18th Sunday in Ordinary Time – August 5, 2018

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time – August 5, 2018

18B18. Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15. “The whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron” that things were better in Egypt where they had plenty to eat than in the desert where they had been led with so little to eat. God hears their grumbling. So he gives the meat of the quail and the residue from the evaporated dew that was the manna to be eaten like bread from the hand of the Lord.

John 6:24-35. This Gospel follows last Sundays’ Gospel where Jesus had fed the five thousand and they sought him out to make him king so that they could get more of that miraculous meal. Jesus says to them, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” Jesus, answering their question as to what works do they need to do says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” Still seeking again that miraculous meal they ask Jesus to perform a sign or miracle that they may believe in Jesus just as Moses had given the manna. Jesus replies that it was not Moses but God that gave the manna and that God will again give them the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world. “So they said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Jesus is telling them that he has given them the bread of this world that gives life for one day as a sign that he, as the one sent by God the Father, is the One who can give them himself who is the bread that gives eternal life. As bread or any food gives us the energy to do our daily work, Jesus, dwelling within us, gives us the strength to live a holy life in a world that tempts us to be a sinful people.

Ephesians 4:17, 20-24. Paul writes, “I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their mind.” Living life without Jesus who is the bread of life is an exercise in futility because it is a choice that leaves one without the light that directs our steps in the way to eternal happiness and without the spiritual energy to make our way through this world’s jungle of temptations. Paul continues, The “truth is in Jesus, that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires,” “and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” Only with Christ, as the nourishment of our spiritual inner self, the life giving force of our souls can we put away the old self and put on the new. The new self must always be a creation of God to which we assent and actively cooperate.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 29, 2018

17B18. 2 Kings 4:42-44. “Elisha insisted, ‘Give it to the people to eat.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’” The Lord provides abundantly. Spiritually, if we try to live on our own efforts with little or no support from God, we will starve to death.

John 6:1-15. “Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.” He feeds them all, five thousand men plus at least as many women and children, from five barley loaves and two fish. “When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’ So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragment from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” The power of God is infinite and he is always ready and willing to use it out of love for use. However he wants nothing to be wasted, never using his power uselessly as just a way of flexing his divine muscles. He wants to see results or fruit that will benefit us eternally. The people wanted to make him an earthly king but he wanted them to get to heaven where he would be their eternal king. He had given them the bread of this world so that they would put their faith in him so to seek the spiritual life on earth that would give them a life in heaven. He filled their stomachs for a day so to fill their souls for all eternity.

Ephesians 4:1-6. If the bread of our spiritual life is God, then we are bound to one another in the one God who is the same source of spiritual life, common to all who find life from Him. He gives us the love to bear with one another, since we all find that love in the “one God and Father of all.” We are made one united by all going to the same table to feed our spiritual lives, Jesus, who keeps us in communion with him by sharing his divine life with us. In Romans 12:4-5 Paul wrote: “For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.” In Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul writes: “Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love.” In Colossians 1:17 Paul wrote: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” We receive him Body and Blood so to have him as the source of the body’s life, the unity that is the Church, over which he is the head.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 22, 2018

16B18. Jeremiah 23:1-6. Jeremiah prophesies that God will appoint shepherds who will lead God’s People in God’s ways and not mislead them as past shepherds had. Jeremiah goes on to write, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David, as king he shall reign and govern wisely; and on to: “In his days Judah shall be saved, Israel shall dwell in security.” It seems to me that Jeremiah is thinking of an earthly king; whereas, we as Christians apply this to Jesus, the spiritual king, who will shepherd his people wisely.

Mark 6:30-34. This gospel reading picks up from last Sunday’s reading after Jesus had sent the Twelve Apostles out to be the new shepherds of Israel, preaching repentance and validating and reinforcing their mission by curing the sick and driving out demons. After that very demanding work, he says, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Jesus felt that they needed to retreat from the intense busyness of this world to nourish themselves interiorly with prayer. However, the people were in such great need for what Jesus had to offer they hastened to that deserted place on foot. “When he disembarked and 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.” He is the One to save them from being lost spiritually, and likewise us too.

Ephesians 2:13-18. “In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ.” The Gentiles have been brought near to their salvation by the redemption he has given them by offering himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Paul also wrote in Colossians 1:20, “and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross [through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.” Jesus made Jew and Gentile one “through his flesh, abolishing the law” “that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it.” “Through him we both have access to one Spirit to the Father.” Paul wrote in Colossians 3:11, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.” Jesus shepherds his flock together to the gates of heaven.

Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6. “The Lord is my shepherd.” “He guides me in right paths for his name’s sake,” for he is true to who he is, the God of righteousness. “I fear no evil; for you are at my side.” God is a fatherly, all powerful God who uses his strength to care for me. “You spread the table before me;” “my cup overflows.” God provides generously for all our needs. “In verdant pastures he gives me repose; besides restful waters he leads me.” In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Caring for us as a mother cares for her young; he looks to see that we are refreshed to face the challenges that are to come. He neither overwhelms us with his demands nor allows us to be overwhelmed. He is the awesome God using his might to protect us, yet at the same time a God so meek and humble of heart looking after us in the smallest details.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 15, 2018

15B18. Amos 7:12-15. Amos tells Amaziah, priest of Bethel, that he had a way to earn bread as a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The reason why he is a prophet was not to earn bread, but that God himself called him to be a prophet.

Mark 6:7-13. As God had sent out Amos, Jesus sends out the Twelve, representing his founding the new Israel, to preach repentance to bring the people into his new People of God. He sends them out with the spiritual authority over unclean spirits but with little material resources. Those who accept the invitation to follow Christ are to supply for the material needs of the Apostles; those, who do not, will have testimony given against them.

Ephesians 1:3-14. This text is incredibly rich. We have been blessed because God the Father has chosen us in Christ, “before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved” Christ. To be the sons and daughters of the Father, God’s People, we have been called to be holy as he is holy so that we may live with him who is our Father in our new family home, heaven. To become holy as he is holy is the work of the Spirit in us through the grace that our Father has lavished on us. In accepting his redemption of us, we gain our inheritance to become “God’s possession, to the praise of his glory,” God’s holy People made new in Christ.” Life on the way to heaven is a daily experience of growing in our friendship with God by cooperating with the Spirit. Every day is a wondrous joy because more and more Christ becomes our life, helping us to live a little more of heaven even while we are here on earth.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 8, 2018

14B18. Ezekiel 2:2-5. God sends his spokesman to his people who do not want to be God’s People but rather want to belong to themselves and not to God. God says, at least, they will know that Ezekiel is a prophet sent to them by God.

Mark 1-6a. Jesus “came to his native place.” He preached in the synagogue to the people who knew him from birth. “Many who heard him were astonished. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this?’” “’Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him.” As Catholics we understand that using the terminology ‘brothers and sisters’ does not mean that they are the children of Mary but rather that they are the cousins of Jesus and so members of Jesus’ extended family. Also, I understand that they “took offense at him” to mean that all those who knew him from birth or for many years before his public ministry thought that they really knew this fellow Jesus and that now Jesus was falsely trying to come off as someone totally different than the person that they had known all those past years. However, he was proving himself to be someone who had come of age to be the person he was really meant to be all along. Now he was manifesting the divine call he had received by the authority he was showing in his words and miracles. They were too locked into a previous conception they had of the person of Jesus. They were being too human and nature bound and not allowing the spiritual (Holy Spirit) to change them. “So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people.” The object of the miracles of curing people was to build on their faith in him and help increase their spiritual life. Jesus had no basis to work miracles since they refused to have any faith in him. “He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10. “Because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given me, an angel of Satan, to beat me to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’” The notes that I read claim that Paul was afflicted, not by a physical or spiritual problem but, by person whom he found to be particularly challenging. Paul had been gifted with quite many visions and ecstasies but, since he was not in heaven dead to this world, he still needed to live in the dirt of this earth. Paul continues, “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insult, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul is content because he knows that hardships endured with Christ on the cross lead to the joy of the resurrection. If we in our own right feel strong without God, that means that we have filled up ourselves with our own selves, leaving no room for God to be in us. Feeling strong on our own right means that we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we can do for ourselves what only God can do for us. Coming to the recognition and acceptance that only God can give us the strength we need to prosper spiritually against the difficulties of this world is the first step toward holiness. Jesus in John 15:5: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 1, 2018

13B18. Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24. “God did not make death nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.” God did not create death but only life. Death entered the world through the sinful disobedience of Adam and Eve (Romans 5:12). “God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.” He made us to be his sons and daughters in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27), living forever happily with him.

Mark 5:21-43. Jairus pleads, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” Despite the report that the daughter has died, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” Jesus goes and tells her to arise and she does. Jesus gives her physical health as a sign to all that he wishes to give us the health that is eternal, called holiness. He is the God that robs death of its power to be the eternal termination of life. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:52b: “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 15:54c-55: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?”

The woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years says to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” “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?’” Although he was jostled about in the crowd and many people were rubbing up against him, none had done so with the faith to be cured at that moment. Her faith had released the curative energy from Jesus without Jesus even knowing who had done it. The power of faith is that we hand ourselves to the power of God. The God who created us to be loved by him and to live in his love forever is the God who will give only good things to those who wish to live in his love. In Matthew 7:11 Jesus says, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

2 Corinthians 5:21-43. Apparently, expecting Jesus to return soon after his ascension into heaven to end the world and take all who believed in him to heaven, the Christians in Jerusalem sold all they had, shared the proceeds with one another and waited for the Second Coming of the Lord. When the Lord did not come, they were living in abysmal poverty. In this Sundays’ second reading, Paul makes an appeal to the Corinthians to support the Christians in Jerusalem. Basically Paul is saying be generous as Jesus was generous, giving his life for us. You who have much should give to those who have nothing so that both of you should have something. This message blends in with the other two readings in that God is the generous giver who gives good things to those in need, even health to the sick and life to the dead. Live in the goodness of God!

Feast of Nativity of John the Baptist – June 24, 2018

NativJB18B. Jeremiah 1:4-10; Isaiah 49:1-6.

In both of these readings I understand that in each one the prophets have been inspired to write of themselves. Jeremiah in writing, “Before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you,” believes that God is speaking this to him. Again Isaiah in writing, “For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him,” is referring to God’s calling him to be a prophet to Israel and then to all the world. These readings are then seen in an extended sense to refer to John the Baptist as one who prepares the people to receive to receive the Messiah and yet further these readings can be seen to refer to Jesus, God making himself a man among men, who is to suffer in bringing the People to God the Father.

Luke 1:5-17. Luke 1:57-66, 80. The angel, who is God’s messenger, announces the birth to Elizabeth who has never had a child and is now beyond the age to conceive, and gives him the name John. “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God” “to prepare a people fit for the Lord.” The birth of John the Baptist is a unique historical and spiritual event because he is to proclaim the coming of the Messiah. The miraculous cure of Zechariah made clear that this child was destined by God to accomplish his mission as were the prophets of old.

1 Peter 1:8-12. Peter wrote that the prophets prophesied about the grace that was to be given for the salvation of souls. That salvation has been announced “by those who preached the Good News” “through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.”
Acts of the Apostles 13:22-26. From David’s descendants God sent “to Israel a savior, Jesus.” “John heralded his coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” John said of himself in John 2:23, “I am ‘the voice of one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord.”’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time – June 17, 2018

11B18. Ezekiel 17:22-24. “Thus says the Lord God: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar,” “a tender shoot, and plant it” “on the mountain heights of Israel” and it shall “become a majestic cedar.” After the Babylonians had enslaved the Israelites and exterminated the ruling family in Jerusalem, Ezekiel is saying that God will reestablish the Davidic line of rulers and his kingdom in Israel again. Referring to Israel God says he will “lift high the lowly tree” “and make the withered tree bloom.” As Christians, we see this as foretelling of Jesus founding the kingdom of God on earth.

Mark 4:26-34. Using parables, Jesus hopes to give the crowds some idea of how it is with spiritual kingdom of God that he seeks to create. The man who scatters the seed is perhaps the good follower of Christ whom the Spirit uses to bring the word of God to others. The one who makes the seed sprout, grow and become fruitful is the Holy Spirit himself. The harvest is the gathering into heaven of the souls who have cooperated with the work of the Holy Spirit in them and grown day by day in the faith. In the next parable Jesus emphasizes the smallness of the mustard seed, perhaps to say that, with just a little willingness in one’s heart, God can make a wonderful saint out of anyone. Mark writes: “Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.” Learning requires readiness and preparation. What we have learned in the past enables to add or build on to achieve even more learning as one grade in school builds on the year’s previous learning. Learning is not only with the head but also with the heart. Past experiences and choices help us to develop yet further our character and emotional commitment. Jesus explains the parables in private to his own disciples because, having been with Jesus far more than the crowds, they know more and are more committed to Jesus. Jesus builds on our readiness and dedication to grow spiritually.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10. Paul writes: “We are always courageous; although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.” To get a better understanding of these lines it helps to get a Bible and to read the verses that precede the ones we have above. In this life while we truly do have the Lord because of our God-given faith; yet we will have God far more when we can actually see him in heaven. We have the first installment on our home in heaven because God has given us the Holy Spirit who helps us to develop further as saints, who are the only people God allows to see him in heaven. We need to have courage each day because life in this world is a struggle against the temptations from the devil and the world itself. Life is this world was not easy for Jesus and likewise is not easy for us.

Paul continues: “Therefore, we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.” In my own mind we should love to please him because we enjoy his loving us so much. Receiving recompense naturally flows from being loyal and faithful. Family is family just for the joy of being loved and loving others because we are so filled with love that we cannot do anything else but love. With Christ living in us and we living in Christ, we are already living the heavenly life to the degree that life in this world will allow us. Jesus said in John 15:4a: “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time – June 10, 2018

10A18. Genesis 3:9-15. Disobeying God’s command, Adam and Eve had been taken in by the ruse or scheme of the devil. God recognized that they had lost their innocence, because they had eaten of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, when Adam said, “I heard that you were in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” The innocence of infants and little children knows no fear or threat of evil and so nakedness poses no problem for them. Feeling the vulnerability of nakedness shows that we recognize that we can be attacked and hurt by what is evil. Being without clothes to protect us from our vulnerability is like not having armor to shield us from attack. The serpent is treated here as an evil animal but later interpretation will see him as the devil in disguise. The offspring of the woman that will strike at the devil’s head, for us as Christians, is seen to be Jesus who being human himself as well as divine, is the champion for all of humanity in our struggle against evil. The devil will use every lowly device to strike at Jesus, which, to my understanding, is to say that the serpent or devil will be striking at his heal.

Mark 3:20-32. “Jesus came home with his disciples.” I am imaging that he returned to his own hometown of Nazareth. The gospel reading for this Sunday at one point speaks of his ‘relatives’ and then at another, of his ‘mother and brothers’ and then yet at another point, of Jesus’ ‘brother and sister and mother’. I understand these are all a reference to Jesus’ relatives or extended family that lived in Nazareth. They were understandably concerned that Jesus and his disciples were so deeply involved and successful in curing people in his ministry that they had hardly time to eat. I remember a mother having hardly any time to care for her own needs but somehow managed to feed herself between bites of food for her own daughter. I imagine that that is what Jesus and his disciples did. His family were important to him as blood relatives but infinitely more important to Jesus were those who were seeking to be spiritually related to God, those who would become the family of God in heaven by treating God as the God of their lives on earth. “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” What will lift us up to heaven is obedience to God our Father’s will; whereas, the downfall of Adam and Eve was their disobedience.

The section of this Gospel that talks about Beelzebub and Satan should be read as section separate from the first and last parts that talk about Jesus’ extended family (Mark 3:20-21, 31-35). The scribes, those who studied the Law and interpreted it, accused Jesus of working as an agent of Satan, who gave Jesus the power to order demons out of people. First, Jesus says it makes no sense for Satan to drive out Satan, thus defeating his own diabolic work in life. Secondly, Jesus says that, since he drives out demons by the power of the Holy Spirit, in effect the scribes are committing the unforgiveable sin of saying that the Holy Spirit was doing the devil’s work in driving out demons. In Jesus’ parable Satan is the strong man that the Holy Spirit ties up and from whom the Spirit takes the away the people that the demons had possessed. The people that the devil had possessed were the property that the Spirit plundered from the strong man’s, i. e., the devil’s, house. Here Jesus uses the imagery of war: “To the victor go the spoils.” The victory is God’s; the devil is defeated.

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1. A “spirit of faith” is engendered by the grace that God gives those who wish to believe in Jesus. Paul writes, “We are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” Physical things, including our bodies, must deteriorate but we put our faith in what is spiritual, that remains for all eternity. Paul continues, “We look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.” As long as we are loyal to the Lord, the Lord is loyal to us. The victory that belongs to God also belongs to us who choose to belong to God. In Ephesians 3:16b-18a, 19 Paul writes, May you “be strengthened with power, through his Spirit in the inner self, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ June 3, 2018

CorpChristiB18. Exodus 24:3-8. “When Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the Lord, they all answered with one voice, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us.’” To accept God as one’s God we must submit to his authority over us. This is not a horizontal relationship between equals but a vertical relationship between those who have been created and their Creator, between those who live in a state of absolute dependence and the One on whom we can utterly depend upon forever. A second time Moses reads to them the covenant and a second time they accept but this time he sprinkles half of the blood of the sacrifice on them and the other half on the altar to symbolize that God and the people are bound together by the covenant. Blood which symbolizes life or the life-giving force is used to indicate that the covenant is now operative as the life giving relationship between God and his people.

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26. At their celebration of the Passover, the last meal that Jesus was to eat before dying on the Cross, what we traditionally call ‘The Last Supper,’ Jesus establishes the new covenant that then super cedes that of Old Testament. Of the bread he shares with the Apostles, Jesus says, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he shared the cup with them saying, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” This all precedes his actually offering up himself; body and blood on the cross as a once and for all time sacrifice to God the Father to atone for our sins. At Mass we re-present that same sacrifice on the cross, since he is not dying over and over again.

Hebrews 9:11-15. The offering up of the blood of goats and bulls was repeated endlessly in the old covenant to sanctify those who were defiled in any way. In the new covenant the blood of Christ once offered up, only needs to be re-presented to God the Father to cleanse us from our sins, since the one offering on the cross has infinite, endless value before God. Jesus is the “mediator of the new covenant,” who presents his sacrifice to his Father for our benefit. In Hebrews 9:24-26 we read, “For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf. Not that he might offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; if that were so, he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world. But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.” In Romans 5:8- 9, Paul writes, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath.” Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Our reception of Jesus in the Eucharist enables us to go to the Father through the Son who is the only way to the Father, in other words, the only way to heaven.