July 1^st 2018. Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 5:21-43

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL  Mark 5:21-43
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat
to the other side,
a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea.
One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward.
Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying,
"My daughter is at the point of death.
Please, come lay your hands on her
that she may get well and live."
He went off with him,
and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him.

There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.
She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors
and had spent all that she had.
Yet she was not helped but only grew worse.
She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd
and touched his cloak.
She said, "If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured."
Immediately her flow of blood dried up.
She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him,
turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who has touched my clothes?"
But his disciples said to Jesus,
"You see how the crowd is pressing upon you,
and yet you ask, 'Who touched me?'"
And he looked around to see who had done it.
The woman, realizing what had happened to her,
approached in fear and trembling.
She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth.
He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you.
Go in peace and be cured of your affliction."

While he was still speaking,
people from the synagogue official's house arrived and said,
"Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?" 
Disregarding the message that was reported,
Jesus said to the synagogue official,
"Do not be afraid; just have faith."
He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside
except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official,
he caught sight of a commotion,
people weeping and wailing loudly.
So he went in and said to them,
"Why this commotion and weeping?
The child is not dead but asleep."
And they ridiculed him.
Then he put them all out.
He took along the child's father and mother
and those who were with him
and entered the room where the child was.
He took the child by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum,"
which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!"
The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around.
At that they were utterly astounded.
He gave strict orders that no one should know this
and said that she should be given something to eat.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . There are two ill women in the Gospel, one at the point of becoming a woman, and the other whose womanhood has suffered for twelve years. How are these women going to have their lives restored? The little girl is the daughter of the head of the synagogue. Can the Old Testament norms save her now? The other woman has spent all her money on doctors. Can human science or wisdom resolve her problem? St Paul says that the Jews look for miracles whilst the Greeks search for wisdom. These are the two avenues that we tend to go down when we are seeking for salvation. Either we follow the religious instinct, with its search for miracles; or we rely on human wisdom and try to resolve things rationally. The Gospel reveals, however, that it is only when we make contact with Christ (“foolishness” for the rationalist and a “stumbling block” for the religious instinct) that we can attain authentic life. The girl is healed when her father allows Jesus to become her father by laying his healing hands upon her. The woman is healed when she makes physical contact with the Lord. How do we respond to our losses of blood, our emptiness, our crises? With religious practices that are nothing more than our own actions? With the following of solutions that are based simply on human wisdom? Only relationship with Christ our Saviour can bring true redemption!

Two women are in need of life. How are they to attain it?

This Sunday we hear the stories of two women. One is a girl of twelve years old, whilst the other is a lady of unknown age who has suffered a very personal ailment for twelve years. The girl - at the point of becoming a woman – is dying, whilst the other is not able to live her femininity because of her condition. The first reading has a most important passage from Wisdom in which we are told that God did not create death and he does not rejoice in the destruction of the living. Instead he created things so that they might exist. The first thing God calls us to do is to live! We might have many tortured decisions to make but the primary thing for us to do is to live well. We are created for incorruptibility, to endure, to have authentic life. This raises the question of the real challenge facing these two women, one very young, the other an adult.

The girl’s father is head of the synagogue. Can the norms of the old law save his daughter?

In the case of the girl, her father implores Jesus to come and lay his hands upon his daughter. But this is no ordinary father – he is the head of the synagogue. In the Hebrew world, the act of laying hands was very much an act reserved exclusively to the father. For example, in the story of Isaac and Esau we see the relevance of the imposition of hands, which is the moment of the consignment of the inheritance. In the Gospel, Jairus has a daughter who is unable to become a woman. She is twelve years of age, the age at which womanhood begins to manifest itself with the beginning of the menstrual cycle. In the Jewish world, it was an age that marked the passage to adulthood. But this little girl is not going to make it to adulthood, it seems. The father is unable to help her and he turns to Jesus. He is head of the synagogue, immersed in all of the knowledge and norms of the Old Testament, but these norms now seem sterile as he watches his daughter die. The father understands that it is Jesus who can give new life. This responsibility must pass from him to Jesus. He must open himself to a new way of doing things.

The woman has spent a fortune of human wisdom, on doctors and medical help. Can human wisdom save her?

At the same time, we hear the story of this lady who has had a haemorrhage for twelve years. The passage remarks that she has suffered much, not from the haemorrhage itself, but at the hands of many doctors! These doctors attempt to solve her problem using human wisdom, but this lady has a problem that human wisdom is unable to deal with. One can spend all the money in the world trying to resolve one’s difficulties but without effect. It is interesting to parallel this text with the passage from St Paul from 1 Corinthians: “The Jews look for miracles and the Greeks seek wisdom”. Religions tend to have a moralistic aspect to them, but this is not the approach of Christ who operates by grace. We are asked to go beyond the religious instinct, beyond righteousness in the religious sense, beyond rites and devotions that remain solely our own actions. We need the second person of the Trinity to intervene. This head of the synagogue must learn to accept that he is impotent. But we do not need to go beyond simply the religious instinct. We must also go beyond rationality. As St Paul says, the cross of Christ is foolishness to Greeks. Rationality - the wisdom of men – has not healed this woman. Rather it has ruined her materially.

Neither religious practices nor human wisdom can save us. Only contact with Jesus, our true saviour, can bring us to life

How do we respond to our losses of blood, to the emptiness that we encounter, the unexpected tribulations that come our way? Do we respond with the religious instinct, the search for miracles, the mixing of elements of different faiths, or with immature and infantile religious practices? Christ does not bring this. He brings relationship. A father who is no longer able to be a father must accept that the only true father is God. He must consign his fatherhood to Christ. And the woman must touch the Lord, come to life because she has made contact with him. Not with wisdom, not with understanding, not with projects. How often we try to base our pastoral work on sociology, on profound analyses of our problems, but we still do not arrive at life because we have not touched the Lord. We must touch his mantle, have a real experience of him. We must be in contact with his life because it is his life that heals ours. Human wisdom does not provide the solution. It is eminently useful for understanding things, but not for saving things! For salvation we must turn to our only Saviour.

 June 24^th 2018. The Birth of John the Baptist

GOSPEL   Luke 1: 57-66, 80

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL   Luke 1: 57-66, 80
A reading from the holy Gospel according to  Luke 1:57-66. 80
The time came for Elizabeth to have her child, and she gave birth to a son; and when her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had shown her so great a kindness, they shared her joy.

Now on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up. ‘No,’ she said ‘he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name’, and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God. All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea. All those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him. Meanwhile the child grew up and his spirit matured. And he lived out in the wilderness until the day he appeared openly to Israel.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . This Sunday we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. His relatives want to give him the name of his father, Zechariah, but Elizabeth insists that he be given the new name indicated by the angel. This is a name that has never before occurred in the family. We see here that God is doing something new. And he wishes to do something new in your life as well. If we are to be open to his redeeming activity, we must stop being fixated with the “old names” and be receptive to the Lord’s grace in the present moment. There is an interplay of names in this Gospel passage. “Zechariah” means “God remembers the past” whilst “John” means “God bestows his grace now”. The whole event of the naming of John the Baptist is filled with symbolism which indicates that the Lord is doing something dramatically new. And he wishes to do the same new things in our lives too! Actually, it is not so much that he does new things as he makes all things new. It is important that we remember, respect and heal the past, but all of this process must be directed towards being receptive to the saving work of God in my life in this very moment.

The relatives of Zechariah want to name the new baby after their father. But God wants to give this child a new name. Something new is happening. And if we are to open ourselves to the action of God in our lives, then we too must be open to inbreaking of God

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist. The time has come for the birth of Elizabeth’s son and the end of her shame. The theme of the passage that we read on Sunday is very much centred on the issue of naming the child. The relatives want to call the child after his father, Zechariah. However Zechariah is unable to speak because he has been punished for his unbelief in the words spoken to him by the angel. He is unable to express himself, but Elizabeth insists that the child be called John, even though no-one in the family had this name. Already this is sufficient for our theme! The fact that a new name is being given is an indication that the plan of God is beginning to come into operation. With the birth of John the Baptist, the New Testament commences. Something new is under way, and that is how it is for anyone who wishes to seriously follow the Lord Jesus. Names must be changed. Things must be different than how they were previously in the family. The fact is that all of us have familial rituals that demand obedience, things that must be done in the same old way that they have always be done. But no! We can change the name of things, and if we don’t change them then they will always stay the same. If we do not change our horizons then we will end up going around continually in the same old circles. The Lord Jesus must come and he sends his precursor ahead of him; this is the sign of a development that will alter the course of history. If redemption is to come to my door, then I cannot go on the same old way as before, with the same system of thinking as previously. The name of things must be changed and it can no longer be the old name used in the family.

There is an interplay of names in this passage. “Zechariah” means “God remembers the past”, whilst “John” means “God bestows grace now”. We are called to respect the past, but we do so in a way that is totally oriented to opening our hearts to God’s activity in the present.

The family want to call the child by the father’s name, but Zechariah calls for a means of writing and lets it be known that his name shall be John. As soon as he shows this obedience to the words of the angel, his tongue is loosened. Zechariah has understood that his own name will not be given to this son, and that something greater than his narrow interests has begun to take place. Let us look at the situation a little more closely. There is an interplay here between the two names. Zechariah means “God remembers the past”. Remembering is the theme of the liturgy. Liturgy helps to preserve the memory of the history of Israel. The Passover is the act of remembering the event of liberation. This glorious past is something that must not be forgotten. It often seems the parameter by which our present must be interpreted. But no! This is not the full story at all! The name John means “God bestows grace upon us now”. God at this moment is responding to us with grace. Thus in the interplay of these two names, we make a transition from the past to the present. God is doing something new. As the second letter to the Corinthians states, we no longer need to think of the things of the past. Whoever is in Christ is a new creation. As St Paul says in another place, “I no longer look to the past but I race to the future towards the goal that is set before me”. In other words, we cannot open ourselves to the redemption until we open our hearts and look at what God is doing in our hearts right now. It is not exactly that God needs to do new things: rather, God makes all things new. He gives a new sound, a new heart, a new taste to all of reality. So we should stop thinking that all the great events have already happened. Some people think that the first or second century was when all the significant things occurred, but the century with the greatest number of martyrs was the most recent one! The time in which God is operating is right now! Christians must always live in the present. As Jesus says, do not anguish yourselves about tomorrow, what we will eat or drink or wear; it is the pagans who worry about these things. As Jesus says in the Gospel of St John, he who is born of the Spirit, hears his voice, like the wind, but he does not know where it comes from. We must root ourselves in the God who bestows grace now in unexpected ways. Memory is something very important. It must be cared for and healed. But all of this should be directed at opening our hearts to the activity of God in this moment.

When we are in the process of discernment, we must not be burdened with the expectations of others or the events of the past. Let us open ourselves to the grace of God in this present moment.

With John the Baptist, the activity of God begins. A child is born, something new begins. Often, when a child is born, we have to hope that the aspirations of parents and relatives will allow this child to be himself; that the family will allow him to live his own life instead of living theirs. When young people are trying to discern what to do with their lives, it is very important to relieve them of this burden of the expectations of others. We have to let them know that their name is John and not Zechariah; that God does new things; that God can bring redemption no matter what errors they have made in their lives; that the Lord can make a sterile woman give birth and open the mouth of the dumb, as we see in this Gospel. We can be confident that the Lord bestows his grace now. Let us open ourselves to the grace of God in this present moment.

 June 17^th 2018. Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL   Mark 4:26-34

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL   Mark 4:26-34
Jesus said to the crowds: ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time: he starts to reap because the harvest has come.’

He also said, ‘What can we say the kingdom of God is like? What parable can we find for it? It is like a mustard seed which at the time of its sowing in the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet once it is sown it grows into the biggest shrub of them all and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade.’

Using many parables like these, he spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it. He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone.

The Gospel of the Lord.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The readings this week present analogies from the world of agriculture. When a farmer sows a seed, it develops a shoot and produces its fruit according to the rhythm of the creator, not according to our impulses. And so it is with the spiritual life. We must respect the rhythm of God in our spiritual development. Just as a farmer cannot expect a plant to produce its fruit instantly, neither can we expect to become like St Francis overnight. And we shouldn’t expect anyone else to become saints in a few easy stages either! It is very damaging to try to force progress in spiritual matters, whether in ourselves or in others. In bioethical matters, it is extremely grave to try to make ourselves the masters of life, deciding when it begins or how it should evolve. And the same is true in matters of faith. God is the author of all things and we must respect his plan and his timing. Our task is not to coerce how things move along, but to respond to what the Lord is doing in our lives. Don’t worry if things begin humbly and appear to be moving slowly! The things of God are often of this sort but become solid, mature and fruitful. The things that are not of God, by contrast, often begin spectacularly but end in disaster. Let us allow ourselves to be carried along by the designs of God!

The liturgy this week presents us with analogies from the world of agriculture

The readings for Sunday speak about horticultural matters. This might seem a banal theme but in reality it is a very serious one. In the first reading from chapter 17 of the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord puts an analogy before his people. He will take a shoot from a cedar tree and plant it on top of the highest mountain. It will become a magnificent tree and demonstrate to all that it is the Lord who makes short trees grow tall and humiliates the great trees. The Lord alone governs these matters. Similarly, in the Gospel. Jesus presents two facts from the world of agriculture. When a sower throws seed on the land, the harvest that results has little to do with the qualities of the man who planted it. The seed produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the grain in the ear. Jesus also holds up the example of the mustard seed, which is tiny but becomes the greatest of shrubs.

Jesus uses parables from everyday life because the life of faith has a dynamism that reflects the rhythm of other things in God’s creation

What is his point? At the end of the Gospel we are told: “He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone.” There is a sense in which the discourse of Jesus is veiled and is in need of interpretation. The reading from Ezekiel and the parables from Mark point to the fact that life has its own internal mechanism. Life has a dynamic of its own that cannot either be forced or disregarded. The mustard seed does not jump from being a seed to being a great tree in a single stage. It must first produce a shoot and go through other stages before becoming fruitful. And our spiritual life has a similar pattern. Jesus speaks in parables because – as John Paul II explained in a beautiful homily – all of the world is a parable. All of the world speaks to us of what the Lord wishes to accomplish in us. Life in general has a dynamism that parallels the life of faith.

Just as a seed evolves through its various stages, so too our spiritual lives must be allowed to evolve gradually. It is damaging to try to aspire to the spiritual heights before we are ready

The first point is that life belongs to God. It is God who makes the little tree grow great and brings the great tree low. We like to think that we are in control of our existence. We yearn to govern the progress of our lives, but so often we find that the control we seek has slipped away from us. We discover that life has a rhythm that is different to the one that we would like to impose on it. When we seek to rebel against the logic of life – and this is also a very grave bioethical issue - we find that life rebels against us. We have the delirium of thinking that we can govern and manipulate biological life in all of its stages, failing to realize that life has its own internal wisdom that must be respected. The same is true in the spiritual life. Just as a seed must be allowed to evolve through its gradual stages, so too any forced advancement in spiritual matters is extremely damaging. There is an essential gradualism in matters both anthropological and theological. It is not beneficial to take a person and place him in a situation that is too mature for him. The essential point is that we cannot dictate how things must progress; instead our task is to welcome the situation as it naturally evolves. The spiritual life progresses according to a rhythm that is given only by God. It is a terrible thing when we seek to dictate our spiritual evolution ourselves, aspiring to become like Saint Francis in four easy steps. The illusion that we can attain advanced spiritual development in a short time will only lead to frustration. This consideration is even more important when it comes to dealing with others. We must respect the natural rhythm of spiritual progress. It is damaging to expect them to make a particular spiritual step in response to our hurry. Haste does not lead to productive results, neither in biological matters nor in spiritual ones.

The things of God begin simply but become solid and mature, whilst the things that are not of God often begin spectacularly but end in disaster

That which begins humbly leads to something great. And so it is with the Kingdom of God. We tend to seek that which is glorious and victorious, that which imposes itself upon others, but the Lord wills that his designs begin humbly and evolve in step with his rhythm. Say that a farmer wants his tree to produce its harvest two months earlier than usual: anything he does to try to coerce the tree to deliver up its fruit in advance will have little effect; the fruit comes when it comes. The things of God progress according to his timing, whether we like it or not. These things of the Lord are humble but immensely powerful, whereas the things that are not of God often begin impressively but end in disaster. As with the wedding feast of Cana, the things of the Lord reserve the best wine until last, whilst the things of the world are sweet at the beginning and bitter afterwards. The things of the Lord, begin humbly but become solid and fruitful, whilst the projects that are not of God initiate in a spectacular fashion but disappoint at the end. These mundane things do not go towards eternity but towards death. Let us allow our lives to be carried along by the wisdom of God!

June 10^th 2018. Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 3:20-35

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL  Mark 3:20-35
Jesus went home with his disciples, and such a crowd collected that they could not even have a meal. When his relatives heard of this, they set out to take charge of him, convinced he was out of his mind.

The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘Beelzebul is in him,’ and, ‘It is through the prince of devils that he casts devils out.’ So he called them to him and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot last. And if a household is divided against itself, that household can never stand. Now if Satan has rebelled against himself and is divided, he cannot stand either – it is the end of him. But no one can make his way into a strong man’s house and burgle his property unless he has tied up the strong man first. Only then can he burgle his house.

‘I tell you solemnly, all men’s sins will be forgiven, and all their blasphemies; but let anyone blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and he will never have forgiveness: he is guilty of an eternal sin.’ This was because they were saying, ‘An unclean spirit is in him.’

His mother and brothers now arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ‘Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.’ He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus tells us in this Sunday’s Gospel that we cannot make compromises with evil. If we wish to be liberated from sin, then it is only Christ that can liberate us authentically. Any other means of “liberation” will not be genuine. It is only Christ that can bind up the “strong man” of evil and free us from sin. At the end of the Gospel, Jesus appears to make a negative comment on his family. He says that his real family are not those according to the flesh but those who do the will of God. But this is actually a hymn of praise to his mother! The Church Fathers tell us that she is even more his mother according to faith than according to the flesh, because she is the one who believed and submitted to the will of God in such a perfect manner. The overall message of the Gospel is this: we must be freed from all dependencies on sin, on flesh, on familial ties, and our freedom allows us to follow the will of God. Only Jesus can liberate us from these dependencies. Once we are free, then, like Mary, we are enabled to enter into full communion with others. Then, like Mary, we will be brothers, sisters and mother of Jesus. While we remain in sin, we are not in communion even with those who are right next to us!

The Gospel tells us that there can be no compromise with evil. If we want to be liberated from evil, then we must embrace the only good - Jesus

The liturgy for the tenth Sunday of ordinary time has readings that are acute, profound and serious, although not readily comprehensible. The first reading contains the dialogue between the Lord and our first parents after the original sin. The serpent is cursed and we are told that the offspring of the woman will crush its head. Between the offspring of the woman and that of the serpent there will be enmity. “I will make you enemies of each other”, we are told. This enmity is actually a gift! It is a gift to consider evil to be an alien thing; it is a gift to be no longer under the sway of something that we once considered to be to our advantage. The history of the first sin consisted in the delusion of believing something to be good that was actually evil, of considering disobedience to God to be something beneficial. The fact is that there is no acceptable middle ground between good and evil. The Didache – one of the most ancient texts from the early Church – begins in this manner: “The ways of man are two in number: one is the way of life and the other is the way of death, and the difference between these two ways is great”. In the Gospel, Jesus is accused of being possessed by Beelzebul, of casting our demons through the power of the demon. The response of Jesus is uncompromising. Satan cannot do good. The most he can do is act for a false good, or convince us that something that is actually evil is good, or hide himself within something good so that it eventually leads to evil. But a man cannot enter the house of a strong man unless he has first tied up the strong man. What is needed is someone stronger than evil, someone who opposes evil, and this is who Jesus is. Jesus is the light who vanquishes darkness. Jesus does not do things in half measures, and with sin and vice one cannot use half measures. God cannot liberate us from sin unless we want to be liberated. We don’t wake up in the morning and find that we are freed from some vice as if by magic. The Lord asks our permission and the permission we give must be true and authentic. We cannot be liberated from slavery unless we hate that state of enslavement. Often we love our enslavement because we actually enjoy being dependent on it. Such dependency can give security whilst freedom has an inherent insecurity about it.

To live in God, I must be freed from every dependency, even the dependency on familial ties in the purely physical sense. Mary is mother of Jesus even more in the faith than in the flesh, because the true nature of her bond with Jesus is more through the power of the Holy Spirit than through physical considerations. I, too, am called to live in God, free from all dependencies. In this way I will be in true communion with others.

This Sunday we focus on the fact that the Lord Jesus is not ambiguous. We cannot seek to make him compatible with things that he is opposed to. We come face to face with the Lord Jesus when we discover the way that he is working in our lives. Each one of us, by the power of the Gospel, is challenged to be liberated and redeemed. This requires that we break away from everything that we are dependent on. It is interesting that in this Gospel the family of Jesus appears and they make certain demands upon Jesus. The mother of the Lord is also present. It is clear that Jesus is focussed on the things that lead to heaven, the things that are directed to his heavenly Father. Jesus responds to the request of his family with the words: “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’”. What might appear at first sight to be a slight on his family and his mother, is actually a hymn of praise to his mother! What Jesus is saying is this: “These relationships that are based on their point of origin no longer have value. All that matters is how the relationship fits within the plan of God. Whoever is faithful to the plan of God enters into relationship with me. The relationships that matter are those that have their origin in the action of the Holy Spirit”. The Fathers of the Church assert that Mary is even more the mother of Christ by faith than by the flesh. Mary first assents to the word of the angel, and it is only in the second instance that she becomes mother according to the flesh. The mission of Christ demands that he fulfil the will of God, not that he be at home with his family. Jesus’ apparent “negation” of the maternity of Mary in this sense actually underlines the fact that Mary is mother of Jesus according to the plan of God. They are tied together by faith and they have no need to be tied together physically in the familial sense. When I am faithful to the plan of God, I am in communion with the angels and the saints, the prophets and all who have ever wished me well. When I am in the faith, I am in communion with my parents who are no longer alive and with friends that I have not seen for a long time. When I am not in the faith, I am not even in communion with those who are right next to me! When I am in God, I am in communion with everyone, but when I am not in God, I am in a state of ambiguity and will not be able to take a single step, either interiorly or exteriorly, towards another person to love them authentically. This Sunday we are called to be liberated from every dependency and every ambiguity, and enter into the life that Jesus has brought through his power and grace

 June 3^rd 2018.  Feast of Corpus Christi

GOSPEL   Mark: 12-16, 22-26

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL   Mark: 12-16, 22-26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples said to him,
"Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?"
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
"Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
'The Teacher says, "Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there."
The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover. While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said,
"Take it; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.Top of Form

Bottom of Form

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Old Covenant required the people to keep the Law of Moses. Human relationships in general demand reciprocal adherence to certain expectations. In reality, we all fail to measure up to some degree in our relationships with God and others. Do these failures mean that unhappiness and dissatisfaction will permanently be out lot? No! Christ Jesus becomes one flesh with us and gives his body and blood in order that we, in him, can finally become faithful. It is only through union in Christ that we can be faithful to God. The sacrament of matrimony is indissoluble only because the grace of God is present therein. Only in Christ does it become indissoluble. In the same way, it is only through Jesus that we can truly be spouses, siblings, colleagues, parents – everything that we are called to be. We might be weak, but we cling as one body to the Lord Jesus who gave his body and blood for us. We are not called to be strong, but to ally ourselves with the One who is strong.

The Old Covenant involved the people of Israel abiding by certain norms

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. The first reading deals with the Old Covenant whilst the Gospel describes the institution of the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus. Blood is mentioned in both texts. In the first reading the people commit themselves on two occasions to abide by the norms of the covenant. This old covenant followed the patterns of other covenants in the near east. Both parties agreed to uphold certain norms, and the agreement was solemnised by the aspersion of blood in a threatening manner. Blood represented life and this ritual signified that the very life of the people was at stake in this event. One side had the right to the life and the blood of the other if the covenant was not respected. In some covenants, it was the sovereign who had the right to the life of the vassal if he did not match up to the demands imposed upon him. There was a threat implicated by any transgression. In the case of Israel the norms were encoded in the ten commandments written upon the two tables of the law. In order for God and the people to maintain their covenant relationship, the people were obliged to keep the law and the Lord would in turn be their saving God. We might think that this relationship was of the archaic sort, but it is actually of a type that still characterizes “horizontal” relationships. Friendships usually involve reciprocal expectations of this sort.

Relationships involve reciprocal commitments, but all of us fail to measure up to some degree

What is the difficulty with this arrangement, indeed with all of our relationships? We are expected to be faithful to certain norms, but in reality no-one manages to measure up fully. We know the importance of authentic relationships, but we still fail. None of us manages to respond in an adequate way to the Lord, and the same goes for all of our other relationships. We are never the friend we ought to be, the husband or child that we ought to be. All of us are inadequate in this sense. Certainly, some people are more consistent and coherent than others, but all of us reveal our cracks and limitations sooner or later. Does this mean that unhappiness and dissatisfaction with ourselves is inevitable?

Our failures prepare us to allow Jesus to enter our lives. Through his sacrifice we are enabled to become, finally, faithful

No, unhappiness is not inevitable! The failures of our covenants is of great importance because it is then that we realize that we can do nothing by ourselves. Into this insufficiency of ours comes the Lord Jesus. The threat of life to him is radically concrete. He gives his life and sheds his own blood. And, in his blood, humanity is enabled, finally, to become faithful. Through the body of Christ we become, not by our own efforts but through grace, not by our own consistency but by pure gift, to enter finally into the covenant. In Christ, a faithful covenant between humanity and God is possible. Why does the sacrament of matrimony involve fidelity and indissolubility? Because the grace of God is present. Without his work we cannot presume that genuine fidelity is possible. Indissolubility cannot be imposed as if it were a human rule, but in Christ it becomes possible. The Father sent his Son so that he would take upon himself the flesh of humanity and make our “Yes” possible. He becomes incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary, whose “Yes” also came by grace, by virtue of the Immaculate Conception. Not only the Virgin Mary but all of humanity has been graced by the visit of the Son of God. Do we think that we can measure up to the demands of God by our own efforts, by gritting our teeth and bringing a spiritual hernia upon ourselves? No, it is the Lord Jesus who is our sanctification and redemption and purification.

Our task is to welcome the Lord into our lives. Only in him can we make an adequate response to God

In welcoming the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist, in becoming one body with him, he becomes in us the faithful ally of God; he is the one who adequately responds to the Covenant. When we eat his body and drink his blood, we become united to him. Our art is to lose ourselves in him, not pretend that we by ourselves can measure up to the Covenant with the Lord. The Holy Spirit within us enables us to live out this great reality. This Sunday we celebrate the Covenant with God in Christ. We can be spouses, siblings, colleagues, parents – everything that we are called to be – in the Lord Jesus. We might be weak, but we cling as one body to the Lord Jesus and life becomes beautiful. We are not called to be strong but to ally ourselves with the One who is strong.