Monday, January 22, 2024

 Monday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(II Samuel 5:1-7.10; Mark 3:22-30)

In today’s gospel Jesus rebukes the scribes for not acknowledging his working with the Holy Spirit.  He says that he casts out demons only with the Spirit’s power.  The passage concludes with Jesus’ accusing the scribes of the unpardonable sin of denying the work of God’s Spirit.

Something similar is at play today when the media and politicians refuse to acknowledge the critical importance of the family.  In celebration of individual freedom, these sectors will not endorse the need to limit sexual intimacy to marriage.  As a result, there is growing social dysfunction among children born outside of marriage and living without two parents in the home.

We must promote healthy marriage by encouraging youth to be chaste throughout their lives. Despite cultural opposition, we should promote modesty in demeanor.  We should also encourage to be prudent in choosing a marriage partner. 

Monday, January 23, 2023

 Monday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 9:15.24-28; Mark 3:22-30)

In today’s gospel scribes have come from Jerusalem to see Jesus.  No doubt, they want to investigate the wonders that have been attributed to him.  Their conclusion is astonishing.  They say, despite his attention to prayer and compassion, that Jesus can cure illness and expel demons because he is in league with the devil!

However, Jesus is not dismayed. He responds to the accusation with an analogy that challenges people today but perhaps was not lost on those surrounding him.  He compares Satan’s control over the world to a strong man’s possession of a house.  Then Jesus compares himself to an even stronger man who has come into Satan’s house and tied him up Satan.  As a result, the household is liberated of Satan’s perverse rule.

The evangelist Mark is telling us that Jesus has delivered us from sin and death.  We must not refuse his liberation out of a liking for or familiarity with sinful ways.  For the sake of our salvation and others, we must give ourselves over to him.

Monday, January 24, 2022

 Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor of the Church

(II Samuel 5:1-7.10; Mark 3:22-30)

With the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul tomorrow another Week of Christian Unity comes to an end.  Once, not very long ago, Christian unity seemed a near reality.  Statements of agreements were signed.  Pastors exchanged pulpits.  More recently, however, unity seems more like an automobile without wheels – more remote than near possibility.  St. Francis de Sales, however, experienced much more difficult ecumenical relations.  His virtue may provide a roadmap out of the impasse.

Francis lived in France at the end of the sixteenth century.  The country was experiencing civil unrest between the Catholic majority and the large Calvinist population. Francis was something of a novelty, a soft-spoken scholar characterized by humility and deference.  He was named bishop of Geneva but could not reside there because of the hostile Calvinist government.  In a city of France twenty-two miles to the south he worked among the people promoting spirituality of the laity. 

In today’s gospel Jesus says that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”  Divisions have plagued Christianity since the beginning.  This reality does not prove Jesus wrong.  It does require that the strongman – in the gospel Satan; in the Church, arrogance – be arrested.  Then the Church will be able to complete its mission of bringing Christ to the whole world.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Monday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(II Samuel 5:1-7.10; Mark 3:22-30)

In the movie “Doubt” a priest gives a homily about gossip.  He says that gossip is like cutting a pillow with a scissors in the open air and letting all the feathers fly out.  As it would be impossible to gather up every feather, so it is impossible to make up for the harm done by gossip.  The scribes in today’s gospel are guilty of gossip, and Jesus has his own way of describing the harm done.

In order to discredit Jesus, the scribes say that his healings are the work of the devil.  Being respectable, these men will be believed by the people.  Jesus says that this vicious gossip is tantamount to blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.  First, the gossipers can never make amends for the breach of confidence in Jesus which they cause.  Their sin is infinitely culpable because it undermines the work of God which Jesus is doing.

Our conversations often encounter vacuous spaces.  We are tired of talking about the weather or the upcoming sports event.  We want to turn to people as a topic.  We are entering a minefield.  We must be sure that what we say is not only true but fair.  That is, we must seek to avoid misinterpretations that would harm another’s well-being.  We may not be committing an unpardonable sin, but it still may be a serious one.

Monday, January 28, 2019

Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor of the Church

(Hebrews 9:15.24-28; Mark 3:22-30)

In Thomas Aquinas’ “Prayer before Study” the saint asks the Lord for light.  He sees himself engulfed by a twofold darkness – ignorance and sin.  The first obscurity regards all the reality which his mind has not grasped.  Aquinas is said to have known everything that was known at the time.  But perhaps, like Socrates, he knew that there were oceans of knowledge still to be learned.  The second darkness is even thicker.  Sin often infects the mind so that one thinks he has answers to all questions or, at least, all the questions that are important.  We may liken these two obscurities to the strongman which Jesus speaks of in today’s gospel.

Jesus’ parable astounds the person who considers it.  He compares himself to a thief!  Moreover, he says, the world is like a household and the devil like a strong man controlling it. Jesus binds the strong man by expelling demons.  His aim is to set the people of the household free.  He condemns anyone who would criticize his work but not because he takes personal offense.  No, Jesus is concerned that his critics are preventing people from being liberated.

The struggle for liberation carries on today.  Sometimes we act like we do not want to be set free.  This is true of petty sins like being “know it alls” as well as more scandalous ones.  Jesus has come to liberate us from all vices.  Let’s not prevent him from doing so.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Abortion

(Hebrews 9:15.24-28; Mark 3:22-30)

Abortion is a grave crime.  It is the intentional taking of a human life in its most vulnerable stage.  The extent that the crime is committed is even more egregious.  Every year more or less one million abortions are performed in the United States alone.  Around the world there must be tens of millions.  Despite the atrocities Jesus in today’s gospel indicates readiness to forgive all these sins.

The passage is famous for Jesus’ observation that accusing him of being in league with the devil is like saying that a house is divided against itself.  Also noted many times is Jesus’ prescription of an unpardonable sin.  But what should interest people most is his statement, “…all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them.”  He does not mean that they will be forgiven without repentance, but he assures that God is quite ready to forgive even heinous crimes.

Today we pray for abortion victims and its perpetrators.  We make a communal act of penance for the unborn who will never see the light of day.  We beseech the Lord to change the minds and hearts of those who seek, perform, and allow abortion.  Finally, we ask the Lord to stop this slaughter of innocents.  

Monday, January 23, 2012

Monday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(II Samuel 5:1-7.10; Mark 3:22-30)

The bishops of the United States ask Catholics to do penance today. They do not prescribe a specific action but expect some form of self-denial. Perhaps Catholics might skip a meal or sacrifice dessert. The bishops’ motive is to express sorrow for the carnage caused by the Supreme Court decision barring laws that prohibit abortion. Undoubtedly they hope that communal action against abortion will end in, as Jesus says in today’s gospel, “(tying) up the strong man.”

Jesus’ words are puzzling. It is not clear at first to whom he is referring when speaking of the strong man or the one who plunders the strong man’s house. It may seem like the strong man is just and the plunderer of his house is doing evil. But this line of thought reverses Jesus’ meaning. The strong man represents the devil whose house is the world where he holds humanity hostage. Jesus comes as the thief who will release humans from bondage after he puts the devil under arrest.

“Abortion rights” has regrettably become the rallying cry of many struggling to uphold the dignity of women. The Catholic Church has repented complexity in the oppression of woman in the sense that both its human leaders and many of its adherents have openly demonstrated sexist behaviors. Church leaders like Blessed John Paul II have done all that they find possible to assure justice for women. Nevertheless, the Church must point out the contradiction in pro-choice proponents claiming a right to destroy a human being. It denies the most basic of rights – that of life itself. Ironically it has further led to the slaughter of a majority of women.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, bishop

(Hebrews 9:15.24-28; Mark 3:22-30)

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln used Jesus’ statement in today’s gospel to explain why the status quo regarding slavery in America was doomed. The country was being continually thrown into crisis because the South could not tolerate the loss of political power when territories wanted to join the Union as “free” states. Lincoln reasoned that the United States would have to become completely slave or completely free just as “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Lincoln’s application of Jesus’ statement reminds us not to compromise with evil. A group of associates incessantly making sexual innuendos, a habit of “borrowing” from the company to pay personal debts, a practice of lying about one’s whereabouts – any of these situations can lead us fully down the path to corruption. It is true, as St. Francis De Sales once wrote, that we need to be patient with ourselves. But patience is not allowing evil to take root in our hearts but to make constant effort, as a gardener weeding his flower patch, that vice has difficulty finding a place to germinate.