January 26, 2011, Homily, February 2, 2011.

Mark 9; 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.

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 cured 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 him, "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 an 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 she should be given something to eat.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Parallels: the woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. The little girl was twelve.

Jesus did not see the woman touch. The girl was not conscious when Jesus cured her.

The crowd did not witness woman's cure. The crowd was did not witness the girl's cure.

Jesus cured each "immediately".

Both the woman and Jairus, the synagogue official, fell at the feet of Jesus.

January 22, 1011, Homily, January 25, 2011.

Mark 16:15-18[19-20]

Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
[Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and proclaimed the word through accompanying signs.]
The Gospel of the Lord.

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the Apostle [April 25, 2009 is the Feast of St. Mark, the evangelist, the writer of the earliest Gospel] who truly went out into the whole world and proclaimed the Gospel to every creature.

The words of the bishop to the ordinandi, priests and deacons:
Read the Gospel. Believe what you read. Preach what you believe. Practice what you preach.

From today's The Anchoress: I found myself thinking once again about what James Joyce said about the Catholic Church: “here comes everybody!” It pleases me to no end that counted among our priests are not only the elegant Joseph Ratzingers and the gregarious Timothy Dolans, but the tough-talking John Corapis and streetfighters like Isaac Relyea, too.

Rumer Godden once wrote that the lovely thing about the Catholic church is that you could “find anyone in it, ‘from a tramp to a king;’ the cliche happens to be correct.”

Then again, why shouldn't that be true? We’re all tramps and kings, aren’t we, depending on where we are in any given hour?

And He shall be called Emmanuel which means God is with us. Jesus said that He “would be with us all days, even to the end of the world.” This Gospel teaches us that God is in three persons. For when the apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus taught them "The Our Father" which is a prayer directly to God the Father, whom Jesus directed us to call "Abba" or "Daddy". And at the end of this Gospel we are told that Jesus "was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God" for a mediator sits at the right hand of the ruler; in one version of the Confiteor we Pray, "Lord Jesus, you plead for us at the right hand of the Father". Jesus explains in John 14 that if He does not leave then the Father will not send the Advocate, the holy spirit in the name of Jesus, to teach us and to remind us of all that Jesus has told us.

January 18, 2011, Homily, Saturday, January 22, 2011.

Mark 3:20-21.

Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again, the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."

The Gospel of the Lord.

They said Jesus was "out of his mind". In effect they called Jesus "crazy". Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. Think for yourself. If you are right, have the courage of your conviction, and stick with it, no matter what you are called. Yes, we may be persuaded by logic, but never by mere name-calling.

Einstein:

Either nothing is a miracle or everything is.

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe.

The point of Mark's Gospel is set forth in its first words, "The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." The point of Mark's Gospel is that Jesus was the Son of God. Mark proves that point by what Jesus did, his miracles ending in his Passion, death and resurrection and by what He said.

God does not see as man sees, for man judges by appearances but God looks within.

"He is out of his mind." The word "He" is a pronoun which in Greek can mean either "he", "she" or "it" depending on context. The Gospel translators said the Greek pronoun meant "he" but in fact it makes more sense to translate the pronoun as meaning "it", in that "It [the crowd, not 'He" Jesus] is out of its [not his] mind."

I knew a man who had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. On his discharge he went drinking with a few of his old friends. When a argument arose among them, one of them dismissed some opinion of his by saying he was only a madman anyway. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I’m the only man here who can prove that he’s sane!” “Prove it then!” they challenged. He invited bets, and when he had secured bets of several pints of Guinness he put his hand in his pocket and drew out the certificate of discharge from the psychiatric hospital. It stated there in black and white that he was sane!

Who is sane and who is mad? Today’s reading is ambiguous, though the translations all say that it was Jesus who was mad. But a scholar noted that the Greek could also be translated, “they (the family) set about controlling it (the crowd) because it was beside itself.” (In Greek the word for ‘he’ and the word ‘it’ are the same in this case.) Was Jesus mad, or was the crowd mad? But what’s the difference? The contrast between them is the same whether Jesus is described as mad and the crowd as sane, or Jesus is described as sane and the crowd as mad. But look at who’s calling Jesus mad. The crowd – the same people who once said to him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a devil?” (John 8:48). So you have a choice: do you want to identify with the crowd calling Jesus mad, or with Jesus calling the crowd mad? Who do you believe in your heart of hearts?

What is madness but a definition by some group who are probably madder themselves? In the 4th century, Abba Antony, the founder of monasticism, said: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”

Posted by Daniel Murphy at 4:19 AM

January 14, 2011. Homily, January 18, 2011

Mark 2:23-28

As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. At this the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?" He said to them, "Have you ever read what David did when he was in need and he and his comp;anions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering which only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?" THen he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath."

Luke 6:1-5

Mark 2:23-38

Matthew 12:1

His disciples were picking the heads of grain [reaping/harvesting], rubbing them in their hands [threshing; removing the chaff from the grain {winnowing}], and eating them [preparing food]. reaping [harvesting], gleaning [to collect the leavings from a field], winnowing [to blow away the chaff], threshing [rubbing the grain in one's hands, to crush the wheat head thus separating the grain from the chaff/husks]

Under the Old Testament, one could go through one's neighbor's fields and take grain by hand but could not use a sickle, but this was the sabbath where no work was permitted.

The Pharisees were spying on Jesus and the disciples and made this charge. Jesus did not deny it; instead he defended it; in the end by saying that He, Son of Man, was Lord of the sabbath. And 1 Samuel 21, David received showbread from the high priest of the Temple, Ahimelech the priest of Nob.

Jesus also restored to the people the true meaning of the Sabbath. Look at verse 27. “Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’” In the clutter of detailed rules derived by the Pharisees, the original purpose and meaning of the Sabbath had been lost. With this one word, Jesus restored to them God’s purpose for the Sabbath (Gen 2:3; Ex 20:8-11). God did not give the Sabbath to burden man. God gave the Sabbath to bless man. The Sabbath is a gift from God, a day of rest to restore man's body, mind and spirit after a week of hard work. It was not given to oppress man, but to edify and heal and encourage man. The Sabbath was made for man.

Posted by Daniel Murphy at 6:14 PM

January 10, 2011. Homily, January 11, 2011

Monday, January 11, 2010

January 11, 2010. Homily, January 12, 2010.

Mark 1:21-28

Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers, and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are- the Holy One of God!" Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him." His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Modern writers usually begin with the key idea and work down from it or save the best point for last and build up to it. Ancient authors, however, used many methods, one of which was placing the key element in the middle of the passage to create what commentators commonly call the necklace effect.

They lead us to the central point of the passage - that Jesus Christ is "the Holy One of God".

center - the Holy One of God

1 cried out with a loud cry

2 astonished amazed

3 taught as one having authority teaching with authority

4 entered the synagogue and taught fame spread throughout

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Posted by Daniel Murphy at 11:55 AM

January 4, 2011. Homily, January 8, 2011.

John 3, 22-30.

Jesus and His disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing. John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned. Now a dispute arose between the disciples of John and a Jew bout ceremonial washings. So they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him." John answered and said, "No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Christ, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease."

The Gospel of the Lord.

John’s gospel makes the ministries of Jesus and John the Baptist overlap, while Mark says (1:14) that it was only after John had been put in prison that Jesus began his own ministry. John’s gospel may have wanted to put them together in order to contrast them.

"No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven.” Our own agendas are mostly maps for a low horizon, for who can know the future? God has more in store for us than we dare imagine - more and different, and more hazardous, and more wonderful. Our Faith does not tell us that we will get only what we bargain for, or what we deserve; it tells us that everything is gift.

“No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven” (v. 27). In another translation it says: “One can lay claim only to what is given by God.” This is something you could spend days thinking about – or perhaps a lifetime. We generally lay claim only to things we believe we have achieved by our own effort. Everything else we call luck, or chance...or ‘providence’. But this reading suggests that the things most distinctively my own are the purest gift of God; the more they are mine the more they are God's, the more they are God's the more they are mine.

If a person’s work is to live, it must come from the depths of him – not from alien sources outside himself – but from within.”

"[T]he best man who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete." Elizabeth to Mary at the Visitation, "When the infant in my womb heard your voice, he leaped for joy."

When the priest, or the deacon, mixes the water and the wine, he says, "By the mixing of this water and wine, we join in your divinity as you have joined in our humanity."

Among those born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist, yet the one who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.

January 2, 2011, Homily, January 4, 2011

Mark 6:34-44

When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already very late. Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat." He said to them in reply, "Give them some food yourselves." But they said to him, "Are we to buy two hundred days' wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?" He said to them, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." And when they had found out they said, "Five loaves and two fish." So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties. Then taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish. Those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Mk 8:1-9 the feeding of the four thousand.

All four gospels include the story of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. Mark's Gospel has two versions of which this (Mk. 6:34-44) is the first [five thousand men, five laves, two fish, fragments filled seven baskets]; the second is at Mark 8:1-9 [the feeding of the four thousand; seven loaves, fragments filled seven baskets, four thousand people]. John's gospel, fourth and last chronologically, includes it as one of the seven miracles in his Book of Signs (water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana, the curing at a distance of the son of the royal official, the curing on the sabbath of the man ill for 38 years at the pool at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, the feeding of the multitude with five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus walks on the sea, the curing of the man blind from birth, the raising of Lazarus from the dead). John's gospel does not include the breaking of the bread and the consecration of the wine at the Last Supper but does have Jesus give thanks for the bread before he feeds the multitude. Matthew 14:19 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds. Mark 6:17 two hundred denarii [a denarius was a day's wages]. Luke 10:12-17. John has the barley loaves. All agree to the deserted place, to the teaching of Jesus before the miracle, to the 5,000 men, to the 12 baskets of fragments, the synoptic gospels that he looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the bread, and gave it to the disciples to distribute. And the synoptic gospels each have Jesus consecrating and distributing the bread and wine at the Last Supper.

obligatory memorial of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American born saint (1774-1821), md. five children, widowed in Italy, 1805 converted, first Catholic school in Baltimore 1808, founded Sisters of Charity 1812.

Mother Frances Cabrini

Katherine Drexel