February 8, 2011. Homily, Saturday, February 12, 2011

Mk 8:1-10

In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.’ His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

All four gospels include the story of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. Mark's Gospel has two versions of which this is the second. The first is at Mk. 6:34-44. 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.

February 1, 2011. Homily, Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Mark 7: 1-13

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, "Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?" He responded, "Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:

This people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.

You disregard God's commandments but cling to human tradition." He went on to say, "how well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, 'If someone says to father or mother, "Any support you might have had from me is gorban [meaning, dedicated to God]," you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things."
The Gospel of the Lord.

This is the optional memorial of Jerome Emiliani a Venetian soldier who died of the plague in 1537 and whose conversion in 1534 led to an order dedicated to the poor and the education of youth and of Josephine Bakhita, 1869-1947. "Bakhita" means "lucky one", born in the Sudan, raised a Muslim, kidnapped by slave traders at seven, sold five times in the slave markets in the Sudan, beaten every day, leaving 144 scars on her body, purchased at twelve by the Italian Consul Callisto Legnani, brought to Italy as a nanny, then sent to the Canossian Sisters in Venice, introduced to the faith, baptized Giuseppina, and eventually granted her freedom. In 1896 she joined the Canossian Daughters of Charity, served 25 years as cook, seamstress and portress of their houses in Venice, Verona and Schio, beloved for her sweet nature and beautiful voice, died after a long and painful illness, canonized as the first Sudanese saint by John Paul II October 1, 2000 as a witness to evangelical reconciliation and a model of freedom.

The Pharisees and the scribes are seeking to denigrate or criticize Jesus by criticizing His disciples. The details of the criticism are valid: One should clean one's hands before dining. But the overall intent of the criticism by the Pharisees is not valid, for in focusing on the acts of the disciples of Jesus, the Pharisees and scribes seek to ignore the words of Jesus. We do the same thing in critiquing the story of the creation of the world in Genesis. The point of Genesis is not the details of the seven days; the point of Genesis is that God created the universe and everything in it. The rest of Genesis is poetry. So, here the point of this Gospel is that our worship is in vain if our hearts are far from God. We must not merely honor God with our lips. We must place our hearts close to God. The disciples of Jesus are close to God. The Pharisees and scribes should recognize that the disciples of Jesus are close to God, as does Solomon in his prayer in the first reading, "Lord, there is no God like you. You keep your covenant of mercy with your servants who are faithful to you with their whole heart." That faithfulness is shown in giving God our heart. How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!

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