Weekly Reflection: Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Job 7:1-4,6-7
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 146:1-6 R. v. 3
Second Reading: 1Corinthians 9:16-19.22-23
Gospel: Mark 1:29-39

So many people in our times are devastated by wars - by poverty - by oppression - by grief – by despair – by addictions – by a lack of purpose or direction. There is a sense that our world in so many ways is broken hearted.

But our psalmist today has experienced something so profound that enables him or her to go beyond the devastation and to cry out with such passion and hope “Praise the Lord who heals the broken-hearted.”

What has happened to this person and their community to be able to pray these beautiful words? As faith communities do we truly pray and believe the words of this psalm?

If we do believe it, then it requires something from us as we see from Paul in the second reading and from Mark in the Gospel.

Paul feels compelled to respond to the risen Christ and he uses words like “duty”, “responsibility”, “made myself a slave to everyone”. He is driven into a mission to proclaim the Good News that he cannot say no to nor does he want to say no to. The heart of this mission is love. This love is revealed through his communion with God and his relationship with those around him and the world in which he lives.

One of the great threats to religions today is that we can tend to be so focused on the rituals and religious practices that mostly take place inside a church building, that we ignore the mission which calls us to be in relationship with each other and with our God.

Our Gospel speaks very beautifully about this and invites us to look at Jesus to help us unfold our response to this mission that Paul could not resist. Interestingly it begins with the words: “On leaving the synagogue…” So all of what we are about to hear happens away from the synagogue or in our case away from the church building.

It speaks of relationships (Jesus and his disciples are together).
It speaks of service (Simon’s mother in law began to wait or to serve them).
It speaks of communities being healed (the whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many).
It speaks of prayer (Jesus went off to a lonely place and prayed there).
It speaks of searching (everybody is looking for you).
It speaks of mission (let us go elsewhere…..I can preach there too, because that is why I came).

If we are looking for a formula to help us follow Jesus then this is a pretty good one. We are called to let the heart of Jesus live in us. I am not saying that the church building is not important. But I am saying that it is only part of our faith journey and it is the rituals and practices that happen within the church building that should nourish us and send us out in love to each other. We cannot separate any of the above underlined words from our relationship with God.

We live in a world that is filled with separations. For example: the rich and the poor, the first world and the third world, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressor and the oppressed. All of these bring with them enormous problems and potential problems and are a shocking reflection on us as human beings and what can happen to us when we become self absorbed.

But look how it changes if we say God and the rich and poor, God and the first and third world, God and the powerful and powerless, God and the oppressor and oppressed. When it is seen in this context there is a sense of communion and everything working together and striving to be what we were all created to be and to break down the separations that cause so much pain and suffering.

We cannot remove God from our daily lives or attempt to put God in a neat little box and adapt God for our own purposes at the exclusion of anyone. Nor can we contain God in a church building. It creates disaster which has been evident throughout our history.

Just as Paul’s response to the risen Christ aroused in him the desire that drove him to a sense of duty, of responsibility and being a slave to everyone, that too must be our desire. If the desire is present in us then the Spirit will bring forth the fruit, and the fruit will always be grounded in love. This love will break down the separations that cause so much suffering, not bolster them.

So let us be courageous in our prayer this week and ask the Spirit to grant us the desire to follow Jesus more faithfully so that the wounds of our broken hearted world (including the wounds of our own broken hearts) may continue to heal and drive us further into this extraordinary mission of love.

Weekly Reflection: Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Deut. 18:15-20
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 94:1-2.6-9. R. v. 9
Second Reading: Corinthians 7:32-35
Gospel: Mark 1:21-28

Today’s reading are all about listening – listening to our hearts and listening to our world and therefore listening to our God.

Authority also is at the heart of our readings. Authority is often misunderstood. But when we truly learn to listen to our hearts it will become transparently clear.

Let’s look at authority for a moment. In our Gospel we hear that Jesus teaches with “authority”. This authority exposes evil and renders it powerless and then generates an extraordinary freedom. It is deeply grounded in truth and love.

Numerous people throughout our history have displayed this type of authority by having the courage to name evils and expose these evils for what they truly are. Some of these evils include slavery, racism, corrupt political systems, corrupt religious systems, greed etc.
Many of those who have claimed this authority have experienced persecution or even death because they dared “to speak the truth in love.” Eph.4:15

But there are those who also make claim to this authority but it is deeply corrupted. Any authority figure that incites hatred, creates fear or retards freedom must be exposed as fraudulent and evil. An authority figure can be anyone from a parent to a religious or political leader.

This is where the challenge comes for us. I would like to look at just one example but there are numerous. In western politics we have many governments whom we have given the authority to lead our countries. But so often these authority figures blatantly abuse this privilege. Let’s look at Australia for a moment. We have a government (and supported by the majority of the opposition) that has taken us to war on a lie. As a nation we didn’t want war, but fear tactics were used to persuade us that it was the right thing to do - we would feel safer in the long run. And of course God was on our side.

We are now seeing the ramifications of this decision to go to war. There is increasing racial intolerance and suspicion happening in Australia. There is increasing legislation that threatens our freedoms. We support our allies as they prescribe to torture and the abuse of our basic human rights. We do not feel safe in our own country. We support our allies who hold people prisoner for years without charge because they might be a terrorist. Out of fear we jail innocent men, women and CHILDREN in detention camps and treat them as less than human and think it is OK, because we have been fooled into believing they are some sort of threat to us – and the majority of us vote for a Government that allows this. We support a war that has murdered tens of thousands of innocent civilians. We support the philosophy of retaliation. We rightly support the condemnation of terrorism but are blind to our own acts of terrorism.

When will we wake up? When will we learn to listen to our hearts?

This is a very clear example of authority gone mad. To understand the authority that Jesus shows us today we must look at the world around us and search our hearts and ask ourselves “Do I think this is what our God is asking of us?”

Our God longs for us to be free. Our decision to support this war on ‘terror’ has bound us ever so much more tightly. But we keep letting it happen. If we were more vocal about what we believe in and had the courage to speak the truth in love then governments would change. There is a saying: “A government is only as good as those who elect it”. What does this say about us?

Every moment of every day our God is calling us through every event and happening in our daily lives. When we live our faith it will come with an authority that will touch the hearts of those around us and bring with it a real sense of freedom, even if we experience persecution in the process.

So do we walk with those who display the authority that is grounded in truth and love or do we walk with a false authority that brings with it a constriction that is deadly. Or do we just not care either way. If we don’t care then our silence is equally constricting and deadly.

The response to our Psalm is profoundly beautiful and it would be good to carry it in our hearts during the coming week: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Our readings today urge us to LISTEN. They promise us that this LISTENING will soften our hardened hearts. With God all things are possible. We must believe this.

Let us pray in the coming week for the courage to look at our attitudes to the world around us, to see what is not of God, and to listen to our hearts response as we do so. At this time in our history when evil appears to have such a powerful face we need to join our hearts to the heart of Jesus. As we do this and keep watching Jesus and learning from him we too will be graced with the authority to cry out “Be quiet!” And we will be heard.

Weekly Reflection: Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Jonah 3:1-5.10
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 24:4-9. R. v. 4
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Gospel: Mark 1:14-20

In today’s readings we hear phrases such as:

“..the world as we know it is passing away.”
“the kingdom of God is close at hand.”
“Repent, and believe the Good News!”

In the Psalm we sing out to our God “Teach me your ways, O Lord.” Then in the midst of all this we hear Jesus call Simon and Andrew and later James and John to “follow” him and Jesus tells them he will make them fishers of people.

What does all this mean? And particularly what does it mean for us today?

We have heard the words repeatedly that God’s ways are not our ways. But so often we behave like spoilt children because we want our own way in this materialistic and self centred world. We want everything that we think is good for ‘me’. And we only want to do things that we think will make ‘me’ happy. And at all costs we want to avoid all discomforts or personal sufferings of any kind. Does this sound familiar?

Today’s readings cut right into this deeply flawed attitude.

When we respond to the call of Jesus (just as we see the disciples do today) we will experience “the world as we know it passing away.” The reason that Jesus gave the disciples to follow him was that he would make them “fishers of all people.” For them to make the choice to follow Jesus meant that they were no longer focused on themselves but on the well being of others and their relationship with their God. And with this change of heart of course the world as they knew it had to pass away and make way for something new.

It is exactly the same for us. Every human being is ‘called’ without exception. If we believe God is Love then we cannot believe otherwise. But the choice is always ours to respond. When we make the right choices we will know and see very clearly that the world we once knew and held up as our truth is very surely passing away and something new and mysterious is emerging.

It is here when we will come to understand that the “kingdom of God is close at hand” We will discover this ‘kingdom’ dwelling within us and around us if we make the life giving choice to respond to Jesus’ call.

When we respond to this call then our repentance will naturally be part of our response. In a very beautiful book on prayer called “Yielding to Love” by Michael Fallon msc, he says: ‘The easiest way to put off repentance is to put off prayer.” And in reality that is what our readings are about today – they are about God’s invitation drawing us into this most mysterious communion. But of course it is up to us to say yes.

When the disciples said yes to Jesus it was just the beginning of this journey for them as it is for us. They messed up all the way through Jesus’ ministry. But their hearts were beautifully open to learning from him. Their mistakes caused them great pain and suffering and embarrassment but they grew through this pain and they learned more and more to pray “teach me your ways, O Lord”. Their experience assured them that their prayer was being answered which would have brought with it a real sense of joy and trust amid the struggles.

There is no question that to begin to follow Jesus is counter cultural when we look at our world, and we should not expect the journey to be necessarily an easy one. We have to be prepared to let go of our ego and be prepared to learn some very difficult lessons, particularly about ourselves. But Jesus assures us the journey will be a life giving one.

There is a word of warning necessary as we read our Gospel. We must be careful that we do not perceive this ‘call’ as one that will remove us from the world so that we can be nice and comfortable with Jesus. It is the opposite. When the disciples made the choice to follow Jesus it emersed them in the world around them, with Jesus as their guide and teacher. It is the same for us. As we grow in this prayer communion with our God we will grow in love with and for our neighbour. To believe anything else must alert us to grave misunderstandings.

As we spend time reflecting on our readings this week and their meaning for us let us pray for the courage and the wisdom to keep this profound prayer before us: “Teach me your ways, O Lord” and to then be open to the Spirit breathing life into our lives.

Weekly Reflection: Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Samuel 3:3-10.19
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 39:2.4.7-10. R v 8.9
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:13-15.17-20
Gospel: John 1:35-42

There is a theme of doing God’s will running through our readings today. But to do God’s will we need to recognize where God is in our lives. It was Eli in our First Reading who showed Samuel that it was God who was calling him. It was John who showed the ‘two disciples’ who Jesus was. And it was Andrew who took Peter to see who Jesus was.

We have a profound lesson to learn from these readings. It is through each other that we discover who and where God is. It is not a discovery that we can make on our own.

Many of us proclaim a belief and love for and in Jesus but we ignore the human story before us. We must see the error in this. When we turn our backs on each other then nothing is surer that we are turning our backs on God. This seems hard for many of us to understand. Often we can think that we have a deeply personal relationship with Jesus while at the same time we turn our backs on the human struggles and injustices that are happening around us every day.

Silence, apathy and deliberate ignorance are all occasions when we turn away from God. We don’t want to face what is before us and we do not want to be disturbed.

When we have the courage to begin to turn around and face what is before us then we will learn compassion, we will learn tolerance, we will learn to recognize the racism, bigotry and elitism that sometimes dwells deeply hidden in our hearts – it is here where we will meet God – it is here where our awareness will be heightened - it is here where our hearts will be transformed.

Next time you go for a walk notice the wind and its affects on you. If there is a moderate wind happening and we are walking into it, we become so aware of the wind. We find ourselves having to put a little more energy into our walking because of the resistance our bodies experience walking into the wind. We feel and hear the wind rushing past our ears. We squint to protect our eyes against any sand or particles floating through the air. We feel the wind rushing through our hair. We feel the wind forcing our clothing against our bodies. We feel our heart rate go a little faster because we are having to work a little harder. Our whole body becomes so much more aware of and engaged in what is happening around it – it is truly alive.
But when we turn around and have the wind on our backs the journey seems a much easier one and we can often have a little sigh of relief. But the interesting thing is that we lose our awareness of the wind when we turn our backs on it. No longer are our senses heightened – we have lost our awareness.

I think this is a very accurate analogy of life and our relationship with God. When we turn our backs on each other and look for everything that is easy and comfortable we lose our awareness of each other and then of course we lose our awareness of God.

But our God never deserts us. Grace keeps pounding upon our hearts and urging us to turn around so that our senses will be heightened and we will become more aware of what is happening around us.

God is constantly gracing us to Love. But this grace always works through others. When we encounter a beautifully faithful person they can inspire us to endeavour to be more faithful in our own lives. When we see a person courageously and truthfully speak out about various injustices, they can inspire us to be more socially aware. When we see a person accept pain and suffering graciously, they can inspire us to be more gracious in our own suffering. Likewise when we see and experience the impact of lies, deceit, greed and the desire for power, they can drive us to be truthful, generous and affirming in all things. When we encounter a person with a profound belief in Jesus and they live their life accordingly, then we can be inspired to seek out Jesus.

All of these occasions invite us to turn around and to be inspired or challenged by what is before us – and there is much to see. They are invitations to be prepared to walk into the wind and have our senses brought to life. They are invitations to see where and how God works in our lives. They are an invitation to hear God’s voice calling us through those around us and then us having the courage to turn around and say “Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.”