Monday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time, January 22, 2024

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.”

St. Mark reports little of the scribes and Pharisees in comparison with the other Gospels.  Matthew links them with an almost continuous persecution of him by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.  St. Luke speaks of them to show that they are not the good Jews they claimed to be, and so explaining their opposition to Jesus.  St. John presents a more complex reaction of the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus, with some favorable to him.  St. Mark shows them as part of a group of enemies, along with the people at Nazareth and the demons.  When Mark does bring them up, he is showing Jesus as making or explaining a point about Jewish Law and practices, matters which Mark’s Gentile Christian audience would have found baffling in their Jewish neighbors.

In the present Gospel Reading, Jesus responds to accusations by the scribes and Pharisees that “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.”  (The first accusation is more literally translated as the very direct, “Beelzebul has him”).  Now, by this time the Gentile Christians understood that Beelzebul was the prince of demons and that the demons were wicked spirits who could enter and have power over a human being, but this was very much a Jewish concept and was mostly foreign to their own culture in Rome.  The Greek word from which “demon” is taken, daimonion, did not mean “a wicked spirit”.  It meant a sort of guardian spirit, or a force of nature.  These played almost no part in mythology and were not worshipped as gods but were mentioned by various poets, including Homer.  Early Greek-speaking Christians adopted the word for translating “evil spirits” or “devils”, which had no equivalent in Greek.  

“How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”  Jesus uses “Satan” in place of the Canaanite name “Beelzebul”.  He takes the accusation and shows that it is ridiculous on its face.  The implication of the Pharisees in their accusation was that Satan was using Jesus to attack the Jewish religion and was attempting to show that Jesus had divine validation by forcing out his own demons, as though to mimic a successful exorcism.  We note that Jesus does not address the accusation of his being possessed as it is beneath contempt.

“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.”  This teaching can be understood in two ways.  First, Jesus could be speaking of a case of demonic possession, that a demon “ties up” a human, that is, “binds” him so that the demon can act within him and attempt to destroy him.  If the man is too strong through his faith for the demon, the demon will have no success with him and go on to someone else.  A weaker person might actually invite the demon in hoping to gain something but then becomes his captive.  Second, Jesus could be staying that the devil is a “strong man” but that someone stronger can enter his house and bind him and free those whom he has held captive and treated as his “property”: “And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him” (Revelation 20, 2).

“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.”  Some early Christians misinterpreted this verse to mean that the Holy Spirit took the place of the human soul in Jesus Christ.  But if this were so, the Son of God did not assume a human nature, he would be a divine Person who had taken over the body of a human as though it were a puppet or a tool.  Jesus Christ is a divine Person, the Son of God, who assumed a full human nature and joined himself to a human body and soul in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  In the verse, Jesus states that anyone who “blasphemes against the Holy Spirit” will never be forgiven, though all other sins can be, with proper repentance and contrition.  St. Mark links to this verse his statement that, “For they had said, He has an unclean spirit.”  It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to our minds and hearts that Jesus is Lord, the Son of God.  Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the rejection of this revelation as though to deny that God could save us from our sins, or to deny his love, or to even deny his existence.  Jesus calls this sin unforgivable because those who reject Jesus whom God has sent cannot be saved.  Now, God never ceases to draw to himself even those who have rejected and mocked him and so we see some who call themselves atheists convert, but the Lord is speaking of those who maintain their hardness of heart at the time of their deaths.  

The Lord has rescued us from the powers of darkness so let us live in the clear light of faith, rejoicing in his mercy.

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 21, 2024

Mark 1, 14–20

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”  As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.

St. Mark, eager to tell of the Lord’s miracles and signs of power, summarizes the events that passed in the life of Jesus from the time of his Baptism in the Jordan to the beginning of his preaching to a couple of verses: “And immediately the Spirit drove him out into the desert. And he was in the desert forty days and forty nights, and was tempted by Satan. And he was with beasts: and the angels ministered to him” (Mark 1, 12-13).  And with that, the words of today’s Gospel Reading immediately follow.  If we want to know more of what happened at that time we must turn to the opening pages of the Gospel according to St. John.  In John’s Gospel we learn that the Lord conducted a ministry like John the Baptist’s for some time: “After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea: and there he abode with them and baptized” ( John 3, 22).  And so he labored until John was arrested by Herod, at which point Jesus returned to Galilee to begin his teaching and miracles of healing.

“Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God.”  The English word “gospel” translates the Greek word euaggelion, Latinized as evangelium.  The Greek and the Latin words were technical terms for the announcement of good news about a king or emperor, or of a military victory.  Knowing this, we can read, “Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the news of the victory of God.”  The victory is that of God’s mercy overcoming man’s sin.  Jesus declares that “this is the time of fulfillment” (literally from the Greek: “the time has been completed”).  That is, this is the high point of human history, the coming amongst us of the Son of God.  All that had happened before led up to this time, just as all that has passed since his Ascension into heaven is leading up to his second coming — for judgment.   “The kingdom of God is at hand.”  Rather, the kingdom of God has drawn near (the literal meaning of the verb translated here incorrectly as “is at hand”).  “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” Repent, and believe in the news of God’s victory.  Sin hinders faith but it does not prohibit it altogether.  But to fully enjoy the fruits of God’s victory we must turn from sin and lead lives of virtue in imitation of the One who heralds this good news.  And not only heralds it, but brings it about.

“As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen.”  While the Lord carried out the ministry of baptizing, “though Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples”, as John 4, 2 tells us, Simon and his brother Andrew probably helped him, and likely James and John as well.  We know that these were all followers of John the Baptist and came to know Jesus as the Messiah through him.  And when Jesus returned to Galilee, going to Capernaum and not Nazareth, these future Apostles went with him and once more took up their occupation as fishermen.  It is at this time that he calls them in a definitive way to follow him.  He calls them in order to share his ministry of announcing to the world the victory of God over sin and death, which he will accomplish.  We see in their eagerness to join him how greatly they desired to receive this task for his sake.

We should pray with zeal for the conversion of our fellow men and women that they may know of God’s victory and how they may share in its fruits of eternal life.

 Saturday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 20, 2024

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.”

This little Gospel Reading tells us a great truth about the Lord Jesus.

St. Mark sets this account right after he tells of how Jesus summoned his disciples and just before he reports on the accusations of the scribes that he himself was possessed and that his power came from the demons.  Thus, the strong reaction of his family and the accusations of his enemies come at a time when his preaching and miracles have made him a formidable figure in the Jewish world who has established a structure to carry on his work — perhaps to some, a staff to organize and lead his armies.  

“Jesus came with his disciples into the house.”  When Mark wants to show events following other events, he uses a Greek word that roughly translates as “immediately after that”, but he does not do this here so we can think that the event of which he is to tell happened some time after the summoning of the Apostles.  Likewise, the Greek definite article does not appear before the word for “house”.  It is simply “a house”, and probably not Peter’s in Capernaum.  

“Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat.”  Mark uses a double negative in this sentence.  In Greek and in many other ancient languages such as Hebrew this meant an emphatic negative: “making it absolutely impossible for them even to eat.”  The people filled the streets outside the house, the house’s courtyard, and seemed to swarm even within the house.  They clamored for his words and begged for his healing.  This would have taken place at the time of the midday meal.

“When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him.”  That is, they had been hearing reports of his activities and of the response of the crowds.  They wanted to lay hold of him because they thought that he was “out of his mind”, that he had lost his wits.  It is not clear what his relatives actually heard to make them think this.  Perhaps they had heard that the Pharisees hated him, or perhaps they were alarmed at his almost constant movements, going from town to town and taking hardly any time to eat or sleep.  It could also be jealousy, which even Pontus Pilate knew motivated the Jewish leaders to turn Jesus over to him (cf. Matthew 27, 18).

The reality is that Jesus Christ is the sanest men who ever lived.  He is the very apex of sanity and rationality.  At the same time, his actions seem to belie this: for no visible reason he abandons a stable life in a small town and hurtles himself through the length of Galilee and Judea, apparently cultivating the hostility of the authorities, mixing with the most unsavory characters, sleeping out in the open when he is not spending the night on a mountain in prayer, eating irregularly, and preaching when he has had no training in the Law.  What accounts for this is his passion for us.  The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is out of his mind in love with you and me.  Mostly we hide from this fact, but it remains true.  He would do anything to save us, to prove his love for us, to get us to love his Father.  He expresses this himself: “I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled? And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” (Luke 12, 49-50).  This raging fire is his love, for “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12, 29).  This “baptism” is his suffering and Death for us: he can hardly keep himself calm  until he undertakes it.  We can think of it this way: no one has ever wanted to be killed as desperately as our Lord did.  

His relatives were right: he was out of his mind.  And he still loves us today with that inconceivable love.  

 Friday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 19, 2024

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 choosing of the Twelve Apostles marks a new phase in the Lord’s Public Life, for now he has a movement.  Through the Apostles he establishes the foundation of the structure that he will call his Church, to be led by the Apostle Peter.  His various disciples will continue to follow him through Galilee and Judea seasonally or periodically as they are able according to their responsibilities at home, but the Apostles will stay with him always.  After the Lord’s Ascension into heaven they will continue to teach these disciples who will then be able to go out and preach the Gospel themselves.

“Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him.”  We notice that Jesus “summons” the men whom he had chosen.  The picture Mark gives is of Jesus along on a mountain (actually, the equivalent of a foothill in the western U.S.) and calling out the names of the men he has chosen, calling them up to him.  The Greek text tells us that they “departed” to him, that is, they left behind their previous lives in order to take up entirely new lives.  They go willingly, and make their way up the rugged hill.  

“He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles.”  Particular numbers had much significance to the ancient peoples.  The number “7” for the Jews meant the number of days in which God created the world plus the Sabbath.  They also understood the number “12” as the number of the sons of Jacob and the number of the tribes of Israel.  The Fathers concluded that this number signified the Ten Commandments plus to the Great Commandments of the Lord, to love God with all one’s being, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.  For the Fathers, this number, applied to the Apostles, signified the whole Law of the Church and that the Church taught the whole Law given by God to man.  The original Gentile Christian readers of the Gospel of Mark would have thought of the twelve tribes, but also of the twelve Greek gods who were said to dwell on Mount Olympus: the number signified power.  And indeed, Jesus gave the Apostles power: “That they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.”  We see the Apostles attempting to exorcise (cf. Matthew 17, 15) though not always with success due to lack of experience.

These Apostles have three purposes, then: to be with Jesus, to go forth and preach at his command, and to cast out demons.  The were to abide with him to learn his teachings and to conform themselves to his life; they were to preach the Gospel he taught them at his direction; they were to cast out the demons who were sorely besetting the human race.  They were to become extensions of the Lord.  The Holy Church has continued in these works throughout the centuries: being with Jesus through prayer, worship, and the study of his words; through preaching the Gospel to all nations through trained missionaries as well as through his faithful followers in the world; and casting out demons through the ministry of exorcism and through the improvement to society which devout Catholics bring.

St. Paul’s Epistles concern themselves very much with teaching and reassuring his converts that they are not lonely individuals out in the wilds of this world but are very intimately connected with one another in the universal Church by grace.  As members of the Church founded by the Lord Jesus upon the Apostles we are also certain that we receive his teachings as to what to do and believe in order to be saved.  And, belonging to the Holy Church we receive the Sacraments instituted by the Lord, especially himself in the Holy Eucharist, so that we might have life.

 Thursday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 18, 2024

Mark 3, 7-12

Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea. Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” He warned them sternly not to make him known.

“Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples.”  Following the Lord’s declarations and proofs that he, the Son of Man, is divine, and the origins of the unremitting and most bitter enmity of the Pharisees, St. Mark gives us a general summary of the Lord’s activities.  He “withdrew” or departed for the shore of the Sea of Galilee outside of the town of Capernaum.  No hint shows itself that he retreated from the town.  Rather, he looks to accommodate the increasing crowds who come to hear him and to be healed by him.  He goes “with his disciples”.  The Evangelists tend to use “disciple” and “apostle” interchangeably but they really do have two distinct meanings.  A “disciple” is a student.  While Jesus has called certain men to follow him, others follow of their own accord, but are not bound to him in any way.  St. Luke will describe how Jesus sends seventy-two disciples on a mission (cf. Luke 10, 1) but these are never mentioned again.  And “apostle” is “one who is sent”, as in “Go, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28, 19).  The Apostles are disciples who have graduated and become assistants bearing the authority of the Lord.

“A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea.”  These were Jews from the land of Israel.  “A large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.”  Idumea, then a Roman province, had existed for hundreds of years as the independent Kingdom of Edom.  The people from “beyond the Jordan” were descended from the ancient Ammonites.  Tyre and Sidon had led the proud land of Phoenicia with its mighty fleets and flourishing culture.  These were all Gentile places.  News of the works of Jesus Christ has gone far afield and these people were drawn to him as well.  Interestingly, Mark speaks of people coming from Galilee and Judea, but then lists Jerusalem with the Gentile cities and lands.  Perhaps, with St. Matthew, he saw Jerusalem as the primary source of persecution against Jesus and the early Church.

“He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him.”  Peter and Andrew may have brought their boat from Capernaum.  Mark shows how the Lord does not tell the crowd to back away or not to touch him, but that he has a plan so that he can preach to the people even if they crowd him into the sea.  “He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him.”  This tells us something of the time involved.  His preaching on the sea shore must have gone on for several weeks, with more people coming every day.  

“Whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him.”  The Greek word translated here as “unclean” has the sense of “foul”, “vile”, and “defiled”.  They “saw” Jesus.  The Greek word here is distinct from the word that means “to see” in the sense of perceiving and understanding.  The unclean spirits could look at him and recognize him from the reports of their fellow demons but they did not know who he was.  They call him “Son of God” in the generic sense, a term for any righteous man.  The Lord, however, would accept no testimony whatsoever from these wicked spirits and so “he warned them sternly not to make him known.”  We notice here that the Lord does not take away their ability to speak or force them to be silent.  He does not interfere with their free will.  He will act in the same way with Judas at the Last Supper.  Jesus will warn him a number of times, but allows him to do as he has planned.

How precious the gift of free will is!  Its possession allows us to love and to seek true happiness.  Without it we would be automatons, little better than machines.  With it, and through its proper use, we become the heirs of heaven through the redemption wrought by Jesus the Lord.

 Wednesday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 17, 2024

Mark 3, 1-6

Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.

One of the most useful tools found in modern translations of the Sacred Scriptures is that of the division of its books into chapters and verses.  Attempts were made in the late classical era and early Middle Ages to do this with individual books, and then, later, with all the books together when the Bible began to be copied into codices, the forerunner of the modern book.  Some systems divided a single book such as a Gospel into a hundred chapters while others divided the Book of Revelstion into seven books.  The system that caught on was devised by Stephen Langton (d. 1228), Archbishop of Canterbury, in the early 1200’s.  By his time universities were being established in the larger cities of Europe and a pressing need for this division developed for classes featuring lectures on the biblical books.  In 1551 the French printer and publisher Robert Estienne printed an edition of the Vulgate Bible, including in it the standard chapter divisions of Stephen Langton and adding verse divisions of his own.  These divisions became universally accepted.  As useful as these are, the modern reader needs to keep in mind that these divisions are not the work of the original  authors and ought to be ignored when reading long portions of the biblical text.  The chapter and verse divisions sometimes make it seem that one recorded event or speech has ended and something new begun, leading to confusion and misinterpretation.

For instance, the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading: “Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.”. Hearing this at Holy Mass, and not knowing what went before this text in the Gospel, we would not know where the synagogue was located and who “they” were who watched Jesus “closely”.  Reading the whole of chapter two and then reading this beginning of chapter three of the Gospel according to St. Mark we know that the synagogue was almost certainly that of Capernaum (especially since the text actually says Jesus entered the synagogue “again”, a word missing from the lectionary reading). We also know that “they” are the Pharisees who had accused the Apostles to Jesus of a very serious sin against the law of the Sabbath.  That is, ignoring the chapter headings here we can better see that the Pharisees have launched a concerted effort to discredit Jesus going back at least to his call of the tax collector Levi.  They do this, Mark emphasizes for us, in the face of the Lord’s numerous miracles that prove his divinity.

“There was a man there who had a withered hand.”  If this was the synagogue at Capernaum, then it was the same one in which the Lord had cast out an evil spirit from a man weeks or months earlier (cf. Mark 1, 23-26).  Since the Lord did not see the man at that time, that he might heal him, this man would be a visitor from another town either passing through or visiting relatives.  He might also have heard of the wonderful works the Lord Jesus had performed and he wanted to be healed too.  “So that they might accuse him.”  That is, the synagogue services took place on the Sabbath so they wanted to catch Jesus performing some work in order to discredit him for doing it at that time.  We should note that the Pharisees take for granted that it is by his own power that Jesus is able to heal: he is not merely the conduit of God’s power.  At least implicitly, they knew who he was.

“Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”  The Pharisees would answer that neither good nor evil should be done on the Sabbath: no work of any kind should be done.  They even numbered the steps they took.  But God had established the Sabbath for doing good: for worshipping him and helping others, activities not easily done during the workday.  Jesus also speaks ironically, contrasting the good he is about to do with the evil the Pharisees intend to do: “The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.”

“Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart.”  Jesus is not angry and grieved because of their hatred of him but because they are acting against their own interests.  The Lord Jesus loves these men.  He came down from heaven to suffer for them too.  But they are fighting against their own salvation.  Rather than watch him, withholding judgment until they could gather all the facts, they take his good works for others as personal attacks against themselves.  And they would see his miracles, be unable to deny them, and still persecute him.  It was as though they were trying to get themselves damned to hell.  This is what angered and grieved Jesus.  Mark puts the object of the Lord’s anger very concisely: “their hardness of heart”.

“He stretched it out and his hand was restored.”  Note here that to all appearances, Jesus does nothing more than give a command.  When the man stretches out his hand it is healed as though he had healed it himself by that action.  But the Pharisees have made up their minds to kill Jesus.  The casual reader might wonder that if Jesus can perform such miracles, surely he could make himself safe from the Pharisees: either power resides in him or it comes from God.  Either way, they could never succeed.  They must have known this and yet their hatred exceeded all limits and drove them to act against reason.  We see this fervent determination to do evil in people all the time.  They would not be happy in heaven.

 Tuesday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 16, 2024

Mark 2, 23-28

As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the Sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. At this the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Jesus declared, as it is written in Matthew 5, 17: “Do not think that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”  That is, the Law needed to be completed by the Lord Jesus.  It is as though the Lord were finishing the sentences the Law had begun.  The Law in the time before grace demanded only what people were capable of doing without grace.  Thus, “Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives” (Matthew 19, 8), but with the coming of grace, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matthew 19, 6).  

In the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, the Lord Jesus completes the law of the Sabbath: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  Originally, God “rested” on the seventh day of the week and so he commanded his people to rest and to be given rest on the seventh day.  God gave the Sabbath as a gift to his people so that they might find refreshment from their labors.  Many people preferred to work on this day however and so the Mosaic Law was made strict: “Six days you shall do work; the seventh day shall be holy unto you, the Sabbath and the rest of the Lord: he that shall do any work on it, shall be put to death” (Exodus 35, 2).  Thus, for those who lived in the time before grace.  But with his coming into the world, bringing grace, the Son of God relaxes the restrictions of the Sabbath: the man-made ones of the Pharisees, and of the Mosaic Law, such as, “You shall kindle no fire in any of your habitations on the Sabbath day” (Exodus 35, 3).  Grace enables us now to see and enjoy the Sabbaths of this world as a sign of the eternal Sabbath made possible for us by the labors of Jesus Christ.

“The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”  This is the first time in St. Mark’s Gospel that Jesus refers to himself as “the Son of Man”, the term used in the Book of the Prophet Daniel and the apocryphal work scholars call 1 Enoch for the One whom God will send to the earth at the end of the age.  He is described as standing before Almighty God and as possessing great power.  Jesus teaches that even the laws regarding the Sabbath are within the purview of the Son of Man, whom he identifies as himself.  We might have noticed that Jesus never comes out and says, in so many words, “I am the Son of Man.”  Rather, he speaks of himself as though it were evident to all, through his works, that he was and, as time goes on, he teaches more and more of what the title means and encompasses.  

One further note: “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?”  We should consider the amazement of the Pharisees at the Lord’s readiness with a perfect response from the Sacred Scriptures.  They thought of him as an ignorant, unlettered working man from the nondescript Galilean town of Nazareth, and here he was explaining the Scriptures to them!  And it was as though he had this passage in his pocket, ready at hand.  He might as well have been a dog teaching mathematics in their own language, for the shock he gave them.