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CHRIST THE KING

Jn 18:33-37

Dear Friends, Today’s readings on this last Sunday of the Church Year have a clear and powerful message. Besides the celebration of the Jesus beginning the reign of God, we also celebrate the invitation into divine life that Jesus offers so generously.

In the Gospel of John, the story of Jesus and Pilate is one of the most important parts of the Passion narrative. It involves seven different scenes.

One dimension of the story is that Jesus is defined as king in contrast to the earthly leaders. Their position is rooted in status, exclusiveness, rings and robes, expressions of wealth and power, titles and the ability to manipulate everything and everybody to their own advantage. In contrast, Jesus’ kingship is designated by the call to testify to the truth, to serve, to be free in poverty and lack of recognition, to let love prevail in all decisions. In his kingship, everything comes from God and leads to God.

Jesus offers the clearest expression of this kingship before the soldiers at the time of the scourging and mockery. Jesus had said clearly, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” (Jn 18:36) In his Passion and Death Jesus is pulling together the total message of his ministry and life. He is inviting us to receive all his teachings through the lens of his kingship expressed by the crowning with thorns before the soldiers and the solitary abandonment and death on the cross.

Jesus was testifying to a reign of God that has already begun. All of his life, teachings and actions are concrete expressions of what God’s reign truly looks like in sinful world in need of redemption. His many miracles and exorcisms, his merciful acceptance of sinners and tax collectors, his humble service and message of hope, all express the coming reign of God in our broken sinful world. His life was a witness to God’s power to transform all reality into the reign of love and justice, peace and healing. Jesus’ message was the invitation to this new life. The seemingly hopeless end on the cross was, in reality, the opening to the true the beginning.

This new beginning, this passage out of the darkness of sin and death, is what we are celebrating in our liturgy of Christ the King. These past few weeks we have been pondering the end times. Next week we begin the great season of Advent which is the other side of the end times in the coming of the Lord.

Today’s feast is a bridge for this powerful reflection on the end times and the coming of the Lord. Jesus, as King of the Universe, guides us in confidence and hope to the new day that is described in the Preface of today’s feast:

“By offering himself on the altar of the Cross as a spotless sacrifice to bring peace he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption and, making all created things subject to his rule, he might present to the immensity of your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

Thirty Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mk 13:24-32

Dear Friends, The apocalyptic language that Mark uses in today’s gospel passage lends itself to many interpretations. It is deeply rooted in the many visionary messages of the Old Testament. This language points to Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God. We know this kingdom is a future and transcendent event. It is God’s will and plan to overcome the consequences of sin at the beginning and all through human history. This divine event is beyond our grasp. So, today’s gospel uses much imaginative language to attempt to describe the kingdom’s final breakthrough into our reality and the end of the world.

As we come to the conclusion of each Church year, we have a message about these fateful events of the end times. It is always dramatically different than the sensationalist message we hear every several months from one crazy group or another. The Gospel message is clear. We do not know and we will not know. Our task is clear: keep vigil. All other speculation and worry is useless. Today’s narrative is best understood as an invitation to vigilance and preparedness in how we live and wait for the coming of the Son of Man.

However, beyond vigilance, there are other messages for us in today’s readings. One is about suffering and injustice. Life’s difficulties are so often arbitrary and rooted in injustice and basic human ugliness.Like Mark’s audience in the earliest days of Christianity, we find suffering so hard to comprehend, especially when it is connected to our faithful commitment to the gospel

Today Mark is proclaiming with power and wisdom. God will have the last word in this sinful world. It will be a word issuing the victory of justice, compassion, reconciliation forgiveness and love. Our hope will be answered and it will wipe out all our worries. Faith and fortitude will give way to the final devastation of fear. We are being challenged to let our trust in God help us to see the world through the prism of anticipation that opens to our destiny in the Crucified and Risen Savior.

However, there is another dimension to today’s Gospel message that fits very well with our human experience. It refers to a common occurrence we all have. There are sudden and dramatic changes in our life that come from sickness, death, failure of personal relations, economic disaster or in our days, the consequences of climate change. When these things happen, it seems as if our world has come an end. We have to face up to a new reality that is frightening and strange. Often, hope seems totally out of reach.

One of the most powerful events of this kind in my experience was a deeply traumatic event of my sister, Mary. She found herself the mother of six children over the span of eight plus years. One morning her husband woke up with severe pain in his stomach. Several weeks later she was a young widow as the ravaging cancer took her husband away. With his death also gone was her world that centered on his love and support.

Mary was totally overwhelmed. For several weeks she could hardly get out of bed. Finally, one day she faced up to the new world. As a woman of deep faith, she took on the task of raising her children. She did a totally fantastic job overcoming all kinds of obstacles including having six teenagers at the same time. Any mother would rejoice to have the young adults that came from that family.

This is a clear example of what the gospel tells us what we need to do when our world seems to be shattered. We need to live life with a loving responsibility and trust in God. This is something that is going to happen to all of us more than a few times in our lifetime.

Today’s gospel says that when you see all these things happening “then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds.” (Mk 13:26) That means when our personal world falls apart, and the bottom drops out of our lives, we will be able to see past the ugliness and to see through the pain to the ultimate reality of things. Despite appearances, God is still in charge, still cares, still has the power to make things right and still intends to do just that -in God’s good time!

Thirty Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 12:38-44

Dear Friends, Today’s gospel places the self-promotion of the Scribes and the heroic generosity of the poor widow in disparity to each other. In the person of the widow, we are offered an example of true piety and faithfulness. On the other hand, we witness the pompous self-righteousness of the Scribes. The poor widow shines out in contrast to the self-grandiosity and holier-than-thou opportunists. Surely, Jesus‘ lesson on true integrity in religious practice is intended to teach the disciples and us today. Religious activity is never without those seeking their own fame and profit in religious matters large and small.

Like all of Jesus’ teachings, the story of the widow’s mite has many levels. At the time of Jesus, the role of the widow was particularly painful and harsh. First of all, she had no rights. The inheritance of the husband in most cases would go to his family. The widow was, in fact, kept from returning to her family if anything was owed on her dowry. There were some instances where the widow was sold into slavery to make payment on the debt of the dowry.

So, for Jesus to highlight the widow was a very specific and thoughtful choice. The contrast to the rich donors and Scribes was extreme.

There is a second point about the widow of the Gospel story and the widow of the first reading feeding Elijah in the Book of Kings. It was not a question of the two desperate women guarding their resources. They were simply dealing with empty pockets or purses. This was closer to the norm in their ordinary lifestyle.

The example of both widows is a clear and powerful example of trust in God. This is the same trust that Jesus has been urging upon his disciples for several chapters now since they acknowledged him as the Messiah. (Mk 8:27) He said that he indeed was he Messiah but his call to fulfillment meant a journey of trust and abandonment on the road to Jerusalem that would end in the Passion, Death and Resurrection. The disciples did not get it but the blind beggar did. (Mk 10:52) The rich man did not get it (Mk 10:22) but the poor widow did.

One level of today’s story contrasting the donation of the rich donors and the poor widow is a call by Jesus to be real, to see with eyes of faith that obliterate the delusion of wealth and possessions that make us think that we are in control. The widow is us. The big difference is that she sees with clarity and deep faith what it means to be a creature. We are all totally and absolutely dependent on God. Each day and each moment is a free gift. The escalating destructive power of the hurricanes and the other consequences of our devastation of the environment make this clearer by the day. The widow understood her dependence. She accepted the total loving control of a gracious God. The rich donors were happy to share a token of their perceived power and control with God. But in reality, they were poor and weak and the widow was powerful and free in her acceptance of her total reliance on God! God has a different way of seeing things. Each Sunday Jesus is inviting us to join him on this path to understand and embrace the true wisdom that will set us free like the poor widow.

Thirty First Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mk 12:28-34 Dear Friends, In his response the scribe’s question, Jesus begins with the phrase, “Hear O Israel! (Mk 12:29) These words hold profound significance in understanding Jesus’ statement on love of God and love of neighbor. First of all, he places his response in the context of Israel’s call in which God has placed everything the initiative of divine love. God loves us first. The second element is the invitation to listen. Listening is the surest way into the mystery of God’s love.

The first part of Jesus’ response was as familiar to the average Jew at the time as the sign of the cross is for today’s Catholic. Jesus, however, adds to that familiarity the call to love your neighbor. Jesus is beckoning us into a community of love. The love which is initiated with God must be returned not only to God but that love needs to to include our neighbor. In this way, we are brought into a community of love.

This brings me to my favorite description of the Bible. It states that the Bible’s message is simple: God is love and Jesus teaches us what love is. In listening to find love and wisdom, our quest draws us to Jesus.

Jesus teaches us who God is and how God loves. In our encounter with Jesus, we experience the compassion and mercy of God. In Jesus, we learn that there are no limit to God’s love, no fences or labels of exclusion. In Jesus, we listen to God and hear the cry of the poor and marginated, all the forgotten who are isolated in ways only the broken human heart can develop to isolate and abandon. In Jesus on the cross, God’s word lays before us a challenge to put everything and everyone in second place so we “love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength… you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mk 12:30-31)

All four of the Gospels are the richest symphony of God’s love song that is Jesus. In the Gospels, we hear the call to respond to our daily reality with a heart that is oopen and healed. We need to be open to life because if we are in touch with Jesus, we will be lured outside the limiting and constricting boundaries of our selfishness. The needs of our neighbor will be set before us in a new clarity and urgency.

This love of God and love of neighbor is what our hearts were made for. However, this is not always what our hearts want. If we are listening to Jesus, we cannot avoid hearing the difficult message. Love means to lose our life to save it. Love means to seek to be the servant not the ruler. Love means to wash the feet of all. Love means to walk with Jesus to Jerusalem. Love means we win by losing.

Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 10: 46-52

Dear Friends,
For two and half chapters (Mk 8:22-10:52), Mark has Jesus challenging the disciples to realize his singular goal is to follow the Father’s will. In this commitment to go to Jerusalem there are clear consequences. He declared these consequences: rejection, suffering, death and the ultimate victory in the resurrection,

The Bartimaeus story concluding this section from Mark seems like a simple miracle story. It is much more than that. It is the story of what is a true disciple. It is a dialogue about faith.

After three predictions of the death on the Cross and the Resurrection, the disciples remain steeped in their confusion, blindness and growing fear.

In the story of Baritmaeus, Mark gives us the characteristics of a true and faithful disciple.

First of all, there is a hunger in the heart that leads one to look to Jesus. Bartimaeus would not let the crowd intimidate him as he continued to cry out until he received the call from Jesus. This rejection of the crowd’s effort to bully him, is simply an expression of Bartimaeus’ faith in Jesus.

Secondly, while Jesus had the same question for him that he had for James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk 10: 51), the beggar is asking for more than money. Jesus understands. He gives Bartimaeus not only physical sight but the faith to embrace the journey with Jesus as a true disciple. Unlike the shameless ambition of the two brothers, the blind beggar seeks the gift of light from Jesus. This gift is a symbol of wisdom and truth that Jesus has been trying to teach the disciples. Mark’s description of Jesus’ journey is primarily about the question of who Jesus is and what must one do to join him on the road to Jerusalem. Bartimaeus accepts this truth.

Thirdly, when Jesus called, Bartimaeus cast away his cloak. This seemingly simple gesture is a very powerful and profound. The cloak was his only possession. He used it to lay out in front to beg for alms which were his only means of life’s necessities. Likewise, it was his only protection from the cold nights. Unlike the rich man who went away sad at Jesus’ plea to let go of his possessions, Bartimaeus, “threw aside his cloak, sprang up and came to Jesus.” (Mk 10:50)

The first part of blind beggar’s response to Jesus’ call is in stark contrast to the confusion and fear of the disciples. “Immediately, he received his sight and followed him on the way.” (Mk 10:52)

In this section of Mark, focusing on the three passages foretelling the Death and Resurrection, Jesus is teaching us who he is and what it means that he is a Suffering Servant Messiah. This is the deepest revelation of God’s love for us.

The disciples will only share the integrity and clarity of Bartimaeus after the Resurrection. The angel will say to the women at the tomb. “go tell the disciples and Peter ‘He is going before you to Galilee, there you will see him.”” (Mk 16:7)

We can look to Bartimaeus and see what we have to do to be a disciple, one who walks with Jesus. The healing of the physical eyes leads to the opening of the eyes of the heart. Walking with Jesus is always a journey into the depth of the heart and beyond the superficial. The faith journey is always partial and incomplete at the beginning. Bartimaeus was making the way of Jesus his own. Full clarity for the eyes of the heart will demand much more. What counts for Bartimaeus and for us is to begin the journey in trusting faith.

First, we need to recognize the hunger in our heart. We are all blind in many different ways. We all need to go to Jesus to ask for the light that we may see with the determination of Bartimaeus.

Secondly, we need take Jesus on his terms and not impose our ambitions on Jesus as James and John did.

Thirdly, we need to recognize that any true following of Jesus will have a price to pay. We all have many things that are obstacles to following Jesus. Our “cloak” will be found in growing awareness of our attachments and addictions. They come in many different forms for all of us. These obstacles to true discipleship need to be cast away to follow Jesus. We have no choice other than to put our trust in Jesus. Walking with him on the road to Jerusalem is the only option for a true Christian life.

Twenty Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mk 10:35-45

Dear Friends,Today’s passage from Mark is preceded by the most detailed foretelling of the passion and death. In fact, in Mark’s story, Good Friday was only six days later.

This is Mark’s third episode of Jesus with the disciples on the road to Jerusalem. Each time Jesus announces his Passion and Death, followed by an incident portraying the disciples in a dreadful state of ignorance. This leads to Jesus sharing a truly enlightening element of his gospel message, a new definition of greatens in service.

We are the target population of this literary genius of Mark. By the time Mark was writing, the disciples had not only grasped Jesus’ message but they had lived and died for it in a heroic way.

The mentality expressed by John and James in today’s Gospel passage is difficult to grasp. It is hard-headed, ambitious and self-serving in a manner totally contrary to Jesus’ teachings. The brothers’ mentality, however, was also shared by the other ten.

Considering all the time and investment of Jesus in the disciples, Jesus’ patience with James and John is truly beyond spectacular. He gifts us with same amazing patience. However, there is a time limit on it. We need more than faith and trust in a God who will take care of us and help with our plans for happiness. We need to embrace the gospel message as a growing element in our life.

Mark has a stark challenge for us. We need not only accept Jesus in his passion and death, we need to share in that saving suffering. In the first prediction of the Pasion and Death, Jesus tells us we have to be open to all of life in a way that surely will involve taking up our cross at all times. The second prediction is a call to share with Jesus’ saving death in accepting all of our brothers and sisters with an ever-expanding horizon of inclusion. There is no end to our call to break the barriers of exclusiveness. Finally, in today’s passage, we are called to a life of service, especially in our leadership. This threefold program is the heart of the gospel where the last are first, the least of all are equally important and true power is service to all. This is genuinely sharing in the upside-down world Jesus revealed in his life, passion, death and resurrection. In this world, greatness means being the least of all. Being the leader, the one with power, finds true and authentic meaning only in service.

It is clear that these three foretellings of the Passion were directed to counter the false ambitions of both the disciples and all followers of Christ including us today. Jesus says in (Mk9:45) “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In these words, Jesus lays out the clear and profound meaning of his upcoming death. It is the ultimate expression of leadership that is service. It is the great redemptive act of love in the ransom of all sinful humanity releasing them from the bondage of sin and death.

No doubt, we are all a long way from the depth of this selflessness. Nevertheless, the utter goodness of Jesus constantly is calling us out our world of convenience, comfort and consumption to a richer and more lifegiving world of sacrifice and service. Just like the disciples, we start out in darkness and ignorance. However, this pilgrimage to God with Jesus only asks that we take one step at a time on our road to Jerusalem. We will find that next step in self-sacrificing love and service in our daily responsibilities and relationships. The gospel is always calling us to find meaning and purpose n the lived experience of our daily life.

The Twenty Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 10:17-30

Dear Friends,
Right after my ordination in 1962, a very good friend, Bob, gave me a challenge. He asked me to talk to his sister and guide her back to the Church. She had become an Evangelical and he was heart-broken about it. I was sure it would be easy after my many years of study in the seminary.

I was a complete failure. Only slowly, over the next several years, did I begin to realize my very clear shortcomings.

Bob’s sister, Margie, found a great attraction in the Evangelical message. It stressed the power of the Scriptures and a personal relationship to Jesus. I was locked into a pre-Vatican II theology that stressed an institutional Church as the source of salvation.

Since Vatican II, we have been invited to see the main task of the Church as evangelization. We need to continually recall that the heart of our faith will always be the same: the God who revealed his immense love in the crucified and risen Christ. All evangelization is about the call to have a personal relationship with Jesus. This comes before, during and after all other catechesis and study. We need a personal encounter with Jesus that touches us at the deepest part of our being.

In today’s Gospel story of the rich man, Jesus is inviting the man to focus his attention not so much on what he has to do, but to realize the goodness and generosity of God. The text has the incredibly beautiful statement, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” (Mk 10:21) The man did not see this love nor did he experience it because he was letting his personal belongings blind him to Jesus invitation to trust in him rather than his personal wealth. “At that statement he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” (Mk 10:22)

What was it that he possessed? Not a car, maybe a donkey or two. If he was really rich, a horse. Two or three robes at best but K-Mart was wildly beyond his wardrobe dreams. No doctor, primitive medicine. Probably he could not read or write, and no TV, movies or newspaper not to mention a cell phone. No electricity or running water. He challenges the imagination to identify the level of poverty compared to our ordinary lifestyle common today. For these pitifully few things that he thought made him rich, he was unable to let go to follow Jesus. It is a good mirror for us. Our possessions are equally feeble compared to what Jesus has to offer us.

This is why we have to start out with a personal relationship with Jesus first and foremost. We need to realize we are loved. Without love, we too will walk away with the illusion of our wealth as our real security. However, if we open our heart to Jesus, we can begin the journey of gradually realizing that all our riches are in Jesus. In the end, all else will pass away, but Jesus’ love will never change.

The disciples were men of their times. They accepted the pervasive belief that wealth was a true sign of God’s blessing. When Jesus offered the radical message that wealth was an obstacle to the kingdom, it was just another shocking and challenging teaching of Jesus for the disciples. It added to the profound confusion that was part of both their growing attraction and steady bewilderment with Jesus. It was just another item on the list that laid out the cost of walking with Jesus.

They witnessed the rich man walking away sad and despondent. He had rejected Jesus’ love. His choice was to find security and life in his possessions.

Deep down, beyond their fear and uncertainty, Jesus’ followers had a hope in his invitation to let go and let God. Their relationship with Jesus, even in the early and fragile stage, let them see their hunger for freedom and happiness as the gift Jesus was calling them to. This was life in the kingdom where they slowly came to see that they were loved. They were beginning to move way beyond the dos and don’ts of their religious obligations.

The disciples were broken men. They shared all the bewilderment, fears and hunger for security as the rich man who had rejected Jesus’ love. There was a simple difference. They let go of their clinging in order to choose Jesus. We are called to grow into this same choice in the midst of our own doubts and fears. It is so much easier to make this choice of Jesus if we realize the wonderous gift of his love for us. He calls each of us by name into the marvel of everlasting life in the kingdom.

Twenty Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mk 10:2-16

Dear Friends,The seemingly arbitrary connection between the issue of divorce and the rejection of the children highlights Jesus’ teaching on human relations. Jesus consistently called us beyond the legalistic and limiting formulas of the law. His was a message to embrace life in all relationships: with friend and foe, parent and child, husband and wife. All are included in the kingdom. There is no exclusion as was the case in the patriarchal society of Jesus’ day or in the disciples failure to see in the children “what you did for one of these least ones, you did unto me.” Mt 25:45)

The religious leaders had no real interest in Jesus’ answer about divorce. The status quo of male dominance was 100% in their favor. The women were considered property and had no rights. The religious leaders’ only concern was to draw Jesus into some problematic public statement.

As usual, Jesus cuts through the self-serving propaganda of his foes and focuses on the central truth of authentic relations in light of the coming kingdom of God. This is a deep plunge into reality in contrast to superficial legal niceties of the Scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus’ teaching was truly dealing with the prohibition of divorce. However, there was another component of his message that was earth-shattering and absolutely revolutionary. It was a cultural bombshell. It devastated the accepted dominance of the male and proclaimed the dignity and rights of women. Jesus’ negative declaration, “and if she divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery.” (Mk 1:12) sowed the seeds of “the wheat” against the “the weeds” of the monopoly of male -dominated structures of Jewish society. It is truly difficult to comprehend how radically transformative Jesus’ words were in this statement. In Jesus’ declaration woman is recognized and celebrated in her self-worth. It is a social and political transformation from a piece of property to a person with rights and dignity.

In this context, the prohibition of divorce is not some legal precept. It is an invitation into the ideal of the kingdom. The teaching on divorce is not to be trivialized. Likewise, it is not to be proclaimed with an inhuman rigidity. As early as Matthew and Paul’s first Letter to the Corinthians, the first generation of Christians were seeking a deeper explanation of Jesus’ teaching on divorce in light of our broken human condition.

Divorce was a frightening prospect for women in the time of Jesus. Marriage was absolutely critical for women as a condition of survival. They had no other means of support. Adultery was punishable by death. In addressing this issue, Jesus was also returning to his constant refrain of support and concern for the poor and the marginalized. Jesus was expressing compassion along with condemnation in his teaching on divorce.

The Church today needs to take the total message of Jesus and apply it with his characteristic compassion and sensitivity to the pastoral scene facing us today. The sacredness and singularity of the marriage commitment must pass through the prism of God’s mercy and compassion for his sinful and broken people.

Because Jesus’ reflection on marriage is rooted in his teachings about all human relations in light of the kingdom, Mark adds on the encounter with the children. As is the case so often in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus reprimands the disciples for their insensitivity or ignorance. This time it is the rejection of the children. Again, we are dealing with the issue of equality. Jesus was emphatic in his teaching. The kingdom has no exclusion in its welcome. It is for all. There are no “nobodies” in the kingdom. In fact, the children, in their simplicity and vulnerability, are great examples of the universal nature of the kingdom. The kingdom is for the undeserving, a totally free gift for all. One does not earn the love of God. Children are a model of this gracious generosity of God.

Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48.

Dear Friends, What seems like a simple lesson in Mark’s gospel passage for today, offers us a lot more. The teaching is about the presence of good outside the community and brokenness inside the community. Once again, Jesus’s words call us much deeper into the mystery of the kingdom of God. Today’s message has truly huge ramifications for our lives as individuals and as a community seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

There are three points about John’s statement and Jesus’ reaction that help us grasp the multilayered meaning of the lesson of Jesus. First and foremost, John, the disciple, misses the urgent reality of the kingdom that was taking place. The person was being liberated from the demonic powers. This event is manifesting the victory in the basic conflict of good and evil, sin and grace, the weeds and the wheat. Throughout the Gospels, the Scribes and Pharisees missed the same point in the miracles of Jesus. The power of God was on display right before their eyes. They were blinded in their hunger to protect their vested interests. The wonder of Jesus’ saving acts was distorted into an impediment to their self-serving agenda. Secondly, John’s focus is more directed towards maintaining personal privilege and power exemplified in his statement “one of us”. Thirdly, John is drawn inward to safeguard the group’s interests to the neglect of celebrating and exercising the healing mission of the kingdom. The Church has suffered from this arrogance and institutional self-interest throughout its history.

Jesus is pointing out something profound about the gospel. Jesus’ teachings set off a constant battle within people who are seeking to exclude rather than include. It is the power and presence of the kingdom that makes a difference. It is not the label of the performer as one in our group or outside our group that is foremost.

This issue became a critical teaching of Vatican II. God’s grace is universal and available to all. Often the initiator of the good acts may belong to another expression of the Christian faith. Frequently, it may be be a member of another religion altogether or even an agnostic or atheist. God’s saving grace is relentless in its presence and pursuit of every human being irrespective of religious trademarks. Down through the centuries the failure to understand this truth of the universality of grace has been the source of many failures of the Church to live and proclaim the gospel. Too often the Church has been dedicated to its institutional interests rather than the movement of God in the kingdom.

In the second part of today’s gospel, Jesus is using some incredibly strong language to highlight the need to build up the community. The hunger for prestige and power and an elitism and sense of privilege by the leaders is a scandal to “the little ones,” those still in the early stages of development in their faith. In the prophetic hyperbole, Jesus is demanding for us to keep our eye on the ball. The mission of the faith community we call Church is to proclaim the kingdom. The Church needs to be a humble witness to service and love, not an arrogant gathering of privileged and powerful. Too often, the Church fails to live up to the calling to treat all within the community with equality and a sense of dignity, not to mention the essential task of being a welcoming community. There were no parishes in Jesus day but the negativity of parochialism has been with us from the beginning. This turning in on itself has produce many evils that need the healing surgeries that Jesus suggests in his exaggerated language. There is no clearer example of this than the many dimensions of the sexual abuse scandal that has plagued the Church for the last several decades.

The Church is not the kingdom. It needs to be a witness to the values of the kingdom which are an infinitely greater reality. In the kingdom of God there is no “us and them”. The Church is not a program where the privileged and powerful are in control and use doctrine and discipline to exclude and isolate. The community of faith needs to include all. This requires an ever-expanding horizon of acceptance of the “other.” This is a call to embrace all the marginated and excluded in our day. We are never finished building up and enfolding a rellentlessly greater “us” and an ever-diminishing “them.” Our vocation is to cultivate a gracious respect for both the elements of difference and the richness of the gifts of others. We have a calling to reveal the infinite mercy and acceptance God.

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 9:30-37

Dear Friends, Our Catholic Faith is often described as a service from the cradle to the grave. Actually, we are very emphatic that it starts before the cradle at the moment of conception. I think we all have difficulty with this universal demand of our faith.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is using his second prediction of his passion and death to teach us that there are no “nobodies” in God’s eyes.

In Mark’s Gospel, there is a basic pattern to the three announcements by Jesus of his Passion, Death and Resurrection. First of all, Jesus makes the shocking prediction. Then the disciples are caught in a situation that shows their total failure to understand this lesson of Jesus. This is followed by a teaching by Jesus that is a profound contribution to his gospel message.

Today’s predicament for the Disciples is an argument about who is the most important among them. This leads to today’s instruction by Jesus.

Today’s message is missed if we do not understand that a child in the time of the New Testament was a “nobody”, a person of no social value or recognition. Jesus’ teaching was that whoever welcomes a child welcomes Jesus.

A child was truly a “nobody “for everybody except the family. The child had no rights, recognition or voice in anything. Jesus turns that view upside down in his Gospel message today. He not only puts his arms around the child in a tender embrace of recognition but says, “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.” (Mk 9:37)

This teaching of Jesus has shrewd social implications. Such a meaningful and respectful relation with a child would mean putting down your self-importance and identity as an adult. This emptying of self was an invitation into leadership that forsakes dominance and control. It was a call to a humble leadership of service and openness.

On an even deeper level, this teaching of Jesus challenges both the disciples’ notion of the Messiah and of God. Jesus is telling us in his teaching, and even more so in his life, that God is one who comes among us not as one who rules by control and punishment but one whose reign is one of service. We are all a child in the eyes of God. It is God’s goodness not our accomplishments that is the source of our strength, dignity and beauty as human beings.

In this statement and loving embrace of the child, Jesus is showing us that there are no “nobodies” in God’s eyes. We need to see that all humanity in all its incredible different expressions offers an image of God. Therefore, if we wish to be a leader, we need to celebrate this divine manifestation by a presence that makes us a servant of all.

Jesus is showing us the way by his faithful surrender on the way to Jerusalem. He asks us, his followers and disciples, to recognize and respond to God’s presence in all our brothers and sisters whether they are in diapers or in prison, whether in a coma or addiction, whether a Nobel Prize winner or a mother-in-law. All are worthy of our life of service and love.

We all have our own list of “nobodies”. Jesus is asking us to open our eyes to see the wonderful presence of God hidden in our midst by changing our labels of negativity to labels of a precious child of God.

The Twenty Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mk 8:27-35

Dear Friends, This encounter between Jesus and Peter identifies the centerpiece of Mark’s Gospel. The rich description of Jesus’ activities up to this point in Mark’s Gospel leads to the critical question of Jesus, “Who do you say I am?” (Mk 8:28) For the disciples, and for us, there is no more important question we must address in our life. Who is Jesus for us?

Up to this point in Mark’s text everything was about the identity of Jesus. His miracles, his teachings, his call of the disciples, his conflicts, religious and secular, and above all, his person. They all combined to raise the issue of Jesus’ identity that Peter stated so boldly, “You are the Christ.” (Mk 8:29)

Jesus implied they were correct. Then he told them not tell anyone. As if this was not confusing enough, he then told them of his upcoming suffering, rejection and death. This led Peter to rebuke him only to receive a response that, no doubt, shattered Peter’s world. “Get behind me Satan, you are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.” (MK 8:33)

When Jesus then told the disciples they need to suffer and take up their cross, their bewilderment was complete. The entire second half of Mark’s Gospel is an elaboration of Jesus’ faithfulness to this message and the disciples’ failure to figure it out.

In this shocking conflict, Mark is inviting us to go beyond the surface in our commitment to Jesus, to dig deep in our search for the true meaning of the gospel in our life.

The central issue for the disciples was the difference in understanding of the role of the Messiah. Jesus understood the mystery that there is true life only in giving it away not by clinging to it. For the disciples the goal of life was to be found in getting not giving. Only slowly did they learn that love teaches us the paradox of the gospel. To truly own something, we need to be willing to give it away. To truly own our life, we need to be free to lose our life.

As Peter proclaimed, Jesus was indeed the Christ. However, Jesus understood that he was to bring about the Father’s plan by suffering and self-giving and service. All his teachings had be understood in this context, the context of the crucified Christ.

Jesus’ rebuke of Peter was based on the real issue for the disciples, and for searching faithful down to our day.

We, like Peter, face the perennial temptation to try to make Christ in our image. We are looking for a more comfortable version. Peter and the disciples had a plan for Christ. He was to be the provider of prosperity and privilege, security and contentment. Jesus agreed to this basic human fulfillment but at a much different level. Jesus insisted this fulfillment is only truly possible by self-giving not self-indulgence. We must learn to center on God rather than to center all on ourselves. Jesus’ gift of our prosperity and privilege, our security and contentment will be beyond our wildest dreams. This is what Jesus means by “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mk 8:34) The road to Jerusalem is the way into this fundamental Christian truth: life conquers death only by centering on the Father’s will not our will.

When Jesus tells us to take up our cross, it involves much more than this particular difficult person or that painful loss or a frightening sickness. Taking up our cross means being open to God in all manner of ways that we experience in the totality of life. Taking up the cross involves a determined resolution and deep desire and vigorous acceptance, not merely passive resignation. The cross Jesus is talking about comes in all different fashions in the harsh reality of human experience.

The disciples eventually got the message when Jesus invited them to Galilee after the Resurrection. He was going to give them a second chance. He gives us many times more than a second chance. He does this by raising a second question to ponder, “How do we die with Jesus?” We need to accept Jesus on his terms when we answer that fundamental question of life, “Who do you say I am?” (Mk 8:27) This leads to the second question, “How do I die with Jesus?” Our personal faith journey will eventually enlighten us to understand that dying is the only way to true life in the Jesus venture in our life.

In describing the Apostles, The Acts of the Apostles portrays a whole new cast of characters. They truly are distant from Mark’s rendering of the special twelve followers of Christ. Now, they not only know Jesus, they know how to die with Jeus to truly discover the life that their heart so yearned for. Their life of service and self-giving shows how they took advantage of the second chance. We need to do the same.

Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 7:31-37 Dear Friends, In the world that Mak addresses in his Gospel, the people had a much more intense outlook about the devil than is the case in our day. For them, the basic conflict of good and evil was a struggle between God and the power of darkness residing in the demons. Sickness, political domination and the endless challenges of nature and climate were all seen as manifestations of demonic control over human freedom. The long anticipated Messiah was seen as one who would finally complete this seemingly never-ending struggle. He would bring back the original innocence and freedom of the Garden of Eden.

All of Jesus’ actions were a movement toward human freedom from this deeply entrenched control of the demons. Today’s healing of the deaf mute would have been seen as an exorcism that set the victim free of the demonic bondage, a clear step towards total victory over all evil and darkness.

The man’s condition had left him in severe isolation. It is extremely difficult for us to imagine the destructive consequence of being unable to hear and unable to speak.

Jesus’ healing intervention is clearly part of the mission to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God. (Mk 1:14-15) Jesus performs this miracle in a Gentile territory. This was another way he used to expand the horizons of his mission well beyond the limited vision of his followers. He was sowing the seeds of the shocking reality that salvation was for all people not just the Jewish nation. The church has the task to continue the work of Jesus. This community of faith will always strive to continue to break the restrictions of culture and convention.

Like the deaf mute in today’s gospel, we too, are in need of God’s healing grace to hear and speak the saving word in the many divergent situations in our life. So often, in our lives, we are so self-absorbed that it limits our ability to listen and to be present to others in true dialogue. We fail to see that there are two sides to every situation if not six or seven possible solutions. We often suffer from a spiritual deafness. It is the source of much conflict in our personal, family, and communal lives and in the larger realities of all sorts. To be able to hear and to speak the word of God from a pure heart will always expand our horizons and make us instruments of God’s peace and God’s justice.

In the sacrament of Baptism, we ritualize this great gift of openness and communication with the rite of Ephphatha. This is where the minister makes the sign of the cross on the mouth and the ears and says, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God.”

We should see ourselves in the deaf mute. We are often locked into a world muted by a message of consumerism and privilege and exclusion. We need Jesus to free us from the domination of a culture that muffles the cry of the poor while it proclaims a message of self-indulgence with a seemingly interminable array of new products that will guarantee our contentment and expand our self-centeredness. We live in a world where our voice to proclaim the gospel is rendered mute by the noise of a culture that seeks always more comfort, more pampering and more security. Just like the mute and deaf character in our reading today, Jesus frees us to hear the liberating word of God and draws us out of isolation and into a saving community enriched by honest dialogue.

In our day, Jesus sets us free to enhance our relationships with truly human communication. This always involves a deeper ability to hear the other and an honesty to speak the truth no matter how painful. Jesus also sets us free for a life of service and witness to the good news of the gospel. This is only possible if we recognize the depth of our muteness and deafness when it comes to matters of the spirit. The first step for all of us is to accept that we need the healing power of Jesus to set us free.

Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Dear Friends.

Often in the Gospels, we find that Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees and Scribes leads to a deeper dimension of his message. In today’s passage from Mark, Jesus addresses the distortion of the purity laws. Over time, these good practices had lost their way. They eventually became a source of division and elitism, hypocrisy and isolation. This is very often the case in all religious practice. It had become almost a full time job to respond to the endless details of the purity laws. For working poor, the actual implementation of the multiple and intricate laws had become an impossible burden. As an example, the shepherds were considered totally out of the realm of respectability because of their failure to ritualize the overwhelming demands of these laws.

In the beginning, the purity laws were a guide to true integrity. They were a means to express the true holiness of the Chosen People in the midst of their pagan neighbors. However, their distortion over time had evolved into an expression of power and control as well as a source of income for the élite.

Jesus cut right to core of the issue in the quote for Isaiah.

This people honors me with their lips,

But their hearts are far from me;

In vain do they worship me

teaching as doctrines human precepts.

In the midst of this controversy with the Jewish leaders, Jessus presents a fundamental truth to guide all people at all times. True holiness flows from a heart in love with God. All the laws of Moses are a guide to encounter this God of love. All the laws are truly a pathway to personal integrity and authenticity. The law, properly understood, was not a source of potential punishment, but an invitation into holiness, a holiness reflecting the life and love of God.

In this life-giving relationship with God, the fundamental issue is the heart. This core presence within the person nurtures all true and genuine morality. Any use of the law that is not rooted in the true faithfulness of the heart soon becomes a caricature. It reduces commitment to lip service and empty compliance. When there is a disconnect with the heart, hypocrisy is never far behind.

Jesus’ constant message is about faithfulness that is the product of a pure heart. For the heart to attain this sense of holiness and purity, it needs the word of God. The power of God’s word, especially the connection with Jesus, will guide and inspire in all circumstances.

Another issue is self-knowledge. This involves a growing awareness of the potential for evil within each person. This self-knowledge is a critical component of the gospel experience. Listing twelve common expressions of evil, Jesus then says: “All these evils come from within and they defile.” (Mk 7:23)

Jesus is constantly inviting the crowds and the disciples and us to move beyond the letter of the law to the deeper domain of the spirit, the home arena of the heart. This is a call to see in Jesus the one who truly is the absolute revelation of the God of love and mercy. He is the fullness of truth and freedom. In our effort to walk with Jesus, which is the true Christian life, we will find the rightful law which is the fount of all true morality. This is the gift of Jesus’ new law, love of God and love of our neighbor.

Till the end, the Church will have to deal with the awesome pull of hypocrisy and the temptation to weaponize the laws for the control and privilege of the few. Till the end, all of us as individuals, will struggle with a fragmented heart that distorts Jesus’ teachings for our personal advantage. Till the end, we will need to pray to Jesus for mercy and the elusive treasure that is purity of heart. This will help us hear and respond to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth in our daily life.

Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time

John 6:60-69

Dear Friends, In these last five weeks we have been pondering Jesus as the Bread of Life. The heart of the lesson is that Jesus is the revelation of God, a saving God who calls us to eternal life through his beloved Son. “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (Jn 6:63) The faith that Jesus demands is not about making everything crystal clear but about a steadfast allegiance in spite an enduring ambiguity of life’s ups and downs.

Today’s final words of Jesus center on this need for faith, a faith open to the Spirit’s call. Underlying and permeating this entire examination of the Bread of Life, and throughout the Gospel of John, is the stunning reality of the Incarnation, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1:14). Jesus will return to the Father in the self-sacrificing event of his death and resurrection. To accept the wonder of this invitation into love, we need faith to let the Spirit fill our hearts. We have before us the answer to the deepest longing in our hearts. We have before us the Bread to satisfy our deepest hunger. We have before us the call to total freedom and everlasting life. We need to join Peter’s marvelous declaration, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6:69)

Jesus’ words opened the eyes and hearts of the disciples. In proclaiming himself as the Bread of Life sent down from heaven Jesus touched their deepest longings. They still remained confused and humble. They still longed for the clarity and the security of a better understanding. Yet they had come to the conviction and commitment to accept Jesus as “the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6:69) Their faith had set them free to begin the pilgrimage to God by embracing Jesus as the Bread of Life.

There is a profound message for us in this faith-inspired but bewildering situation facing disciples. It is clear they did not totally comprehend the profound message of Jesus as the Bread of Life. While their understanding remained partial and incomplete, while their commitment would bend to the limits on the journey to Jerusalem, while the coming disaster of “the fatal weekend” held a future of unimaginable darkness for them, they stayed faithful and open to growth acne in the midst of their human weakness and uncertainty. They have shown us that faith is not about having a flawless answer. It is about steadfastness in spite of life’s relentless expressions of our mortality. The disciples, in their very flawed humanity, have shown us the way.

This same challenge of accepting Jesus is ever-present in our life. It is the most basic choice that faces us as human beings. We must answer Jesus’ question which is similar to his statement in Mark, “Who do you say I am?” (Mk 8:27) We need to accept God on God’s terms no matter how shocking Jesus’ statement: “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.” (Jn 6:54) We need to let go of the deceitful world our common sense builds to blind us in our self-serving sense of security and comfort. We need to embrace faith in the great and incomprehensible mystery of Jesus as the Bread of Life. He has taken flesh in our world so we may be transformed in the Spirit. Our faith and commitment to walk in his footsteps will carry us through death to eternal life.

For five weeks we have seen the two sides of Jesus as the Bread of Life. He is both the unveiling of the wisdom and power of God and the gift of love in the Eucharist. John will further expose the depths of that great gift of his body and blood at the Last Supper. In the washing of the feet, we encounter the true nature of the Eucharist. It is Jesus as God’s gift for the life of the world. We are nourished by the flesh and blood to continue that revelation of self-giving that Jesus has modeled for us in the washing of the feet. It is all about love leading to life. We enhance that life in the service of others. It is all about love leading to our life eternal.

Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

John 6:51-58

Dear Friends, Today we continue our journey with John’s theme of the Bread of Life. Up to this point, the message has been Jesus the Bread of Life as a gift of wisdom. He is the full revelation of God including the loving plan of redemption and the call of the Father to eternal life. Now there is a subtle switch to incorporate Jesus as the Bread of Life that nourishes us in the Eucharist.

It is very helpful to keep in mind the rich biblical themes as we ponder the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage. The whole of chapter six of John looks back to the manna in the desert. It also recalls the Passover meal along with the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Finally, it is all gathered together in the Passion and Death of Jesus. In these topics we encounter Jesus as Word and Sacrament.

The first thing we must remember is that Jesus is not speaking in the language of modern science, that of chemistry, biology or medicine. He was speaking the language of the heart as it related to the abundant scriptural tradition of the Jewish people. He was talking about his human person as the presence of God’s message. Both the New Passover of his death and resurrection and the New Manna of the Eucharist are a message that divided the crowd. He was presenting himself as the gift of God far beyond the generosity of God’s manna in the desert. He is now the bread that offers ever-lasting life. He is the new Pascal Lamb that will lead to deliverance from slavery in all its seemingly endless expressions of evil. He will set us free from all that keeps us from loving God with our whole heart and anything that hinders true human development.

What Jesus is saying in the gift of his flesh and blood is that we are called not only to new life but eternal life. Like the story of the vine and branches, Jesus is using the plea to be one with him in his body and blood. This will make his life and our life one in a mission of love. This life-giving participation in the Eucharist, the New Passover and the New Manna, helps all who partake of the body and blood to share Jesus’ sacrificial and saving love for the world. Through sharing communion with Jesus, we participate in his love for all people. We are called into the fundamental message of all the Gospel: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn13:34)

Those in the crowd who rejected the message understood clearly. They were not ready to leave their old tradition. Jesus was proclaiming a new day. Jesus was transparent. God is now speaking through him. We have to unite with Jesus to truly hear the word of God and to embrace it in our life by sharing in the love for all. All barriers are to be broken down. All forms of exclusion are to abolished. This is possible by the gift of the Eucharist where Jesus gives us the Bread of Life to walk in the way of love. This new life takes flesh in our service and sharing with all our brothers and sisters, with our care for all God’s creation.

John’s message in chapter six is that Jesus feeds us in two ways. The first is the revelation of God’s truth and wisdom. The second is in the Eucharist of his flesh and blood calling us into communion in a life of love. Both gifts are Jesus as the Bread of Life. In the Word made flesh that is the Incarnation of Jesus, God goes beyond the freedom of the Exodus and the nourishment of the manna. God far surpasses his providential generosity. God wildly exceeds the grasp of our human understanding. This is why we spend these five weeks pondering God’s love in Jesus as the Bread of Life. In the end only faith will open our heart to this divine gift. In Jesus, God transcends mere information. God is inviting us into the Mystery of Love that is the true nourishment for the hunger in our heart and the call to transform the world.

Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

John 6:41-51

Dear Friends, In today’s liturgy we continue the discourse on the Bread of Life in chapter six of John’s Gospel. Jesus’ message emphasizes his identity as the Bread of Life. It is only through him, as the Bread of Life, that we will get to know the Father. Likewise, it is only through him as the Bread of Life that we will be fed by the Father on the journey to eternal life. Next week full attention will be on this second element of this discourse, Jesus as the Bread of Life in the Eucharist. Today we continue the emphasis on the person of Jesus as the Bread of Life as our invitation into the Divine Mystery.

The crowd’s rejection of Jesus in today’s Gospel has to do with the Incarnation. The people’s limited image of God did not allow them to see that God could use one like us to reveal God’s truth. With many echoes of the Exodus story, the conflict shows Jesus testing the limits of their cramped imagination. In their limited worldview, Jesus, as the Bread come down from heaven, just does not connect as a possibility. They do not want to move much beyond the surface of their world and culture. They truly appreciated God’s generosity in the manna of their ancestors. Yet, they failed to see how much greater was God’s gift of the Bread of Life in Jesus right before their eyes. In the time of the Exodus and here in the gospel time of Jesus, we have the response of the people to God’s gift of bread. The people murmured and complained. Is it that different in our day? We are being challenged to put away our grumbles and our doubts, our confusion and our anxieties and let Jesus guide us through the ever-present darkness and bitterness of life. We must let Jesus be the Bread of Life for us.

The great event of Christianity is that through the humanity of Christ we are called into his divinity. This truth becomes available not by turning away from the traditional truths of the religious tradition of the Chosen People. Jesus points out our calling is to enter more deeply into the tradition by accepting Jesus as the Bread that came down from heaven. Jesus completes and replaces that initial revelation to the family of Abraham. Jesus is God’s continuing offer of life more abundant than we could imagine. The manna in the desert is only the slimmest glimmer of God’s ultimate gift in Jesus as the Bread of Life.

Jesus is telling the people, and us, that the only way we can understand him is through a faith that draws us to a much deeper level. That deeper level is available to us when we open ourselves to the most intense hungers in our hearts. These are hungers only God can satisfy. St. Augustine spoke eloquently of this God-hunger: “You have made us for yourself O Lord and our heart is restless until we rest in you.”

Jesus is challenging the crowd, and us, to go beyond ourselves, beyond our petty world controlled by rigid traditions and limited and routine religious practices. Jesus is inviting us to encounter him and his message as the Bread of Life as the most genuine truth within our lives. We need to allow the Spirit of God open us to the Bread of Life. Again and again, Jesus is offering the wisdom of the Bread of Life. Again and again, this chapter six in John has the offer of eternal life. In today’s Gospel we are called to accept Jesus as the gift of God. This is the gift leading to the ultimate yearning in our heart, happiness forever. Now, in our present moment, this gift of God that is Jesus, helps us to find direction and meaning in our life. Jesus shows us that the authentic truth of our lives will be found in service, reconciliation and love for all in the footsteps of Jesus.

There is an obvious call to share the gift of the heavenly and earthly bread we have received. We need to open our hearts and our pocketbooks to the hungry near and far. We need to see in the homeless and the migrants an opportunity to give flesh in our day to the Bread of Life that is our gift from Jesus.

Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

John 6:24-35

Dear Friends, The folks in today’s Gospel were happy with the free meal of fish and bread but they had their eyes on much bigger stakes. They were hoping Jesus would be the answer to the centuries’ old longing for a return to glory for Israel. They had visions of a new day of prosperity and wealth. The hunger in their hearts went deeper than the hunger in their stomachs. They hoped that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the one who would finally fulfill the promises that permeated the 2000-year history of the Jewish nation.

Jesus, in turn, offers them a very different alternative. Jesus was well able to see beyond their desires for power and glory, wealth and privilege. Jesus knew well that there was a great difference between what the crowd wanted and what they truly needed, God’s invitation to eternal life.

Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary time

Jn 6:1-15

Dear Friends, For the next five weeks we move from Mark to John for our gospel readings. We take time to consider selections from Johnn’s Discourse on the Bread of Life in his marvelous chapter six. John presents two major themes in this remarkable teaching on the Bread of Life. Two interwoven themes are Jesus as the life-giving revelation from heaven and as the life-giving bread from heaven. The focus is Jesus as Word and Sacrament. Only verses 51-58 are explicitly about the Eucharist though implications of the Eucharist appear often in this special chapter.

Today’s story of the loaves and fishes appears six times in the four Gospels. It has its roots in the Old Testament and it points toward the Eucharist. It is a powerful display of the theme of divine hospitality of the kingdom. One difference in John’s version is very significant. Jesus himself feeds the people. The message portrayed in Jesus’ action is this: the people receive the nourishment directly and abundantly from Jesus.

This relates this feeding to the feeding of the multitude is the manna in the desert. Likewise, right after the similar desert feast in John, we have Jesus walking on the water. This is a shadow of the Israelites walking through the Reed Sea on the road to freedom.

HIS HEART WAS MOVED WITH PITY FOR THEM

Dear Friends, Jesus has a plan to take the disciples away for rest and prayer. He is sidetracked by the large gathering of people. Mark says, “His heart was moved with pity for them.” (Mk 6:34)

Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mark 6:30-34

This Greek word that is here translated, pity, is used two other times in the Gospels. In these two cases, it is translated, “compassion”. It means very strong feelings of deep concern. The Good Samaritan experienced these feelings as he came upon the victim on the roadside. (Lk 10:33) The father of the Prodigal Son is described with the same feelings. “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.” (Lk 15:20)

Another beautiful description of compassion is an old saying: One shows compassion that sees another person weep and tastes the tears. Compassion is the bridge from sympathy to action.

One of the most powerful and sensitive statements from Vatican II captured this rich evangelical call for compassion: “The joys and the hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.” (Gaudium et Spes #1)

As Jesus is filled with compassion, his first response is to teach the people. Jesus’ basic message to the people is of a God of love. He heals some and shortly he will feed the hungry crowd but his fundamental gift is an invitation into a love that will go far beyond the necessary healing and the urgent hunger of the large crowd that is a symbol for all humanity.

Jesus’ message to all is that in our broken and troubled human condition there is an opening to new life and the wondrous love of a gracious God. The fundamental struggle of the Gospel of Mark is the failure of the disciples, as a mirror of us, to trust in the goodness and love of the God revealed by Jesus.

Jesus, acting in the desolate countryside and throughout his gospel journey, makes the divine message of love very real. He did this by always responding to the needs of those in his presence. This is how he is calling us to share in his mission to make the divine love real in our world. We are invited to share this love first with those present in our relationships and responsibilities. Then we are urged to continually expand our horizons of inclusion.

Our faith journey is similar to the disciples’ described by Mark. We, too, are burdened with the urge to move ahead on our own agenda. Like the disciples, we often find fault with Jesus’ plan and much prefer a plan of our own. The gospel lays out what should be the true goal of our life: to move away from our own self-centeredness to Jesus’ summons to make God the center. It is a struggle for us all the way.

Jesus, in his compassion, is patient with us as he was serene and peaceful with the crowd on the seashore, and especially with the disciples. Yet, he insists that his message is the way to truth, freedom and true happiness. His words are the gift of wisdom and light no matter how much his poverty and rejection and apparent failure shatter our common sense idea of reality. The Jerusalem call with the clear implication of suffering and death was a major impediment for the disciples. It remains the same for us today. Losing our life just does not seem to be the way to save our life.

Our agenda, like the crowd and the disciples, is for Jesus to fix our problems. Jesus, indeed, has compassion on our predicament of being flawed human beings. However, Jesus wants to fix us in a much deeper and total way. Jesus’ plan goes way beyond our very limited program. Jesus has a plan of compassion that shatters the narrowness and constraints of our dreams and hopes. The love revealed in his life and word open the possibility of satisfying the deepest hungers and longings of our heart that so often escape our awareness in the rush of life.

We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and be open to a new and marvelous journey of love in the midst of all our anxieties and fears. His compassion holds a hope we have hardly dreamt of. Deep personal prayer is the surest way to get in touch with this reality of true life and freedom buried behind the fear and disquiet in the depth of our hearts.

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary time

Mk6:6-13

Dear Friends, Jesus invited the Apostles to join the battle between good and evil, sin and grace. Their weapons were their experience with Jesus, the power of God’s word, the call to confront the demons and the healing power of God revealed in Jesus. These elements are the basic seed of what we have come to call evangelization. This is proclaiming the saving word of Jesus to transform individuals and all reality. This is the Church’s thrust into the ongoing conflict of good and evil. Like the Apostles, we are called to share in this glorious struggle. As Pope Francis continually tells us it is absolutely crucial to our Christian call to be missionary disciples.

The problem is that the work of being missionaries, particularly in our Catholic tradition, has been set aside for the “professionals”. The call to be missionaries for the folks in the Sunday pews has been woefully neglected in our Christian formation. For most of us, our awareness and connection with the Church’s missionary activity has meant to be generous with the second collection.

Mark’s words today possess a very unsettling consequence. Our identity as Church members means we have been sent. Like the first Apostles on this very first missionary journey, we are called to travel light and proclaim the word.

The only preparation the first Apostles had was their encounter with Jesus. Their message was a call to repentance. Their action was to confront the power of evil in the reign of the demons. They were to present the wonder of God’s healing power. The highlight of the mission was to proclaim the miracle of God’s saving word.

Today, Pope Francis never tires of calling us to understand our Christian vocation is one of being missionary disciples. The heart of the missionary message will always be the same. It is the love of God calling all to new life in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. Early in his exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, the Pope says, “being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but an encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

All of this seems so far from the average experience of the faithful Church members in our time. Yet, today’s gospel is just part of a clear mandate found in all the Gospels: to follow Christ includes preaching the gospel. This is part of Vatican II’s call to lay responsibility in the Church.

Pope France has consistently called us to take up the challenge to be faithful to Jesus’ directive to preach the gospel. His call is consistent in appealing to us to see ourselves as missionary disciples. This truly challenging duty should begin with two fundamental tasks to initiate this missionary effort. First and foremost is the continual encounter with Jesus that will express itself in the witness of our life. Secondly, we must be open to change how we see ourselves as good followers of Christ. We must begin to be open to learn how we can develop missionary skills. We need to see ourselves as people who are “sent” to join the battle of good and evil. Our primary weapon is our relationship with Jesus. The other particulars of the missionary task is where we need help and guidance.

Today’s selection from Mark offers us a few key a few insights for our missionary efforts. By reason of the limited resources the Apostles had, Jesus was making sure that his missionaries were embracing the culture of the people to whom they were preaching. The gospel proclamation must always be sensitive and respectful to the culture while maintaining the goal to transform the culture through the power of God’s word. In other words, we must always take people where they are.

Secondly, by going two by two, Jesus showed the importance of community in the process of proclaiming the Good News. The Church is always a community with a mission.

Thirdly, the lightness of the travelers’ resources also has a message about their missionary undertaking. The fewer the resources, the freer we will be able to point out the prophetic consequences of Jesus’ teachings. The more entrenched the Church becomes in the culture, the cost will always be paid in reducing the cutting edge of the gospel message.

Near the end of The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis says the following:

“I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, time and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.”