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 Reflection)
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
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