Author: DVO

God calls each of us to a particular vocation and mission for which we have been created. Some, like the twelve apostles, are called to dedicate their lives in service to God as a priest or in religious orders for women and men who consecrate themselves to the service of the Lord. Others, as Amy Welborn writes, “live quietly within layers and layers of hard work and sacrifice that are poured out in answer to God’s call, working together with the Lord, to build that extravagant place called the Kingdom of God.” In his “great commission,” Jesus told his apostles and all disciples who came after them, to teach everything that he taught to the world. This is the perpetual mission of His Church and each of us. While we’re not all called to be missionaries in foreign lands, all are called to do their part according to their state in life by giving witness to the truths of our One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. The core of this mission is to bring the light and love of Christ to the world and, through our lived examples, preach the saving grace found only in Him and sustained by His Church.

St. John Paul II writes that in giving life to man, God demands that he love, respect, and promote life. The gift thus becomes a commandment, and the commandment is itself a gift. The precepts of the Lord are a gift of grace entrusted to man always and solely for his good, preservation of his personal dignity, and pursuit of his happiness. By working these cures, our Lord shows that he is both God and Man. He cures by his divine power and by using his human nature. In other words, only in the Word of God become man is the work of our Redemption effected, and the instrument God used to save us was the human nature of Jesus—his body and soul—in the unity of the person of the Word. St Thomas Aquinas speaks to this crowding around Jesus, which Christians repeat throughout all time: “The holy human nature of our Lord is our only route to salvation; it is the essential means we must use to unite ourselves to God. Thus, today, we can approach our Lord using the sacraments, especially and pre-eminently, the Eucharist. And through the sacraments there flows to us, from God, through the human nature of the Word, a strength which cures those who receive the sacraments with faith.” Fr. Rolheiser writes that God is not just a noun but also a verb. God is not just a person but also a particular flow of life, receptivity, and gratitude between three persons. Inside of God, there is a kind of family life going on. Jesus has assured us that when we give and receive from each other within a family, when we break open our lives, hearts, joys, frustrations, egos, agendas, and finances and share these with each other, we are letting the life of God flow through us. We are giving skin to the inner life of the Trinity.

In these passages, Christ teaches God’s purpose in instituting the Sabbath: God established it for man’s good, to help him rest and devote himself to divine worship in joy and peace. The Pharisees, through their interpretation of the Law, had turned this day into a source of anguish and scruple due to all the various prescriptions and prohibitions they introduced. By proclaiming himself “lord of the Sabbath,” Jesus affirms his divinity and his universal authority. Because he is lord, he has the power to establish other laws, as Yahweh had in the Old Testament. The Sabbath had been established not only for man’s rest but also to allow him to give glory to God: that is the correct meaning of the expression “the Sabbath was made for man.” Jesus has every right to say he is lord of the Sabbath because he is God. Christ restores to the weekly day of rest its full, religious meaning: it is not just a matter of fulfilling several legal precepts or of concern for physical well-being: the Sabbath belongs to God; it is one way suited to human nature, of rendering glory and honor to the Almighty. The Church, from the time of the apostles onwards, transferred the observance of this precept to the following day, Sunday—the Lord’s Day—in celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

In these passages, Christ teaches God’s purpose in instituting the Sabbath: God established it for man’s good, to help him rest and devote himself to divine worship in joy and peace. The Pharisees, through their interpretation of the Law, had turned this day into a source of anguish and scruple due to all the various prescriptions and prohibitions they introduced. By proclaiming himself “lord of the Sabbath,” Jesus affirms his divinity and his universal authority. Because he is lord, he has the power to establish other laws, as Yahweh had in the Old Testament. The Sabbath had been established not only for man’s rest but also to allow him to give glory to God: that is the correct meaning of the expression “the Sabbath was made for man.” Jesus has every right to say he is lord of the Sabbath because he is God. Christ restores to the weekly day of rest its full, religious meaning: it is not just a matter of fulfilling a number of legal precepts or of concern for physical well-being: the Sabbath belongs to God; it is one way suited to human nature, of rendering glory and honor to the Almighty. The Church, from the time of the apostles onwards, transferred the observance of this precept to the following day, Sunday—the Lord’s Day—in celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

Today, we hear the story of Jesus and his disciples being admonished for not practicing the same ascetical customs as was the habit of John the Baptist and the Pharisees. But Jesus is speaking to a different reality. If our life is full of prayer, fasting, giving alms, and living a good moral life with a healthy concern for social justice, what could be missing? Balance. Fr. Ron Rolheiser notes that “Any journey that takes you towards God will demand, at a point, some vigorous asceticism, some real fasting, a real purification and a disciplined ordering of the countless, obsessive feelings and desires that act through us. We must break what some spiritual masters call ‘the tyranny of the ego.’ We will not get in touch with the deep source of our lives if the activities of our lives are so consuming and obsessive that we can never find an identity and meaning in something beyond them. That is the ultimate reason behind asceticism and fasting of all kinds: we renounce something, even if it is good, in the function of getting in touch with its deeper source, God.” But all of this must be done within a balanced life. As Fr. Rolheiser warns, “Otherwise, like the older brother of the prodigal son, we might succumb to the temptation that T.S. Eliot describes, ‘The last temptation that’s the greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason.’ We do not just need the right truth, and we also need the right energy.”

One of the earliest heresies that the Christian church fought was Marcionism, the conviction that Jesus should be interpreted in abstraction from the Old Testament. Bishop Robert Barron writes that the categories that the Gospel writers used to present Jesus as the Christ were, almost exclusively, drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures. John the Baptist offers one of the most important interpretive keys of the New Testament: We hear John the Baptist proclaim, in response to meeting Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Jesus will play the role of the sacrificial lambs offered in the temple, and through a sacrifice, take away the sins of the world. One reason that people today have such a difficult time appreciating Jesus is that we have become, effectively, Marcionites. Fr. Peter Yungwirth writes that the message of John wasn’t just a proclamation for one time, for one people. It continues to be effective as we encounter this mystery at each and every Mass: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. And when we hear these words today, what do we see? The Body and Blood of Christ are sacramentally present before us. The Lamb of God has come among men once again. This time, though, He has not come to our fathers, but rather to us. He has come to set us free and save us from our enemies. In His compassion, He has come to be with us so that we might come to the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of our sins. He has come among us as a rising Sun that continues to dawn in our lives, scattering the darkness of our sins, and guiding us into the way of peace…Lord, only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

Jesus gazes at this man and says simply, “Follow me.” Bishop Robert Barron asks, “Did Jesus invite Matthew because the tax collector merited it? Was Jesus responding to some hidden longing in the sinner’s heart?” Certainly not. Grace, by definition, comes unbidden and without explanation. In Caravaggio’s magnificent painting of this scene, Matthew responds to Jesus’ summons by pointing incredulously to himself and wearing a quizzical expression, as if to say, “Me? You want me?” The hand of Christ in Caravaggio’s picture is adapted from the hand of God the Father in Michelangelo’s depiction of the creation of man on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Just as creation is ex nihilo, so conversion is a new creation. Matthew immediately gets up and follows the Lord. But where does he follow him? To a banquet! “While he was at table in his house…” is the first thing we read after the declaration that Matthew followed him. Before he calls Matthew to do anything, Jesus invites him to recline in easy fellowship around a festive table. As Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis comments, “The deepest meaning of Christian discipleship is not to work for Jesus but to be with Jesus.”

Known by many as an evocative late sixties song, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” was, in fact, a take on the motto for Boys Town, the community for troubled or homeless boys founded by Fr. Edward Flanagan in 1917. Fr. Flanagan had seen the phrase in a magazine, along with the drawing of a boy carrying a younger boy on his back. He sought permission to commission a statue of the drawing with the inscription, “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s my brother.” It’s a powerful phrase that draws us in, knowing that we occasionally need to carry others amid their pain in our lives. There are also times when we need to be carried by others. Fr. Brendan McGuire writes that in today’s Gospel, Jesus commends the four men’s faith who carried the paralytic man and the man himself. Faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith is openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite. It should be evident that in dealing with the infinite, all-powerful person who is God, we are never in control. Jesus healed the paralytic first of his sins and then of his physical ailment, giving us the clear message that our spiritual healing is of the highest importance. There are times in our lives when we are like the paralytic, crippled in our relationship with God. Sometimes, we know we have made mistakes, and there is distance in our relationship with God. And so, we ask for forgiveness. There are other times when we carry others to God for healing. They are unable to get there themselves because they are paralyzed in one way or another. Can we open our eyes and find the compassion within our hearts to carry them? They’re not heavy. In Christ, they’re our brothers and sisters. “Oh, what needless burdens we bear when we fail to take them to God in prayer.”

Our Gospel from Mark today concerns Jesus’ healing of a leper. The man who knelt before Jesus and begged for a cure was not simply concerned about his medical condition; he was an Israelite in exile from the temple, and hence, he was a very apt symbol of the general condition of scattered, exiled, wandering Israel. Living in the world without being exposed to its chaotic and unyielding nature is impossible. There are no desert places to spare us its contact. Having assumed human nature in its totality, Jesus experiences this from the outset of his ministry. Since the crowds come to him, he goes to them, endeavoring with patience and without discouragement to make them understand that he is not the earthly Messiah they are dreaming of. By inopportunely proclaiming his title of Son of God, demons are seeking to discredit him and pretend he is their leader. Whenever demons raise their voices, Jesus silences them. The authority manifested by his teaching and his power over disease and evil spirits unceasingly pose the question of Jesus’ identity. The Christians assembled today undoubtedly know that he is the Son of God, the Good News, the Savior, who took upon himself our sicknesses and sins on the cross: this is the mystery of faith celebrated in the Eucharist. But to celebrate it in spirit and truth requires that we constantly allow ourselves to be purified by the word and touch of the Lord from every stain on our faith, that we accept to be driven ever further by Christ. If we want to belong wholeheartedly to the Lord, we shall often have to make choices contradicting those of the world or those of our immediate small world. But when we set out on the way of freedom and, being all things to all, we share in the work of salvation for God’s glory, with our eyes fixed on Christ, our model. We are then acting in one with the Lord.

Henri Nouwen writes that the words that Jesus spoke in the nearby villages were born in the intimacy with the Father. They were words of comfort and of condemnation, words of hope and of warning, words of unity and division. He dared to speak these challenging words because he did not seek his own glory: We read in John, “If I were to seek my own glory,” he says, “my glory would be worth nothing; in fact, my glory is conferred by the Father, by the one of whom you say ‘He is our God,’ although you do not know him.” Within a few years, Jesus’ words brought about his rejection and death. But the one who had spoken to him in the lonely place raised him up as a sign of hope and new life. When you can create a lonely place in the middle of your actions and concerns, your successes and failures slowly can lose some of their power over you. For then, your love for this world can merge with a compassionate understanding of its illusions. Then, your serious engagement can merge with an unmasking smile. Then, your concern for others can be motivated more by their needs than your own. In short, then you can care. Let us, therefore, live our lives to the fullest, but let us not forget to once in a while get up long before dawn to leave the house and go to a lonely place.