentile (an unbeliever) is totally blind, that a Jew (who thinks of Jesus as a prophet or philosopher) sees partially, and that a baptized, believing Christian sees “everything distinctly”.  This “sight” is necessary for life in Christ, for through it we see how and who we are to serve for his sake.

 Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 15, 2022

I’m doing a little better today.  I do appreciate and benefit from your prayers.  I don’t think I coughed today, but any activity is debilitating.

Mark 8:14-21

The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” They concluded among themselves that it was because they had no bread. When he became aware of this he said to them, “Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?” They answered him, “Twelve.” “When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up?” They answered him, “Seven.” He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

“The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.”  In the verses just prior to those of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his Apostles had headed in their boat for Dalmanutha, a now lost town on the coast of the Sea of Galilee.  There he encountered hostile Pharisees who demanded that he perform a sign for them.  After refusing to do so, Jesus got back in the boat and made their way to Cesarea Philippi .  The stay in Dalmanutha seems to have been cut short, and this may account for the Apostles not having bought bread there.  The detail about the bread gives us an interesting insight into life with Jesus: that some of the Apostles were charged with refilling their sack of provisions that they might eat wherever they wound up.  From Mark 8, 7, we see that besides bread, they carried dried fish with them.  

“Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”  Jesus continued to teach his Apostles even on the sea when he could have rested, such was his zeal for souls.  His teaching here about the 

“leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” seems random to us, and evidently it did to the Apostles, for they connected it at once with their low supply of bread.  Of course, the Lord knew what he was going to do and that his main teaching to them would be about trust in him, but we might ponder what the original teaching meant.  What was this “leaven” of the Pharisees and of Herod?  We already have heard that members of these two parties or sects had begun plotting to put him to death, but the Lord does not seem to reference that in this case.  In Matthew 16, 6, St. Matthew recalls the Lord as having also spoken of the “leaven of the Sadducees”, whom the Lord does not encounter until his last week on earth, from the evidence of the Gospels.  These groups had their places in society at that time, and each had its rich backers, admirers, and influence.  There may have been moments when the Apostles, who lived and ate on the road and were derided by those in power and influence, wondered why the Lord did not live as these men did, in their big houses filled with servants.  Why did their own life have to be so hard?  This may be the leaven of which the Lord warned them, the tiny doubts and temptations that would lead them away from Christ and the Gospel to a worldly respectability.

“Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend?”  The Lord upbraids them not because they lacked bread but because they did not realize who he was so that they had no need to worry about food.  They had seen him expel demons, declare himself himself to be “the Lord of the Sabbath”, raise the dead, and show himself to be the master of storms.  In addition, he had shown them how he could feed thousands: “And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?”  The Lord shows his displeasure with their lack of insight and of faith: “Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? . . . Do you still not understand?”  By doing this, he forces his Apostles to think about who he is, and very soon after reaching Cesarea Philippi he will ask them straight out for their conclusions.

No Herodians or Pharisees swagger about in our lives today, but we may be tempted by what we see of the lifestyles of those purely secular folks who seem to have it “all”.  We must be careful not to try to fit in with them lest we lose Jesus Christ, who truly is our “all”.

 The 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 13, 2022

I’m not doing so well yesterday and today.  The coughing is mostly gone but I am very worn out all the time and activities such as Mass as confessions are very hard right now.  I’m glad for all your prayers!  I’d be in real trouble wi

 Saturday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 12, 2022

Mark 8, 1-10

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over — seven baskets. There were about four thousand people. He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

“In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat.”     We might wonder about these people who wander far from their homes without provisions.  They came in ones and twos, perhaps in families, drawn by the power of Christ to hear the word of God from the only one who could give it to them.  Perhaps they could not have explained why they came to him.  As the Lord asked of another crowd at another time about John the Baptist: “What went you out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings” (Matthew 11, 7-8).  The Lord’s answer to these questions applies even more to him than to John: “But what went you out to see? A prophet? Yea I tell you, and more than a prophet” (Matthew 11, 9).  They knew John either by hearing him themselves or by his reputation.  He was a powerful, stirring preacher.  But Jesus of Nazareth preached more powerfully and he performed miracles, besides.  And so they went out and they could not leave.  What he told them gripped them and made them feel the love of God for them.  This was the fulfillment of the Law, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live” (Deuteronomy 8, 3).  

The Lord himself knew hunger and he knew the people had traded away their dinners for the spiritual bread he provided them.  He felt deep compassion for them who had done this: “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.”  He will show them now that he cares for their bodies as he cares for their souls.  He knows them, too.  It is not merely a crowd or an audience to him: “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.”  An entertainer or a Pharisee would not know or care that members of a crowd had come from afar.  Besides this, such a one would expect to be fed by them after his great show.  They should be concerned with him.  Certainly, the Lord was exhausted after all his preaching, but he does not cease to serve on account of this.  A good and shrewd servant, he sees how their need and knows how to provide for it.  

The Lord Jesus could have summoned up a great feast out of nothing, or had the sky rain down manna as he had done centuries before for the Israelites in the wilderness.  Here, he takes the little food that is available and from it produces a dinner so great that enough remains left over to make another such dinner.  In this way he shows that the littleness of human flesh abounds for the salvation of the world when joined to a divine nature.  The action of fasting and then hearing the word of God prepares us for receiving the Meal the Lord prepares for us.  This is, in fact, the outline of the Holy Mass.  The overabundance reminds us of the miraculous nature of this meal, and as the Lord used the Apostles to distribute the Meal to us, he uses us to distribute, in some way, “the fragments left over” to those who remained behind.  In our daily lives, we do this by our good works and words.

“He dismissed the crowd.”  The Lord does not simply walk away, but formally sends the people back to their homes so that they can share the good the Lord had done for them: “Go into your house to your friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for you, and has had mercy on you” (Mark 5, 19).

 Friday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 11, 2022

I am still having trouble with my health.  Although I am not wracked with coughing as I was a few weeks ago, I have little stamina and wear out quickly. Please keep praying for me.  

Mark 7, 31-37

Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

The Decapolis was a league of ten cities built by the Greeks after the death of Alexander the Great to the east of the Jordan River.  Damascus was one of them.  Few Jews, if any, lived in these cities, but they may have lived in the towns around them.  Matthew 4, 25 informs us that “many people followed him from Galilee, and from Decapolis.”  These would have been Jews.

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.”  The people of the place Jesus visited on this occasion knew of his power and brought to him to be cured a man who was both deaf and dumb.  The Lord took the man away from the crowd and then performed a strange action upon him: while putting his finger in the man’s ears, perhaps a single finger into one ear and then the other, he spat and touched the man’s tongue with the saliva, saying the Aramaic word, Ephphatha, meaning, “be opened”.  We see here a figure of baptism: the one seeking the healing of his sins is taken away from other sinners lest he continue in his sin; the Lord enters into the one to be baptized (through his “ears” in this case) in order to heal him from within; the spitting is is sign of the waters of baptism and of the Holy Spirit; and the command, “Be opened” causes the man to be capable of receiving the forgiveness the Lord offers.  The effect is immediate.  He is free.  As the action transpired, the people of that time and place expected rituals for the cure of the sick, and Jesus provided one for them, one which they would think about long after he departed from them.  The use of the Aramaic word is interesting.  At the time of Jesus, Aramaic was displacing Hebrew as the everyday language of the Jews in Galilee and Judea, though it remained their religious language.  When the Lord and the Pharisees talk, it seems to have been in Hebrew.  Jesus used an Aramaic word the people of the area would have understood.  We might wonder about the reason that Mark does not translate this word directly into the Greek in which he is writing his Gospel.  There seems no purpose to telling his readers the exact word he said.  That he does so tells us that the word possessed some significance for these readers in the first days of the Church.  This significance becomes plain when we realize that this Aramaic word was used in the Baptismal ritual.  Whatever the  language in which the ritual was conducted, the Aramaic word was used for opening the ears of the newly baptized to hear (and understand) the word of God and his tongue to speak God’s praise.  Thus, from the earliest times, this word was continuously used, and when Mark came to render the account of this cure for his Gospel, he decided not to translate it so that his readers could see for themselves its origin and context.  The use of saliva, by the way, continued into recent times in the traditional rite.

“He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  Perhaps this line was used in an ancient hymn.  Otherwise, it stands out in Mark’s almost laconic accounts of the Lord actions.  It is a confession of faith and an expression of wonder.  “Well” here can also be translated as “nobly” and rightly”.  It is as though the people were considering what Jesus did and the manner in which he acted, and were saying, “When the Messiah comes, shall he do more signs than this man does?” (John 7, 31).

Most baptized Christians continue to live among their Gentile neighbors, and this is right for them so that they might convert them, but they — we — must be careful not to live as they live and to use the world as they do.  We must live apart spiritually and morally so that we are not dogs going back to their vomit (cf. 2 Peter 2, 22).  Rather, we are cities set on a hill, quite distinct from their surroundings.

 Thursday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 10, 2022

Mark 7:24-30

Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

The ancient city of Tyre was set about forty miles northwest of Nazareth on the Mediterranean coast.  During our Lord’s lifetime, it flourished as a regional capital and port within the Roman Empire.  Its citizens were the proud heirs of a very rich ancient culture which had invented the alphabet, colonized faraway lands, and extended trade throughout the Mediterranean world.   Despite its greatness, there seemed little reason for the Lord Jesus to visit it.  According to the historian Josephus, the Tyrians were “bitter enemies” of the Jews, and from this we know that Jews did live in the city, but St. Mark tells us that while the Lord stayed there “he wanted know one to know about it”, and so it seems that he did not go there to preach to or to encourage the Jewish population.  In fact, the one action we are told the Lord performed there involved not the Jews but Gentile natives of the place.

We can benefit from comparing the earlier visit of the Lord to the Gentile land of the Gerasenes on the opposite side of the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum.  That visit is represented to us as impulsive and urgent.  The Lord exposes his Apostles to a violent sea storm in order to get there.  Once he arrived, a man possessed by a legion of demons came running up to him, as though he had been summoned.  Once the Lord exorcised the demons, he departed again, with the frightened pleas of the local inhabitants ringing in his ears.  This journey to Tyre also seems impulsive.  It was a sharp turn from the Lord’s restless, driven life dedicated to preaching the Gospel to the Jews.  Likewise, the great deed he performed in both places was an exorcism, in this case that of a demon possessing a young girl.  As the exorcism in the land of the Gerasenes amounted to a promise that grace would come to the Gentiles one day, so it seems the exorcism in Tyre does this as well.  With both the Lord also teaches that “You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know. For salvation is from the Jews” (John 4, 22).  This was not an easy lesson for the Gentiles to learn, but the Lord insists on it, referring to the Jews as the “masters” and the Gentiles as the despised scavengers the “dogs” in speaking with the Tyrian woman.  Yet her need for the help only the Lord could provide conquered her pride and opened the way for her daughter to be freed from the devil.

As we go among today’s Gentiles we ought to keep in mind that it is largely their pride that keeps them from Jesus.  They think of themselves as masters though indeed they are but dogs, taking as food only what others have left behind.  We do not despise them for this, but recognize the truth of it.  But by our charitable deeds we draw them to seek only what our Lord may give them — freedom from the devils that lead them on to their self-destruction.