Friday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 28, 2025

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 27, 2025

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 26, 2025

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.  These exorcists acted in bad faith, using the name of Jesus as a magic word.

The name of Jesus has great power.  It is the name of our Savior.  He tells us to pray to the Father in his name (cf. John 16, 23) and his name is used in faith to cast out demons.  St. Paul sums up its power and majesty in Philippians 2, 10: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.”

Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 25, 2025

Mark 9, 30-37

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.  They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

St. Mark recounts for us, in this Gospel reading, how the Apostles argued about power.  They saw the overthrow of the Romans by Jesus as near at hand.  While they were loyal to Jesus, they were also looking out for the role they would assume in the restored Kingdom of Israel.  Thus, “office politics” were bound to arise: the struggle to be second-in-command, or to gain the notice and favor of the leader, to make others look less competent, to take over duties.  The Lord strove throughout the three years of his Public Life to teach the Apostles that theirs was a different sort of movement, and that authority is different from power.  

“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”  In his movement, his Church, the leader is the head servant, patterned after the Lord himself, who came to die on the Cross not for his own glory but for our salvation.  He came to serve, not to be served, and so shall his members serve, in him.  “Power” is only the ability to serve in different ways.  “Authority” means having the means to direct one’s fellow servants.  In the end, our desire for power is a sign of our own insecurity.  We want to clap our hands and make ourselves safe or punish those who seem to threaten us,  but if anything, the Lord teaches us that the safety we most often crave does not lead to salvation.  It is an impediment to it if it keeps us from living the Gospel.  The Lord came to lay down his life for us.  He rejected safety and the use of power to make himself safe, as we see in the temptations he endured in the wilderness.  

In living the Christian life and in spreading the Gospel, as we are told to do, we must think how we might serve God, and let our service to him be the reward we seek.l

Monday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 24, 2025

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 in Ordinary Time, February 23, 2025

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 also 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.”

Today’s Gospel reading comes directly after yesterday’s, which concluded with the Lord warning the Pharisees and scribes, who persecuted him and his followers, that their actions were leading them to eternal punishment.  The Greek text for today’s reading thus begins, “But to you who hear”, as though the Lord were turning from the Pharisees and scribes back to his disciples.  And having consoled his followers with the promise of heaven and rebuking the wicked, the Lord Jesus now instructs the faithful in how to act towards the wicked: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”  The Lord is telling his disciples that they are not to act merely as one sect among others, with rivalries, feuds, and grudges.  They are not called to be followers of just some human leader, vying for influence and power.  They are called to follow the Son of God and to become saints.  This requires utterly different behavior, and a completely new mind, that of Christ.  They are to act in ways radically different and even opposed to how others would act.

Notably, he does not tell his followers to pray against their persecutors, to mock them, or to take action against them, but to pray for them and their conversion, and to perform good acts for them.  In order to emphasize this, which must have seemed a strange or at least a surprising teaching to his followers, the Lord says, “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.”  Jesus uses hyperbole, a common rhetorical device, here.  Thus, the one who believes in Jesus is not to attack his persecutor when he sees an opportunity to do so.  Rather, he attempts to live peaceably with him.  That, in essence, is the meaning of the injunction to “turn the other cheek”.  The command to “Lend expecting nothing back” can be understood as offering generosity when it is possible to do so without taking from one for whom one already has responsibility.  For instance, we can be generous with our money in giving alms, but not if it means losing our rent money or the money that would be used to feed our own families.  And while the Lord says to us, “Give to everyone who asks of you”, he does not enjoin us to give a person everything he asks for, for certainly he could be asking for that which we do not have, or that which is otherwise impossible to give.

We must be careful in understanding, “Do to others as you would have them do to you“, which has been styled “the golden rule”.  This rule has been criticized as impossible, but it is quite practicable if we read it as, “Do to others the good as you would want them to do the good for you.”  Thus, if a person comes to us and asks for a large amount of money, and we have it to give him, we prudentially consider whether this would be good for that person, bearing in mind what we know of the person and his situation.  It is certainly not good to give a drug addict a large amount of money, or to perform an illegal action on someone else’s behalf.  The actual good in the first case might be simply to provide food or to even to pay a bill for the addict, and, in the second, to simply refuse to make the situation worse for a person who requires an illegal act, such as perjury.  What is the true good for the person before me, as best as I can know it?  That is the question the believer in Jesus asks himself when someone asks something of him.  And this is the key to understanding what it means to love someone, whether friend or foe, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out: to desire what is best for that person and to do what we can to help the person achieve or receive this.  To the extent that we do this, it will be done for us by Almighty God: “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 Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Saturday , February 22, 2025

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.

Friday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 22, 2025

Mark 8, 34--9, 1

Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life? Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” He also said to them, “Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.”

The Greek word translated here as “deny” also has the meanings of “disregard” and “disown”.  The Lord makes an enormous demand here.  He does not say, Whoever wishes to fight for the Kingdom, or, Whoever wishes to be saved.  This raggedy carpenter from Nazareth who was known as a healer told those who wanted to “follow” him —he does not even say his teachings — that they had to turn their backs on their former lives, occupations, interests, and even families.  They must make him the center of their lives.  More than this, they had to “take up his cross, and follow me.”  Nowadays when we speak of crosses to be carried, we mean difficulties in our lives, some bigger than others.  But to those to whom he spoke, and to every believer since, he is saying that we must sell out for him, accepting the worst death for his sake.  But he enables us to do this.  He shoulders his cross alone, but he helps us carry ours.  He equates the failure to do this as being “ashamed” of him, and warns us that on the day is second coming he will look at us, the trembling servant who buried his master’s talent, and express his shame of us.  In contrast, those who truly follow the Gospel will find themselves in “his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”  Prayer is an essential part of our giving ourselves to Christ as he wants us to.  The more we pray, and the more fervently we pray, the more we are able to conform ourselves to his holy will for us.

“Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.”  The Lord adds these words to comfort those to whom he has spoken these hard words.  The Fathers understand “tasting” death as experiencing its bitterness, that is, the complete and final separation of the sinner from his fellows and from the pleasures they enjoyed, but also the separation of the sinner from the God who sent his Son to die for him and who offered him multiple chances to repent.  The just do not “taste” death but know it as the palace doorway into heaven.

Thursday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 20, 2025

Mark 8, 27–35

Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him. He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it.”

“Who do people say that I am?”  After nearly three years of preaching and performing miracles, steadily revealing himself to the world, the Lord Jesus asks the Apostles to tell him the opinion of the crowds as to who he really was.  The setting for this question was the region around Caesarea Philippi, in what is now the Golan Heights, a new town built by Herod.  Not many Jews lived there.  Probably Jesus and his Apostles had little company on the road as they returned to Galilee.  “Who do people say that I am?”  We note the boldness of the question.  Who among us would ask such a thing?  But we should ask, Why does the Lord ask this?  What does it matter to him what the people say?  

The Lord Jesus shows himself as the most clever of teachers here.  He could have begun his lesson for the Apostles simply by asking them who they thought he was, but he asks them first who do the others, the non-Apostles who do not have the benefit of his constant presence and the private instructions he gives, think he is.  We can hear the hesitation in their answers to his question.  Why was he asking this?  Where would this lesson lead them?  After eliciting their responses to his first question, the Lord poses a second: “But who do you say that I am?”  By asking two questions like this, he is telling them that they should have a different answer based on their own experience than the people who only heard him speak a few times and perhaps from a distance saw him perform a few miracles.  In other words, he is leading them to a surer truth.  Jesus wants the Apostles to verbalize what they know: both what they have gathered from hearing the crowds speak about him, and what conclusion they have reached for themselves.  He also wants to emphasize to the Apostles that he expects more of them than of the crowds, and that, in due time, they are to teach the crowds what they themselves have learned about him, to make their knowledge perfect.  Besides this, the Lord, questioning the Apostles after they have known him well over nearly three years, wants them to see how far they have come from the days when they, as the crowd, reckoned him as merely Elijah, or “one of the prophets.”  

“You are the Christ!”  Peter’s answer practically leaps out of him.  It is not merely an impulsive answer, but a well-considered one.  For years Peter has looked and listened and talked with the other Apostles.  He has spent long nights awake trying to make sense of his Master and his Master’s unearthly ways.  Who is this?  Who could this possibly be?  St. Luke’s source for Peter’s response gave it incompletely.  As we read in Matthew 16, 16, Peter said: “You are Christ, the Son of the living God.”  The sense is the same.  “Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.”  Luke does not relate how the Lord at this time changes the name of Simon, son of John, to “Peter”, and that he, the Lord, will build his Church upon him.  Mark does not relate this either; only Matthew tells of it.  It is a curious omission.  Still, we see many deeds and sayings in one Gospel not found in the others.  Only Luke, for instance, gives us the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  It is useful for us to recall St. Ambrose’s teaching that there is one Gospel in four parts, and together they tell us all we need to know.

The Lord’s harsh rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan”, shows us the vehemence with which the Lord wanted to suffer and die for us.  He would not let anything or anyone get in his way.  We remember how he said, “And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” (Luke 12, 50).   

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it.”  This is one of the hard sayings that those who would follow the Lord struggled with, and would struggle with today if they paid attention to what he was demanding.  As desperately as the Lord wanted to die for us, so desperately we must be willing to give up our lives for him.  He must become our everything.

Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 19, 2025

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.