Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, January 31, 2023

Mark 5, 21-43

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” He went off with him and a large crowd followed him. There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, Who touched me?” And he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.” While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” Disregarding the message that was reported, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official, he caught sight of a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. So he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” And they ridiculed him. Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. At that they were utterly astounded. He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

St. Mark has shown through his account of the Lord’s calming of the ferocious storm at sea how he has power over the natural world, and how he, the Son of God, restores all things from the chaos wrought by our sins to how they were meant to be (cf. Ephesians 1, 10); how he has power over the supernatural world, overcoming the devil and bringing peace to men (cf. John 16, 33); and now, how he conquers death, touching it with his Body and bidding it be gone.  In this same Gospel reading, we see too how he makes all things clean: “All things are clean to the clean” (Titus 1, 15).  Having accomplished all this signs, the Lord truly shows himself to be the Son of God, and that he can be none else.

“Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him.”  The synagogue official shows obeisance reserved for eastern kings, who regarded themselves as gods.  We note here how in each of the three miracles stories that are linked together here, those needing help rush to him.  The possessed man as well as the synagogue official even throw themselves at the Lord’s feet.  Mark is careful to have us see this.  People who know him, who know him not at all, and who know him by reputation all come to him in this way.  “Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.”  We see the man’s faith laid out before the Lord.

“She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.”  This woman knew of Jesus by reputation as well.  Since he has returned to Capernaum, either she has remained indoors because of her condition and so has not seen him, or she has come from another town, her hopes of a cure buoyed by what she has heard of this wonder worker.  Like Jairus, she too has faith.  But whereas Jairus wants the Lord to touch his daughter, this woman will be happy if she can just touch the hem of his cloak.  “She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.”  we can only imagine what this must have felt like.  A surge of spiritual power flowing through her, a sudden cessation of the suffering she had endured?  Perhaps she felt as so many feel upon leaving the confessional, exulting in a feeling of freshness and newness.  “Who has touched my clothes?”  Many people have touched his clothes, but only one was open to receiving his healing.  Many people receive Holy Communion at Mass, but how many truly know what they are doing, desire with their whole heart to do it, receive devoutly, and give thanks to God afterwards?  The Lord offers his grace to us, but so often we do not take it from him.  It is so odd.  It is as though the Lord were a beggar on the street, but instead of begging us to give him something, he is begging us to let him enrich us, and we walk by, even pretending not to see him.  But this woman desires his grace with all her heart, and he dispels her uncleanness completely and for all time.

“Your daughter has died.”  This verse should be translated as “Your daughter died”, for the tense is aorist, not perfect.  That is, it happened and it is done.  “Has died” gives the sense of something that has recently happened.  That does not seem to be the case here.  This leaves open the possibility that she died a little time before, possibly while Jesus was still at sea, and that, as per the custom, the body lay in its deathbed while the flute players and mourners were assembled.  She would not have died the day before, though, since the Jews bury their dead before sundown.  If Jairus were aware of her death before he came to Jesus, it would reveal his terrible desperation.  He would think that since no one can raise the dead, as long as Jesus does not know she is dead, there is a chance she might still be healed.  Or, possibly, he did believe the Lord could raise the dead (though he had not yet done so), but feared to ask him to do this, lest he be rejected.  The people from his house who say so plainly, “She died”, do not seem to be breaking devastating news to him.  There are no tears, condolences, or embraces.  Instead, a barely concealed annoyance with Jairus: “Why trouble the teacher any longer?”  As if to say, Let us get on with the mourning and bury your daughter.

“The child is not dead but asleep.”  The Lord says this with deference to what the father has told him and to comfort the family; but also because one who sleeps in death can be awakened.  The just “sleep” in death while the wicked “taste” death in all its bitterness.  They “die the death”, as was said to Adam (cf. Genesis 2, 17, literally from the Hebrew and as found in the Douay Rheims).  Talitha koum.  Mark preserved the Hebrew spoken by the Lord, which helps us know which language he spoke with among the people, but which also may be a sign that these words were used in Mark’s time, during St. Peter’s lifetime, as part of the baptismal ritual, when a girl or woman was baptized in the river and rose again out of it.

“He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.”  This was not a sign for all, but particularly for his most fervent and devoted Apostles, the ones most likely to understand what it meant.  

By meditating closely on these works of Jesus Christ we may come to know his earnest desire for our salvation and his abundant power to cause it.

 Monday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, January 30, 2023

Mark 5, 1-20

Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea, to the territory of the Gerasenes. When he got out of the boat, at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him. The man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain. In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains, but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones. Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and prostrated himself before him, crying out in a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!” (He had been saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”) He asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.” And he pleaded earnestly with him not to drive them away from that territory. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside. And they pleaded with him, “Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.” And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine. The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea, where they were drowned. The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town and throughout the countryside. And people came out to see what had happened. As they approached Jesus, they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion, sitting there clothed and in his right mind. And they were seized with fear. Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened to the possessed man and to the swine. Then they began to beg him to leave their district. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him. But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead, “Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.

The room St. Mark (and also St. Matthew) gives this event in his Gospel tells us of the impression made upon those who were present for it and well as for the significance they attached to it.  We should note also that Mark links this with his double account chronologically of the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the woman with the blood issue.  Reflecting on the relation between these can help us with our understanding of each.  

First, we should notice that the Lord’s departure for the Gentile land of the Gerasenes was made very abruptly.  He also leaves very abruptly.  The Lord had been preaching to the people in and around Capernaum, and then he decided, towards the evening, to set out for “the opposite side” of the Sea of Galilee, where no Jews lived who could be responsive to his message.  After surviving a tremendous storm at night, Jesus and the Apostles alighted on Gentile territory where “at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him”.  It was as if the possessed man had been waiting for him.  Peter or one of the other Apostles must have spoken a few hasty words with a bystander who knew the situation because we are told that “man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain”.  Mark goes on in detail to describe the chaos inhabiting this man.  

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”  The demons cry out on a terrible cacophony of voices: shrieks, howls, whistles, and bellowing.  Given his violent nature, we can think of the man convulsing, crawling, leaping, crouching all around the Lord, while he remained calm and still, just as he had stood at the moment he calmed the fury of the storm on the sea.  The address to Jesus as “Son of God” does not identify him as divine, but was a title sometimes used for prophets, kings, or angels.  “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”  Cases of possession often involve multiple demons, each one of whom must be cast out individually, a process which takes some time.  “Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”  The demons feel the power of Christ compelling them out of the man and they dread returning to hell and the mockery of their fellow demons.  In their panic, entering the swine seems preferable to them.  But for the swine, death is preferable to possession.  For the Jew, this is quite a frightening lesson: the pig was regarded as most vile and unclean.  During the days of the Greek occupation, Jews preferred to be killed by the Greeks rather than eat pork as they were commanded to do.  It was, of all things, the most unholy.  And yet the demons are more unholy than they.  As an aside, when a pig is angry or very afraid, it screams at a very high pitch and a very high decibel.  A hillside full of screaming, stampeding, pigs must have reduced the bystanders to shaking like wheat stalks caught in a high wind.

The abrupt departure from the land of the Gerasenes might not catch our attention after Mark’s description of the scene and because the people begged him to go, but Jesus had nothing else to do there.  During his time on earth he did not preach to the Gentiles and he counseled his Apostles, while he was alive, to preach only to the people of Israel.  It would seem that he came to this coast only to perform this exorcism, and now he would return.  But the Lord did not mean his actions to have only an immediate effect.  His actions, as well as his words, had meaning.  They were signs.  This sign can at least be partially understood as that his power was not limited to Israel.  Also, the sign assured his Apostles of the greatness of his power over the supernatural just as his calming of the storm had assured them of his power over the natural world.  This is the Creator who restores creation to its original state, the earlier miracle says.  This is the Ruler of heaven and earth who conquers the devil, this exorcism says.  

We might wonder why the Lord went to a Gentile land to perform an exorcism of this magnitude.  The fact is that possession cases involving a “legion” of demons probably did not arise in Israel.  In all the cases of possession we read of in the New Testament, this is the only one in which multiple demons are involved.  This is because of the extreme depravity of the Gentiles, who fling open the doors of their souls to demonic infestation through their debauchery and godless living.  The Jews, by contrast, at least attempted to live up to the Covenant they had with God.

When we examine the next two miracles in Mark’s Gospel, we will see how the Lord Jesus is also the Lord of life and death.

 The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, January 29, 2023

Matthew 5, 1–12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.”  We may miss the meaning of this verse because it does not seem to show the Lord doing anything extraordinary.  In fact, what St. Matthew describes is that the Lord saw the crowds, suggesting an unusually large number of people, and that after he has seen them, he goes up a mountain.  The mountains overlooking the Sea of Galilee, as this one did, do not compare with, say, the Alps.  These resemble foothills more than anything else and can be climbed without too much difficulty.  Often goats or other animals have worn trails into the mountains that can be followed.  Climbing one might take a couple of hours, though, if one is aiming for the top.  We are not told whether the Lord did this or was satisfied with a ledge not too far above the people’s level.  Now, the Apostles, watching him, did not at first understand what he was doing.  The Lord often went up on mountains to pray.  In that case, he would stand.  But when they saw him sit, assuming the proper position of a teacher at that time, they knew he meant to teach.  It is at that time that they, and others of the disciples went up with him.  It is not clear from what we have read that the subsequent sermon was delivered to the Apostles and disciples only, or to the crowds below as well.  Reading the sermon, we would find good reason to conclude that the Lord had spoken only to those closest to him and not to the crowds, for he speaks of his Church, of persecution for believing in him, and for the necessity of believing in him.  He does not tend to dwell on these themes when he preaches to the people in St. Matthew’s Gospel, but would be more appropriate for them.  On the other hand, Matthew sees the Lord’s Sermon the Mount as the fulfillment of the Law brought down from Mount Sinai to the people by Moses, and so we might infer from this that the Lord delivered the Sermon to everyone within hearing.  A third possibility is that the Lord spoke most of the .sermon to the crowd, who were mostly down below, and other parts more quietly to his disciples and Apostles, nearer him.  We can think of the Lord spending some time preaching this sermon too.  He may have made several pronouncements and then paused for a few minutes to give people a chance to think and to discuss what he had said among themselves.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”  The first of the Beatitudes differs from the rest because it alone shows the reward as given to the virtuous already.  The others shows the rewards being given in the future.  This may indicate that it is the most important of the group, or that being “poor in spirit” is a precondition for being merciful, pure in heart, and so on.  In this case, the various rewards define the experience of the Kingdom of heaven both now and in the future.  Now, to be “poor in spirit” means to give ourselves entirely to God and to him alone, to depend on him for everything, to love him with all our hearts.  It means to put service to him above all else and to see our simple possessions as a means to an end, and the people around us as those who, God wishes us to help save through our service to them.  This is not an easy state to attain and can only be reached through prayer.  It requires a complete conversion of our hearts away from the world and to Almighty God.  This conversion and this grace enable us to mourn in acts of penance for our sins and for those of others; to be meek — gentle of heart like our Lord; to hunger and thirst for holiness, to grow in holiness; to be merciful as our Lord has been merciful to us; to be pure of heart so that no stain of sin or distraction may distract us from beholding God; to possess peace and to make peace between others as did our Lord, who made peace between heaven and earth and between the Jews and Gentiles; to persevere in all tribulations and persecutions which inevitably rise up against the believer in this life.  This last Beatitude, concerning those who persevere, is shown to be the destiny or even goal of the one who is “poor in spirit” and so possesses the virtues already mentioned because the Lord makes a double of it: Blessed are those who are persecuted, etc., and Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you, etc.  We notice also the change of the address, from “them” to “you” as though for emphasis.

We pray for the grace to be poor in spirit so that we might perfectly conform to our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Saturday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 28, 2023

Mark 4, 35-41

On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples: “Let us cross to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

St. Mark is not normally interested in linking the events in his Gospel according to their sequence in time, but he does this here: “On that day.”  When St. Matthew tells the same story, he does not do this.  Reading his account, we are left wondering if Jesus departed for the other coast the same day as the events previously narrated, or several days later.  St. Peter, from whom Mark heard this story, included this detail of chronology because he saw the connection between the parables the Lord had told earlier in the day and the crossing of the sea that evening.  

“Let us cross to the other side.”  This direction of the Lord made the Apostles wonder.  The Lord does not say what their destination is or why he wants to go there.  But they knew very well that across the sea lay Gentile lands, including that of the Gerasenes.  There seemed no reason for going there.  But the obedient Apostles went aboard their boat and took Jesus in the boat with them “as he was”, which perhaps means that he did not take off any of his clothes and hold them over his head to keep them dry as he got into the water to get into the boat.  “And other boats were with him.”  This might indicate that this was the time when the fishing, on which this region depended, began.  

“A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up.”  Mark’s breathless language is almost impossible to translate into good English.  For instance, he uses the word for “and” sixteen times during the telling of the story.  He also makes great use of the present and imperfect tenses, which indicate continuous action in the present and in the past, respectively.  This verse could be translated: “There is a huge squall of wind and the waves were crashing into the boat so that it is filling now.”  These are the words of one who is living the scene as he is telling about it.  “Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.”  The Lord, his clothes already soaked because of how he came into the boat, had fallen into a deep sleep even so, and he remained in this state after the violent storm had come upon them.  He must have been hard to see since he was on the floor of the boat’s stern.  He might have been stepped on by scrambling feet in the dark of the storm.

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  If we think about it, this is an odd question to ask in this situation.  The storm in threatening to capsize the boat, the rain is coming at them in gliding, nearly horizontal sheets, the waves of the sea are filling the boat, and the Apostles are bailing like mad.  At the point in which they find and wake up Jesus, they must have thought they were dead men.  But they do not tell the Lord to bail with them, or to grab onto something that floated and jump overboard (though he would have been weighed down by his heavy wet clothes).  They ask him if he cares or not that they are about to drown.  It is the question a child might ask when his world seems to be turned upside down while the adult is oblivious, thinking about his own concerns.  But the Apostles have seen displays of his power.  Surely he could do something here.  We see trust, based on their experience.  But it has not yet become Faith, which it will through God’s grace and their desire to believe.

“Quiet! Be still!”  The Lord’s voice thundered out against the thunder and triumphed over it.  This was the voice of the One who, at the time of creation, had rebuked the pounding waves and driven them back from the land: “Hitherto shall you come, but no further: and here shall your proud waves be stayed” (Job 38, 11).  “The wind ceased and there was great calm.”. God says through the Psalmist, “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46, 10).  The world of nature recognized the voice of its Creator and lay still at his feet.

“Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”  This verse could also be translated, “Why are you terrified?  Because you do not have faith.”  The Lord asks a question, waits for a response from the badly shaken Apostles, and then answers it for them.  He does not rebuke them, but points out a fact, one that goes back to the two parables he had earlier that day told them and the crowds about faith.  He is teaching them that they need it, but do not yet have it, despite all their trust, for faith is a supernatural gift for which they are not yet ready.

“Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”  These words underline the fact that they do not have faith yet and are not yet ready for it.  They ask the question but do not speak the only possible answer.  

We, like the Apostles in the early days of their knowing the Lord, know that he has power and we trust that he can use that power.  But do we really trust him with our lives, believing him to be God, with unlimited power and knowledge?  Do we believe in him enough to stop expecting to have to do everything for ourselves?

 Friday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 27, 2023

Mark 4, 26-34

Jesus said to the crowds: “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.  To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.

“This is how it is with the Kingdom of God.”  The greatest truths can be best told not by long theses or whole books, but through simple, but precise, similes, metaphors, and allegories.  This enables the minds of anyone, regardless of education, to understand what is necessary in order to be saved.  Here, the Lord Jesus speaks of the virtue of faith. The Prophets, with all their inspiration, and the greatest theologians, with all their ability, cannot approach what Jesus does, and how beautifully and memorably he does it.  Through this we see his fervent desire for us all to know about faith and how it works so that we can practice it and spread it.

“It is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.”  The Lord uses the simplest activity, one which anyone could see and do.  A farmer would have wheat or other grain seed poured into his long tunic that he would hold up by its edges, and he would walk up and down his field scattering the deed with his free hand.  Today farmers use large pieces of equipment to do this work, but they must know how to use it and care for it.  The work of planting seeds has become easier on the back. but more complex.  

“Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”  normally, field were not fertilized, though fruit trees in an orchard might be.  Nor could the farmer in ancient Israel engage in large-scale irrigation.  After sowing the seed, the farmer prayed that the seed was good, that it had fallen on good soil, and that the weather was favorable.  If his crop grew, he rejoiced.  But it remained a mystery to him how it all happened.  Perhaps the admission to himself that he did not understand how it all worked made him all the more grateful when it did.

“And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”  When the grain ripened, action had to be taken quickly.  If the farmer gathered his grain into his barn too soon, it would be no good, but if he waited to gather it or was slow about it, the rain might come and then danger threatened through spontaneous combustion of the hot, wet grain in the barn.  The harvest must come at the exactly tight moment, and the seasoned farmer knew when this would be.

We learn here, among other things, about the mystery of how faith arrives to a person, without him even knowing where it came from.  If it is nourished through the rays of the sun, that is, through prayer, and the drops of rain, that is, through the exercise of the virtues, then it grows, and the Lord, watching him carefully, takes him to heaven at exactly the right time, when his faith has peaked.

“It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.”  The Lord speaks again of the arrival of faith, through a word heard or an example seen of a faithful believer by one who does not believe.  All it takes is the simplest word or action on our part because it is God who uses it to bring the unbeliever to belief.  It is God’s work, for which we supply the tiny, but necessary, kindling for his spark that will erupt into a conflagration in the other’s heart.

 Thursday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 26, 2023

The Feast of Saints Timothy and Titus

Mark 4, 21-25

Jesus said to his disciples, “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lamp stand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light. Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.” He also told them, “Take care what you hear. The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you. To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

“Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lamp stand?”  Lamps in use in Israel at the time of Jesus were made from pottery bowls to which were attached a tapering spout.  A linen wick was inserted to the spout after the fish or olive oil (which burned more brightly) was poured in.  After the wick was lit, the lamp would burn for an hour or more before needing to be replenished.  It was a very simple arrangement.  Lamps made in Israel were undecorated, whereas those produced by other peoples were very often painted and were decorated with images.  A pottery jar filled with olive oil was used to keep the light burning.  Both of these might or might not have handles.  The Lord, when speaking of the lamp here, does not specify whether it was lit or not.  An unlit lamp needed to be kept in a visible place so that it could be found easily when it grew dark.  The place needed to be prominent, as a given house might have only one lamp: at sunset, the people went to bed, they did not linger until late as we do today.  But if the Lord is speaking of a lit lamp, placing it under a bushel basket or a bed would not only be foolish but dangerous, as it could easily be knocked over and the house set on fire.  

We can assume that the Lord was speaking of a lit lamp, given what he says later.  Now, the lit lamp under a basket or a bed does no one any good and wastes the fuel, in addition to posing a hazard.  The lit lamp is to be put on the lamp stand positioned in a prominent place so that it can best cast its light.  It would not be set in a corner, for instance.  The sole purpose of the lamp is to shine light.  It is not a piece of art or a useless but interesting souvenir.  The light allows the people in the house or cave or a darkened street to see where they were, to stay safe, and to continue whatever activity they were engaged in, perhaps acting as watchers on the city streets and gates.  The Lord Jesus, in speaking to us of the lit lamp is likening us to the lamp, grace to the oil, and the faith to the light.  He is the one who buys the lamp with the price of his Blood, then fills it with the purest grace that will burn most brightly, and lights it with the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Our faith then should light up all around us.  And rather than setting us in place where our light cannot be seen, he sets us exactly where he wants us.  He uses us to banish the darkness of sin and ignorance, to allow others to see where they are and to seek the safety of the Cross.

“For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light. Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.”  Here the Lord explains that he hides no secret doctrines and speaks no unsolvable riddles or gibberish.  The truth about us and about God is Theon wide open to the world.  He specifically creates and trains a group of followers who know his doctrine exactly and are sent out to the world to teach it for free to anyone who will listen.

“To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  Here the Lord speaks of the need to persevere in faith.  Temptation and trials offer the faithful the chance to grow in faith and virtue, and if they persevere, they do.  But those who hold back from full belief in god and in adherence to his holy will shall not be able to persevere, and what they do have will be lost.

We honor Saints Timothy and Titus today, men of great faith who followed St. Paul and were later appointed by him as bishops.  We pray to them that they intercede for us that God may fill us to the brim with his grace so that we may burn brighter and brighter here on earth and join the eternal Light in heaven.

 The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Acts 22, 3-16

Paul addressed the people in these words: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral law and was zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way to death, binding both men and women and delivering them to prison. Even the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify on my behalf. For from them I even received letters to the brothers and set out for Damascus to bring back to Jerusalem in chains for punishment those there as well.  “On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I replied, ‘Who are you, sir?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.’ My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me. I asked, ‘What shall I do, sir?’ The Lord answered me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.’ Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.  “A certain Ananias, a devout observer of the law, and highly spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and stood there and said, ‘Saul, my brother, regain your sight.’ And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice; for you will be his witness before all to what you have seen and heard. Now, why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.’ ” 

The conversion of the Pharisee known as Saul of Tarsus proved a pivotal point in the spread of the Gospel in the early Church.  Though not particularly granted a great presence or speaking voice, his persistence, sincerity, and boundless zeal for the Gospel, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, brought large numbers of people into the Faith of Christ during the early days of the Church.  His profound thoughts on the mystery of salvation practically invented Christian theology.  His teachings on marriage, chastity, the need to obey the Law of Moses, and how we belong to the Body of Christ have changed history and continue to form people today as believers in Jesus Christ.  

We have three accounts of his conversion, two told in his own words.  He must have told the story many times, as his own conversion was a tremendous sign of Christ’s power: that of an enemy of Christ to his most fervent believer.  One of these first person accounts is that used for today’s First Reading, and the second is found in Galatians 1, 13-24.  The one most of us are familiar with is found in Acts 9.  Each of the accounts possesses details not found in the others, which tends to support their authenticity: no one tells the same story exactly the same way every time he tells it.

“As I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground.”  This is something to think about.  A “great light” “from” the sky suddenly shone around him around noontime.  Of course, at noon the sun is directly overhead and is at its brightest and hottest.  This “great light” would have outshone the sun, then.  The Greek text has an infinitive meaning that the light “flashed like lightning”.  The light shone all around him, so that he could not have seen anything beyond it.  The light came upon him as though with a physical force so that he was knocked to the ground.  It should be noted too that the light came on him suddenly, in an instant and without warning.  Though stunned, he had his wits about him, and when he heard a voice calling to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”, he was able to answer: “Who are you, sir?”  The Greek has Kyrie, which is better translated as “Lord”.  Paul knew very well that he was experiencing a supernatural event, and he identified the voice with the cause of the “great light”, but the reason for the light and the words of the voice were unclear to him.

“I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.”  We note that Jesus, identified himself as his Church, which Paul was persecuting.  Paul would later understand that the Church is Body or Christ, to which all the baptized belonged.  To persecute a Christian, or the Church of the Christians, is to persecute the Lord Jesus himself.  Here the Lord identifies himself in a way Paul would readily grasp: Jesus the Nazarene.  The Lord never spoke of himself in this way, instead using terms such as “the Son of Man”.  But for Paul, before his conversion, Jesus the Nazarene had died on a cross, executed by the Romans.  He was dead and gone.  His followers, at first scattered, somehow got together and started proclaiming that he was alive.  They had to be stopped because this man, from Nazareth, had claimed to be the Son of God, which was blasphemous.  

“What shall I do, sir?”  Rather, What shall I do, Lord?  Paul must have struggled to know what to say next, and the one whose voice he heard was plainly expecting him to respond.  His “What shall I do, Lord?” is a testimony to his faith in God.  And this is why God was able to use him as he did: because Paul genuinely wanted to do God’s will and was absolutely open to whatever it might be.  Thus, he was perfectly able to accept the fact that he had grievously erred in persecuting the Church — the Lord Jesus — and now only wanted to know how he was to be of service.  Another person might have been stuck in the mud of his pride and been unable to move.  Paul put the service of God above all else.  We see this later in all that he suffered willingly in order to spread the Gospel.

We learn from St. Paul so many things.  Along with his love and zeal for Christ, there is absolute lack of personal pride that could deceive him into serving himself while telling himself he was serving God, or that would lead him to argue with God himself, as many indeed do.  Throughout his long career as an Apostle, we never see him acting out of pride.  In fact, he abases himself publicly in order to make a point about the love of God, or about God’s Providence.  We can imitate this, with the help of God’s grace, and make God’s will paramount in our lives.

 Tuesday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 24, 2023

Mark 3, 31-35

The Mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house. Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him. A crowd seated around him told him, “Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you.” But he said to them in reply, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

“The Mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house.”   For some people, particularly those opposed to the idea of the Mother of God’s perpetual virginity, this phrase speaks of the Lord Jesus’s biological brothers and sisters.  However, the names of these brothers and sisters, such as “James” turn out to belong to people who are the children of “the other Mary”, a woman who seems to have been the Virgin’s sister-in-law, step-sister, or possibly a cousin: “Mary the mother of James and of Joseph and Salome” (Mark 15, 40).  Perhaps the fact that most destroys the possibility of Mary having other children is that while dying on the Cross, Jesus tells his Apostle John to take care of her.  Had the Lord any brothers, particularly older brothers, the care of his Mother after his Death would not have been such a concern for him on the Cross.  Among these “brothers” mentioned in the present excerpt from the Gospel of St. Mark There could have been any number of uncles, cousins, and neighbors.  The Greek word translated as “brother” has very broad shoulders.

The distance between Nazareth and Capernaum was not great, about twenty miles, but the country was hilly and there may not have been roads between the two towns.  This would still allow one to walk from Nazareth to Capernaum in two days or less, even while avoiding the sun in the middle of the day.  If news had gotten to Nazareth that Jesus was “out of his mind” as Mark’s text earlier had said, his relatives could have gotten there quickly.

Now, Jesus had returned to Peter’s house following his appointment of the Apostles.  It was a fairly large house for the area since it housed, at the least, Peter and his wife, his wife’s mother, and his unmarried brother, Andrew.  Possibly there were servants.  Years later, after Pentecost, this house became a church, one of the very first, and it was used as a church.  Archaeologists have lately excavated the ruins of the ancient Byzantine church built on the site, containing beautiful mosaics, and discovered the original house.  

The crowd at the house was very large: “The multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread” (Mark 3, 20).  The Lord, ever preferring to feed the souls of others than feeding his own Body, taught them.  He must have taught for a long period of time to account for Mark’s phrasing, and still the people did not leave.  This gives us an idea of how starved the people were for the word of God, and how skilled they found the Lord as a teacher.  “Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him.”  It is a little hard to get into the minds of the Lord’s “brothers”.  Perhaps they feared that he was making such scenes that people gathered to watch him for the sake of the entertainment he provided.  In that case, they would have been filled with shame to let it be known that they were related to him.  It is hard to feel sympathy for them, however; they were of no help at all when the crowd in the synagogue in Nazareth tried to kill Jesus after when he came to teach them.

“Your Mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you.”  The members of the crowd may have felt curious to meet the Lord’s Mother and brothers, but they made no room for them.  They had Jesus with them.  They had chosen the better part and were not going to give it up.  Rather, they would leave it up to him if he wanted to greet them.  The Lord then said something quite astounding: “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”  He was identifying the people who came to learn from him as his mother, brothers, and sisters.  Here the Lord begins to teach the mystery of his holy Body, that those who are joined to him through baptism more belong to him than to anyone who is not baptized, including family members and relatives.

We might wonder what this means for his holy Mother.  It means that she is more holy for her consent to God ’s will in her conception of his Son than in her physically giving birth to him, as the Fathers teach us.  In his words, the Lord praises his Mother, the Handmaid of the Lord.  She had come to him in Capernaum in her duties as God’s Handmaid to aid her Son and also to protect him from the aggressive behavior of these relatives, whose demeanor she knew very well.  The Lord seems not to have met with these brothers after all.  None of the Evangelists say that he did.  Possibly they saw that that the people in Capernaum held him in high regard, and when he did not come out to them, and the day wore on, they left.  It is hard to think of the Blessed Virgin leaving him there, and we do find her along his women disciples who traveled with him, though in their own group, as according to custom.  This may have been the time when she left Nazareth for good.  But we never hear of her using her eminence in any way or asking for deference from the other women.  She always remained with the servants, ready to help, always eagerly doing the will of God.

 Monday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 23, 2022

Mark 3, 22-30

The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said of Jesus, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.” Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables, “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him. But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house. Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” For they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

In Matthew 12, 31-32, the Evangelist quotes the Lord on the doctrine of the sin against the Holy Spirit, but only in St. Mark’s Gospel do we have the story of the scribes who accused him of being possessed.  This event must have made a deep impression on St. Peter, from whom Mark got the story.

“The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said of Jesus, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘By the prince of demons he drives out demons.’ ”  Perhaps some of these scribes who came down from Jerusalem had also interrogated John the Baptist.  They make a rather serious charge against Jesus.  The context of this charge is that the Lord has not long before forgiven sins and declared himself Lord of the Sabbath.  He has healed many of physical infirmities and exorcised many.  As a result, opposition from the local authorities began to mount, chiefly due to jealousy.  He challenged and undermined their interpretation of the Law and their insistence that others abide by it.  But these scribes do not seem to interview Jesus at all, as they had spoken directly with John the Baptist.  As Mark lays it out, the scribes were merely spreading lies and baseless charges against Jesus amidst the crowd that had gathered to hear him.  We should not think too lightly of what they were saying: they did not challenge Jesus on his teachings or declare that he did not know what he was talking about; they did not try to discredit him because he came from Nazareth and had not studied with the Pharisees and so could not know the Scriptures.  No, they went right to the extreme and charged him with being possessed.  They do not explain what criteria they are using to make such a determination.  They assume that their status as scribes from Jerusalem, presumably representing the high priests, would convince people that what they said must be so.

In point of fact, they only discredited themselves with their wild accusation.  They do not contest the miracles, which so many people have seen.  They merely held that that they were done by the power of the devil.  But the devil never performs a good act, and Jesus had done countless good acts right out in the open.  Further, the devil would not be calling people to repent.  He would, on the other hand, be telling people to abandon the Law altogether.  Jesus does not do that.  As he insisted, certainly more than once, “Do not think that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.  For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5, 17-18).

The Lord’s response to their words also underlines that he has come not from Satan but from God, for he does not destroy them or even threaten them.  He tries to reason with them: “And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him.”  We do not have the response of the scribes, but the Lord seems to silence them here, and it is hard to imagine that the crowd did not rejoice over his wisdom.  But the Lord does have a hard teaching for those who speak blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.”  The idea that there is an unforgivable sin ought to strike fear into our hearts and cause us to flee from any hint of it.  But what exactly is it?  We should think along the lines of what the crowd would have understood by blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was at that time unformed.  Towards the end of his life on earth, during the Last Supper, Jesus will reveal that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person in union with the Father and the Son, and that he proceeds from the Father and the Son.  But at this time the Holy Spirit meant something more like the approval of the Father, the power sent upon someone by the Father.  To speak against the Holy Spirit, then, was to speak maliciously against God’s design, God’s will.  Jesus says in Matthew 12, “Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world, nor in the world to come” (Matthew 12, 31).  That is, Jesus will forgive those who accuse him of, say, crucifying him, but those who accuse him of being possessed, “having an unclean spirit” will not be forgiven because it is clear that he is doing God’s will, which he does in union with the Holy Spirit.  If he in fact did sin, and this was plain, he could be accused of it because in that case he would not be acting in union with the Holy Spirit.  But his good deeds, his miraculous deeds, are proof that the Holy Spirit is with him.

Today we understand the sin against the Holy Spirit as final impenitence, despair of God’s mercy, and presumption.  These are very common at the present time.  A famous folk / rock singer who just passed away is said to have uttered, moments before he died, that “heaven is overrated.”  This is final impenitence.  As we pray for the conversion of the world, let us pray for ourselves that we never imbibe so much of this world’s spirit, which is not the Holy Spirit, that we will ever speak or think like that.

 The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 22, 2023

Matthew 4, 12–23

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled: Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him. He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people. 

“When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea.”  It is interesting to note that St. Matthew connects the moving of Jesus to Capernaum with the arrest of John the Baptist while St. Luke connects it with the Lord’s rejection and near murder by the people of Nazareth.  These two events happened around the same time, allowing for the varying interpretations of the Evangelists.  Matthew also continues with his theme of how Jesus, the Savior of the world, came from the right family, at the right time, at the right place, and performed the right work, all according to the Scriptures.  It was then important for him to show that the Lord only began his public work when John had finished his.  Matthew does this to reinforce among the suffering Galilean Christians that Jesus was indeed the Messiah — all the signs pointed to this: he even quotes Isaiah 9, 1 to show where the Lord would live — so as to fortify them during their persecution by their unbelieving neighbors and by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem.  Perhaps Saul of Tarsus, as yet unconverted and riding high after the martyrdom of St. Stephen, was one of these.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  The Greek actually says, “The Kingdom of heaven is approaching.”  It is not sitting somewhere.  And since we cannot draw near to it because of our sins, it draws near to us, in the Person of the Lord Jesus himself.  This is the Lord’s core message throughout his travels through Galilee and Judea.  He calls on the Jews to repent as has John the Baptist, but whereas John had performed no miracles to validate his message, the Lord Jesus did; and John had stayed in one corner of Judea so that people had to go to him, the Lord Jesus went far and near, not forbearing to go anywhere in order to convert souls.

“He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.”  The way Matthew presents the order of events, Jesus chose his first Apostles soon after beginning his preaching, and seemingly these men had not heard of him before.  We know from St. John’s Gospel, though, that Andrew and John had spent a day with him just after he was baptized, and afterwards, Andrew brought Peter to meet him.  Matthew, of course, presumed that his readers, many of whom had seen and heard the Lord themselves, and had been neighbors with Peter, Andrew, James, and John, knew this, so he felt no need to slow up the pace of his account by repeating it,  The point of his telling of the call of the Apostles was to show their quick obedience to him: “At once they left their nets and followed him.”. That is, they heard his offer to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men”, and they wanted this.  They wanted to follow him and not just listen to him.  They wanted to live with him and know him, and they wanted to fish for men for him.  Exactly what this “fishing” meant they did not know, but they would do it for him if he wanted it.  “He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.”  likewise, the Lord called to James and John, who with their father were partners with Peter and Andrew.  

“He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.”  Matthew here summarizes the first two years of the Lord’s three years of ministry.  After he gives the account of the Sermon on the Mount and various parables, almost everything else in his Gospel took place in the third year.  How much he did in those years, constantly moving, encountering people of all kinds, treating all with mercy.  He continued to move among us today, through the Holy Church: preaching, healing, and providing the means of salvation.  One day we will finally see him face to face, and at that time we will not be able to take our eyes off of him. 

While these calls of the Apostles actually happened, we should note that Matthew uses the opportunity here to utilize the Hebrew literary device of doublets to emphasize that this immediate obedience is what the Lord wants from us.  We see this device throughout Hebrew poetry in the Scriptures: there is a statement, and then a following statement that bolsters the first, sometimes adding a little detail.  For instance, the first verse of the lovely Psalm 19: “The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declare the work of his hands.”  The heavens show, and the firmament declares, the glory of God, the word of his hands.  How necessary it is for us to render the Lord this obedience, Matthew is telling us.

 Saturday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 21, 2023

Mark 3, 20-21

Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

“Jesus came with his disciples into the house.”  After naming his Apostles, the Lord returned to .Capernaum, to Peter’s house.  Because St. Mark mentions that it was “impossible for them even to eat”, we can think of the selection of the Apostles occurring in the morning and the return to the house at midday, when the main meal of the day would have been eaten.  “Again the crowd gathered.”  The people wanted to hear Jesus.  The Church Father Origen believed that the Lord possessed a great personal charisma (we might say “a magnetic personality” today) that brought people to him in droves like this.

“When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him.”  The verb tense tells us that a group of his kin got together and set out as a unit with the sole purpose of taking hold of him.  They were going to physically haul him back to Nazareth and keep him there.  Mark tells us they did this because they thought that, “He is out of his mind.”  The Greek text allows a wide range of interpretation for this phrase, including, “He amazes”.  We might consider this insulting behavior by family members who thoroughly misunderstood him, but, in fact, they were right.  He was indeed “out of his mind”.  The Lord, throughout his life, showed this: he chose to be born of a Virgin in an obscure place and laid to rest in a trough; he acted without explanations, as when he remained in the Temple for three days as a youth; he said incredible things like “He who eats my Body and drinks my Blood will live forever”; he deliberately chose for an Apostle a man whom he knew would betray him; he allowed himself to be arrested, humiliated, tortured, and brutally killed for people who would never show gratitude for his dying for their sins.  The Lord Jesus was out of his mind with love for us, and his love compelled him to act and speak in these ways.  If we read the Gospels objectively, we will scratch our heads more than once before we finish.  But perfect love does not act like anything in our experience.

You and I ought to “seize” this Lord, who is out of his mind in love for us, with the embrace of our hearts and souls, and ask for the grace to return his love, even if it looks insane to the world.

 Friday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 20, 2023

Mark 3, 13-19

Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him. He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles, that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons: He appointed the Twelve: Simon, whom he named Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus; Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

The March for Life is being held today in Washington D.C. for the first time since the heinous Roe v. Wade decision was reversed by the Supreme Court.  For so many years we marched without any sign that this would happen.  This shows us the necessity of perseverance, and warns us to keep up the prayers and fasting for the conversion of those who hold that the abortion of children in the womb should be legal. 

“Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him.”  For perhaps over a year since his Baptism by John, the Lord had preached and healed, mainly in Galilee.  Crowds from all over had come to him to listen and to be healed, and there were those who followed him with some constancy.  The Lord had called these personally.  The Gospels preserve for us details of how seven of these men were called.  Now, in this excerpt from the Gospel of St. Mark, he further selects twelve who would be known at the Apostles, although during the Lord’s lifetime they were known as “the twelve”.  He made interesting choices.  In fact, he seems to have gone out of his way to pick the twelve men who would be least useful to a religious movement, if that was what he was doing.  Rather than pick men from among the scribes and rabbis of the land, or from among the wealthy and the well-connected, he selected men who had almost nothing to offer him: fishermen, tax collectors, young men without much experience.  Perhaps of these these only Matthew was literate.  While none of the twelve could be described as poor, none could offer him real financial backing, if he needed it.  

We ought to wonder why he did this, and why choose Judas Iscariot at all?  But the Lord uses ordinary bricks to build his magnificent Temple, and this displays his glory and power.  We might think here of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  The four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal danced and pranced and pierced themselves and howled for hours, and their sacrifice went unaccepted.  Elijah had the wood for his sacrifice soaked in water and he said a simple prayer.  The fire that came down from heaven upon the sacrifice burned up the wood on the altar, the sacrifice itself, and boiled away the water.  The Apostles were that wood.  You and I are that wood.  May the fire of the Holy Spirit blaze within us.

 Thursday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 19, 2023

Hebrews 7, 25 - 8, 6

Jesus is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them. It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens. He has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did that once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests, but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law, appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever. The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer. If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law. They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For God says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.

“Jesus is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.”  The Lord Jesus died on the Cross once and dies no more, as St. Paul tells us, and yet the work of salvation continues.  The Son stands before the Father, showing him the wounds by which he expiated our guilt, and pleads for each one of us.  We should think of the infinite love with which the Father loves his Son, and of the ready obedience of the Son to the Father’s will with which he showed the Father his infinite love for him.  How can the Father refuse a request of his dearly beloved Son who pleases him in every way?  We can say as a result that salvation is ours unless we throw it away.  If we could let go of our selfish, disordered, pursuit of our own will and begin to know the love of God, we would yearn for our salvation simply in order to please the God who offers it to us.

“It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.”  A priest is one who is appointed by God to carry out sacrifices on behalf of those on his care.  Jesus is The Priest because, appointed by the Father, he perfectly offers the perfect Sacrifice — himself.  “He has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people.”  In order to offer sacrifices for others, the high priests has to first offer sacrifices for themselves so that they would be pure enough to carry out this work.  The Lord Jesus, The High Priest, has no need to do this since he is infinitely pure and free from sin.  Parenthetically, the verse should begin: “He has no need, as do the high priests.”  The tense of the verb is present, not past: this is important to note because this fact tells us that the Temple is still functioning at the time this Letter was written, so before 70 A.D., which is considerably earlier than what certain scholars tell us.  “He did that once for all when he offered himself”, that is, inasmuch as he took on a human nature, he offered his Sacrifice for it too, though he was free from any stain of sin.  This is in accord with his baptism by John though he himself had no need of it.

“We have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up.”  The Jewish priesthood from the line of Aaron was the sign of The Priesthood of Jesus Christ.  The sign prepared the human race for its fulfillment in the Lord.  It accustomed the people to the need for an intercessor and to a worthy sacrifice that would take away sins.  It also helped people understand the seriousness of sin, for sins required a certain outlay for an animal that would be sacrificed on behalf of the sinner.  But sin is an offense against Almighty God and justice requires a sacrifice none of us could offer because of its infinite cost.  In his compassion for us, the Son of God joined himself to a human nature so that he could offer the infinite Sacrifice of himself to the Father, thereby fulfilling the requirements of justice.

“Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer.”  Jesus continuously offers up to the Father the Sacrifice of himself, interceding for us.  The Catholic Priest, who shares in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ shares in this intercession, as we see at Holy Mass, and offers up his Body and Blood in him.

“He would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law.”  The author is emphasizing that Jesus was not a priest according to the Old Law, but his Priesthood fulfilled and transcended that which was established under Moses on earth.

“They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle.”  The “tabernacle” here is the tent Moses erected to house the Ark of the Covenant.  The directions for this tent were later followed in the construction of the Temple because they were modeled after God’s sanctuary in heaven, according to the very literal mindset of the time.  For Christians, this tells us that we who are temples of the Holy Spirit must model ourselves after the Lord Jesus Christ, upon whom the Spirit came in the form of a dove.  We do this through the conversion of our minds from absorbed with the physical to that which is spiritual, and to our virtuous way of life.

“Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.”  The Old Covenant, the Old Law, the Temple, all had their own value as signs that would be completed and fulfilled by Jesus Christ, and which continue to this day to teach us about him and what he has done for us.