Weekly Reflection: Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Hosea 2:16-17.21-22
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 102:1-4,8,10,12-13 R. v. 8
Second Reading: Cor 3:1-6
Gospel: Mark 2:18-22

In the gospels over the past weeks we have seen a series of healings by Jesus. Many of these healings took place with people who were excluded from their faith community by the rules and regulations of the Jewish Law at the time. Some of the ramifications of these healings in light of the Jewish Law were that Jesus himself became “unclean” because he had touched the “unclean”, and that the scribes began to look at Jesus with suspicion because he didn’t fit their religious mould.

In today’s gospel we see Jesus being questioned by “some people” as to why his disciples were not fasting when others were. So already in this early stage of Mark’s gospel we are seeing that Jesus’ belief and practices are not fitting into the religious practices and beliefs of the day.

Jesus shows us that radical transformation is at the heart of his message. This transformation is firmly grounded in a Love relationship. Jesus shows us a God that is “kind and merciful”. He shows us a God that is WITH us. The poetic and emotive language used by Hosea when he says: “I will betroth you to myself for ever, betroth you with integrity and justice, with tenderness and love…;” How does this language of deep personal relationship fit into a religious system that alienated and outcast people and was so fixed on its upholding of the religious rituals and laws that it was blind to its relationship (its betrothal) with God?

Surely we are moved to recognise God’s living presence within us when we hear St. Paul say to the Christian community at Corinth “you are a letter from Christ…and written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on the tablets of your living hearts.”

Then in the Gospel the language is all about the “bridegroom” - the Lover.

Again Christianity is about transformation, liberation and freedom. This is born out of our deep personal relationship with Jesus. We have seen the Gospel stories of transformation when people have been healed.

A common image often used to symbolise transformation is the caterpillar and the butterfly. It is an extraordinary process and one that is instinctive to the caterpillar. But the caterpillar doesn’t know what it is going to become – it just does what comes instinctively to it and in the process is transformed from being bound in a cocoon into something beautiful and free.

This process of transformation is something similar for us. But one major difference though is that we have the freedom to choose entering into this process of transformation or we can choose to remain cocooned and lifeless. Our greatest longing and attraction is towards love, because we were created in love and for love by our God. But Love will never force its way upon us.

Like the caterpillar, we will have no idea of what will emerge during this transformation and this can be scary for us and calls us into a radical trust in God.

We cannot be a caterpillar and a butterfly at the same time. And this is the point being made in our Gospel today. Jesus shows us a whole new way of being and it will transform what we have been into something profoundly beautiful. This is what we have been promised and we must pray for the grace to believe it.

So what is it that we need to do to say yes to this transformation?

Firstly, we must have a commitment to prayer. It is in prayer where our relationship with Jesus will grow. It is in this prayer where we will learn to trust Jesus more. It is here where humility will develop and we will come to recognise how this relationship is beginning to transform our lives. It is from here that our trust will grow and that we will begin to have a sense of only wanting what God wants.

Secondly, we need to know ourselves. We are not good at this as a whole. But who we are will be revealed to us as our relationship with Jesus grows. As this relationship grows our understanding of how deeply loved we are will also grow and this will carry us as we discover what may not be so beautiful in us. This is the development of self knowledge but it can only come about if we keep our focus on Jesus and walk with someone who cares deeply for our soul such as a spiritual director.

Thirdly, we need to be able to let go, where necessary, past perceptions and actions in all areas of our life (including our religious practices) that we thought were important but in actual fact we discover they have been an obstacle in this journey of love. We need to be open to experience the “God of Surprises”.

The journey WILL have difficulties and at times be painful. When we begin to see the world through little glimpses of love our hearts will break as we see the injustices around us – but we will be carried by a love that is far greater than our despair.

But also as we begin to see the world through little glimpses of love our love for the world will grow and our desire to want what God wants will drive us lovingly forward. It is here where we will learn to notice all sorts of beauty around us that we would perhaps have never noticed. It is here where we will learn tolerance and compassion and understanding. It is here where our greatest desire will be for peace and justice not only for ourselves but for everyone.

Our journey of transformation is a journey into Love. It is Jesus who will lead us so lovingly into this journey. Are we ready to choose to embark upon this great mystery of transformation?

Weekly Reflection: Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Isaiah 43:18-19.21-22.24-25
Responsorial Psalm: Ps.40:2-5.13-14. R. v. 5
Second Reading: 2 Cor. 1:18-22
Gospel: Mark 2: 1-12

Today’s Gospel presents us with some very powerful imagery that will greatly reward us if we take the time to reflect upon it and its meaning for us in our time. Its focus is squarely on faith and how it affects our lives.

To help us understand this Gospel I would like to look at the characters in the Gospel story and see what we might learn from them.

Jesus:

Firstly we know that Jesus is preaching and many people have gathered to hear him. And we know this is happening within a building of some sort and that there is no room left in the building.

The paralytic:

This man is motionless in the first part of our gospel. He says nothing, he does nothing. But he does allow himself to be carried towards Jesus on a stretcher. All we know about him is that he is a paralytic – he is paralysed for what ever reason we don’t know.

Who does this man represent for us?

How many of us are paralysed in the broader sense of the imagery. We might suffer a break in a relationship and we can become consumed with revenge or all sorts of unpleasantries.

Doesn’t this paralyse our souls?

How many people do we know (including ourselves) that have been hurt by the church for any number of reasons? We can allow that hurt to continually fester within us and we can become bitter and removed from what can be a life giving community. This can paralyse our ability to love and to forgive and it certainly paralyses our faith. Some examples of this are when people choose to walk away from the church because someone may have deeply offended or hurt them – or people are offended by the churches stance on women – or people are wounded by the child abuse scandals that have rocked our church in recent times etc etc etc. All of these scandals have caused great personal hurt on many levels and this hurt is valid. We must not question the validity of this hurt.

But faith ALWAYS calls us beyond the hurt. This doesn’t mean that we won’t suffer and that this journey will not be incredibly difficult. But our faith tells us that it is possible even when we ourselves feel that it is impossible. But sadly so often we allow ourselves to wallow in our suffering for a life time and in doing this we block love, we block forgiveness and we block faith. We become the paralytic.

The four men:

These four men show us what a faithful community looks like.

Together they are determined to bring this paralytic to Jesus. Nothing is going to stop them because they know in faith that Jesus can help this man. If we re read the story and imagine what must have been involved to get the man on the roof (in a stretcher) and to then lower him down, we can see that this would have almost seemed like an impossible task. But they were determined. Faith is always determined.

There is an old saying that faith can move mountains and in many ways it is true. One of the greatest attributes of faith is determination - determination in the face of adversity of all kinds.
The other thing that we learn from these four people of faith is that as a community we bring each other to Jesus. The way we respond to life can inspire others. I remember reading the Memoirs of Hans Kung last year and I was inspired by the faith of this liberal theologian who was stripped of his right to teach Catholic theology because he questioned the infallibility of the Pope (and many other things), but he remained faithful to his belief in Jesus and the Catholic community. Many wonderful theologians have been treated like this but their faith carried them through and many of them were inspirations to their communities and became inspirations to the Church. If they had chosen to walk away look at what we would have lost.

When we remain faithful in spite of personal suffering we become deeply attractive to those around us and it is this faithfulness that has the power to transform a paralytic in whatever circumstances.

Crowd:

The crowd can appear to be innocent in this text but they are anything but innocent.

Again, picture the scene and see the crowd before you. These four men want to bring the paralytic to Jesus but the crowd made it impossible for them to get through. If this crowd was switched on and possessed the faith of these four men they would have stepped aside and let them through. But no, the crowd were focused on themselves and what they might get out of Jesus and no one was going to beat them to it or do them out of something. They were totally self obsessed. But faith will overcome this barrier of selfishness and self centeredness.

This point is very important. Faith in Jesus always presents itself through our love of our neighbour. Its focus will always be for the well being of the other. Pope Benedict says it beautifully in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est. It is placed in a different context (which will be more fitting when we look at the scribes below) but none the less speaks powerfully to the point I am trying to make:

“But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to perform my “religious duties”, then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely “proper”, but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me….. Love of God and love of neighbour are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment”.

The Scribes:

The scribes just don’t get it. All they see in Jesus is a threat. Their religious understanding is built on being “devout” and performing their “religious duties”. Their understanding of God is “arid”. They have no “sensitivity” to God and are closed to any deepening understanding. They do not see the connection between faith, love and neighbour and they accuse the very God they proclaim to believe in, of blasphemy.

It is far more comfortable for us to act devoutly and perform our religious duties and leave it at that, than it is to live a life of faith that always drives us towards a love of our neighbour. A love of neighbour built on faith will make demands upon us. It will demand our determination, it will demand that we lovingly work our way through any obstacles that block us from the truth regardless of the personal cost. The temptation for us all is to hide behind the religious duties and being devout because it is so much easier. When we do this we become “arid” like the scribes. Surely this is not what we want?

We hear in the gospel that Jesus heals the paralytic because of the faith of the four men. This highlights for us how important we are to each other and for each other. There will be times in all of our lives when we are like the paralytic, or the four men, or the crowd or the scribes. If our faith is such that we then acknowledge our responsibility for each other and live this responsibility then we too will cry out to our God, “We have never seen anything like this.”

During the coming week then, we might open our hearts to Jesus and pray for an increase in faith knowing as Paul did in our Second Reading that our God can only say “Yes” to the promises God made to us.

Do we have the courage to pray such a prayer?

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Weekly Reflection: Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Lev 13:1-2, 44-46
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 31:1-2.5.11. R.v. 7
Second Reading: 1Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Gospel: Mark 1:40-45

Today’s gospel invites us to look very deeply at our lives and what we believe.

When we read the gospel who does the leper represent for us today?

There are two answers to this question. Firstly, the leper could not be part of his community because he was considered unclean (many skin disorders and other circumstances came under this category of “unclean” not just leprosy). So he was deliberately alienated from his community by the laws of the day until his skin was healed.

Who are the lepers in our congregations today?

Many divorced people still suffer this alienation in the church today although it appears steps are slowly being taken to rectify this. The other group that stands out are the homosexual community. Church laws as they stand at this time alienate both of these groups of people under particular circumstance. These laws have caused much suffering and heartbreak for so many faithful people as they have endeavoured to live loving lives but in doing so have been rejected by a church that has meant so much to them. The very people that we outcast with our laws of rejection are the people that Jesus welcomes – this is evident right through the gospels. Why is it so hard for us to learn this fundamental lesson?

Secondly, the leper asks us to look at the leper in ourselves and represents for us our separation from God. The leper invites us today to get in touch with our longing to be in communion with our God and to learn that it is God’s longing for us that sparks this longing in us. We are not the instigators of this longing we are the recipients, but it does require our response. We must learn here that it is not God who alienates us from Gods self but we alienate ourselves from this communion of Love that we see so beautifully present in Jesus.

This was powerfully pictured in a recent TV programme on the life CS Lewis. It spoke of his atheism as a young man and his sheer determination to remain an atheist. But he also spoke of being hunted by the “hound of heaven” who relentlessly pursued him until Lewis could no longer resist and he eventually and initially reluctantly converted to Christianity.

We long to be whole and the yearning in our hearts indicates that our wholeness is only partial. The leper knew this and wanted to be healed – he wanted to be whole. He knew Jesus could do this for him but he wasn’t sure if Jesus wanted to do it. Jesus responds to him saying: “Of course I want to”

So what do we learn here?

One of the biggest obstacles we face in a culture that is self obsessed is that we look to ourselves for all the answers. We think our wholeness will be found in ourselves and by our own efforts. We can come to see ourselves as the centre of this search and often all we are doing is feeding our own egos. If we choose to follow this path then it is the path of delusion and it will not lead us to wholeness, it will lead to a greater emptiness.

One of the first things we must do is to acknowledge our helplessness and to ask to be shown what it is in us that separates us from what we long for most in this life. We often are the worst judges of who we are and can be so blind to what separates us from our God. God is Love and so then all that is not love within us is what separates us from God. We can be very blind to what is not love within us and today’s gospel tells us that we must come “pleading on our knees to Jesus.” We are to come pleading even when we may not know what it is that we are pleading for.

The longing within us is deeply mysterious. We often don’t understand it but at the same time we are drawn into it. It is a bit like hearing a magnificent piece of music in a language or words that we may not understand, but something about the music penetrates our hearts and draws us into its beauty and profoundly affects us. We want to hear it again and again even though we don’t really understand it. If we liken that music to God it may help our understanding here. Of ourselves we cannot create the music, it comes from beyond ourselves. But it evokes a response from us. We must believe that God wants us to respond, that God longs for this communion.

But we must also be tuned into what our faith asks of us if we are to respond. If all we think about is ourselves then we will not hear the music because we are too tuned into ourselves and the music we are trying to create, when really all we are doing is creating an awful static that blocks us from hearing what we are really meant to hear. It is a call to let go of ourselves and to look at Jesus knowing that he wants to heal us. This letting go is foreign in our modern day culture but when we can let go through God’s grace, then we will find that it is Jesus who will penetrate the depths of our hearts and draw us more deeply into this great mystery.

Over the coming week we may remember to pray throughout our days that beautiful and well known prayer by St. Augustine which has nurtured people through the centuries. Let us pray that we can make it our own prayer and that it may help heal the leper in us:

"You have made us for yourself O God,
and my heart is restlessuntil it rests in you"