Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
(Sirach 1:1-10; Mark 9:14-29)
The story is told of President Abraham Lincoln taking a walk in the woods one night weighing a difficult decision. A group of Union soldiers were to be executed for falling asleep on duty unless he gave them a pardon. Along the path Lincoln met an adolescent on the ground crying. The lad had run away from home after his father in a rage killed his dog. The father had learnt that his other son was to be executed for cowardice and couldn’t control his anger. Lincoln counseled the boy to go home and forgive his father; meanwhile, he said, he would do some forgiving himself. The President also gave the boy his card with a note saying that he might visit him at the White House anytime. The boy went home and made up with his father. When he found out that his brother’s crime was falling asleep on duty, he went straight to the White House and took a seat outside President Lincoln’s office. At the end of the day, the boy gave the President’s secretary the card he had received and told him he had an important matter to discuss with Mr. Lincoln. The boy was shown in, told Lincoln what happened to his brother, and heard the President promise to add his brother’s name to the list of those soldiers who would be receiving Presidential pardons.
Just like the boy sitting in the shadow of the President, the man in the gospel whose son has an epileptic spirit does not recognize Jesus for whom he is. He sees Jesus as a human healer, not the son of God whose prayer to his heavenly Father is invariably answered. When Jesus questions the man’s faith, he responds with the cry that has echoed in every Christian’s heart, “’I do believe, help my unbelief.’” Jesus demands no more than that painful request and, indeed, does help the man to believe in him by driving the demon from his son. We likewise should bring to Jesus all our needs. He will help us if we can honestly say with the epileptic’s father, “I do believe, help…”
Friday, February 18, 2011
Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 11:1-9; Mark 8:34-9:1)
Not only athletes but quite regular men and women look to artificial sources for self-enhancement. After all, if steroids could turn an average hitter into superstar, might they not make any body everyone’s desire or envy by adding proportion? The reading from Genesis today teaches us that the use of technology to boost oneself is really almost as old as the human species itself.
The inhabitants of Babel live not long after Noah who was the first born human after the death of Adam. God told Noah and his sons to “multiply and fill the earth.” Yet some of his descendants come together to build the city of Babel! By their own admission their purpose is egotistical. They want “to make a name for themselves” by means of technology -- molding bricks and hardening them with fire. They seem to think that they might rival God by constructing a tower so high that it reaches heaven. The idea is ludicrous, of course. God has to go down to stop the folly before the people destroy themselves.
What Genesis is critiquing is not the desire of humans to improve themselves but the hubris or pride that drives them to win the adulation of others. People want to become idols – to be considered gods among their peers. God is not jealous. He knows quite well that whatever humans make of and by themselves, they will never be even cockroaches in comparison to Him. But God wants His noblest creatures to do better than that. He confuses their languages and resends them throughout the world to open their eyes as it were. God wants us to respect and admire the richness of different individuals and cultures so that we might turn back to him in awe and gratitude.
(Genesis 11:1-9; Mark 8:34-9:1)
Not only athletes but quite regular men and women look to artificial sources for self-enhancement. After all, if steroids could turn an average hitter into superstar, might they not make any body everyone’s desire or envy by adding proportion? The reading from Genesis today teaches us that the use of technology to boost oneself is really almost as old as the human species itself.
The inhabitants of Babel live not long after Noah who was the first born human after the death of Adam. God told Noah and his sons to “multiply and fill the earth.” Yet some of his descendants come together to build the city of Babel! By their own admission their purpose is egotistical. They want “to make a name for themselves” by means of technology -- molding bricks and hardening them with fire. They seem to think that they might rival God by constructing a tower so high that it reaches heaven. The idea is ludicrous, of course. God has to go down to stop the folly before the people destroy themselves.
What Genesis is critiquing is not the desire of humans to improve themselves but the hubris or pride that drives them to win the adulation of others. People want to become idols – to be considered gods among their peers. God is not jealous. He knows quite well that whatever humans make of and by themselves, they will never be even cockroaches in comparison to Him. But God wants His noblest creatures to do better than that. He confuses their languages and resends them throughout the world to open their eyes as it were. God wants us to respect and admire the richness of different individuals and cultures so that we might turn back to him in awe and gratitude.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 9:1-13; Mark 8:27-33)
The woman had an inoperable brain tumor. The doctor had just told her that he could do nothing more for her. Most likely, he said, she would die soon. Of course, the news troubled the woman and her family. They wondered how the doctor could be so sure. “Should he not have held out some hope?” they asked themselves. Disbelieving the doctor’s prognosis, the family resembled Peter in the gospel today. The chief apostle refuses to accept Jesus’ prediction of the suffering he faces.
We can imagine the thoughts racing through Peter’s mind when he refutes Jesus. He may be thinking that Jesus has power to lay his enemies in the dust. Or possibly that he and the other disciples will defend Jesus if anyone lifts a finger against him. Or even that all the Jews will soon come to recognize Jesus as the Christ. If, as Jesus says, Peter thinks as human beings do and not like God, then Jesus knows all too well how human beings think. He realizes that when push comes to shove, his disciples will fold like a house of cards. Likewise, he perceives the Jewish religious establishment in Jerusalem as too settled to acknowledge a preacher and healer from Galilee as God’s chosen one. Most of all, Jesus knows that human thoughts concentrate on the bread that lasts but a day without considering seriously the eternal banquet which God has promised.
“Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” T.S. Eliot once wrote. By “reality” he was referring to both the trauma of death and the stiff price Jesus paid to remedy that affliction. And so, like Peter we think that we might circumvent tragedy by good genes or right living. Added to that, we fail to grasp the intense and unremitting love that moves Jesus to die for us. Like Peter, we must be shaken out of our fantasies in order to follow Jesus.
(Genesis 9:1-13; Mark 8:27-33)
The woman had an inoperable brain tumor. The doctor had just told her that he could do nothing more for her. Most likely, he said, she would die soon. Of course, the news troubled the woman and her family. They wondered how the doctor could be so sure. “Should he not have held out some hope?” they asked themselves. Disbelieving the doctor’s prognosis, the family resembled Peter in the gospel today. The chief apostle refuses to accept Jesus’ prediction of the suffering he faces.
We can imagine the thoughts racing through Peter’s mind when he refutes Jesus. He may be thinking that Jesus has power to lay his enemies in the dust. Or possibly that he and the other disciples will defend Jesus if anyone lifts a finger against him. Or even that all the Jews will soon come to recognize Jesus as the Christ. If, as Jesus says, Peter thinks as human beings do and not like God, then Jesus knows all too well how human beings think. He realizes that when push comes to shove, his disciples will fold like a house of cards. Likewise, he perceives the Jewish religious establishment in Jerusalem as too settled to acknowledge a preacher and healer from Galilee as God’s chosen one. Most of all, Jesus knows that human thoughts concentrate on the bread that lasts but a day without considering seriously the eternal banquet which God has promised.
“Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” T.S. Eliot once wrote. By “reality” he was referring to both the trauma of death and the stiff price Jesus paid to remedy that affliction. And so, like Peter we think that we might circumvent tragedy by good genes or right living. Added to that, we fail to grasp the intense and unremitting love that moves Jesus to die for us. Like Peter, we must be shaken out of our fantasies in order to follow Jesus.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 8:6-13.20-22; Mark 8:22-26)
In the reading from Genesis Noah, after saving all types of animals, abruptly kills some for sacrifice. For this reason God pronounces the judgment, “…the desires of man’s heart are evil from the start.” However, if killing and eating animal flesh indicates human wickedness (it was not done before Adam and Eve’s sin), it at least will be controlled. Noah does not slaughter animals wholesale to make a sacrifice ever more pleasing to God.
When God establishes His covenant with Noah, about which we will read tomorrow at Mass, He will allow humans to eat the flesh of other animals, but always within limits. Humans will not be allowed to eat the blood of animals. Noah here is seeking a new relationship with the Lord through sacrifice as a sign of dependence while the justice ordained by the law will be God’s terms for a new relationship with humans.
Despite their sacrifices humans will have difficulty bowing their spirits to the Lord. They may even keep the law in practice, but they will deny its intent. Finally, however, the sacrifice of Jesus, the God-human, will gain for humans a lasting relationship with God. And the new law, which he gives as nothing less than the Holy Spirit working in human hearts, will produce true justice.
(Genesis 8:6-13.20-22; Mark 8:22-26)
In the reading from Genesis Noah, after saving all types of animals, abruptly kills some for sacrifice. For this reason God pronounces the judgment, “…the desires of man’s heart are evil from the start.” However, if killing and eating animal flesh indicates human wickedness (it was not done before Adam and Eve’s sin), it at least will be controlled. Noah does not slaughter animals wholesale to make a sacrifice ever more pleasing to God.
When God establishes His covenant with Noah, about which we will read tomorrow at Mass, He will allow humans to eat the flesh of other animals, but always within limits. Humans will not be allowed to eat the blood of animals. Noah here is seeking a new relationship with the Lord through sacrifice as a sign of dependence while the justice ordained by the law will be God’s terms for a new relationship with humans.
Despite their sacrifices humans will have difficulty bowing their spirits to the Lord. They may even keep the law in practice, but they will deny its intent. Finally, however, the sacrifice of Jesus, the God-human, will gain for humans a lasting relationship with God. And the new law, which he gives as nothing less than the Holy Spirit working in human hearts, will produce true justice.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 5:5-8.7:1-5.10; Mark 8:14-21)
We should view Genesis as telling the human story from a philosophical and theological, not a historical, point of view if we are to garner its wisdom. Where today’s passage speaks of human wickedness, it means to decry the state of life without laws to guide people. We might wonder why God, who is supposedly omniscient, did not know beforehand that humans would turn out corrupted, but that is not allowing the story to unfold in its artistic way.
There is one man, however, who does not perpetrate evil. Noah finds favor with the Lord because, as is soon shown, he does exactly what the Lord commands him. He is unlike all the other men and women of his age. Because of him God will try again. But the next time humans are allowed to flourish they will have covenantal laws for guidance. More than one covenant, however, will be necessary to finally put humans firmly on the path of righteousness.
Some have belittled Genesis’ flood story as a mere retelling of part of the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic. Although it is more than likely that some borrowing went on, there are still critical distinctions between the two which highlight the biblical conception of life. Succinctly put, these differences amount to God being in complete control of the reestablishment of human society. The ark only preserves life which God will reshape. It does not attempt, as the ship in the Gilgamesh epic, to save a vestige of human civilization which has proved to be entirely wanting.
(Genesis 5:5-8.7:1-5.10; Mark 8:14-21)
We should view Genesis as telling the human story from a philosophical and theological, not a historical, point of view if we are to garner its wisdom. Where today’s passage speaks of human wickedness, it means to decry the state of life without laws to guide people. We might wonder why God, who is supposedly omniscient, did not know beforehand that humans would turn out corrupted, but that is not allowing the story to unfold in its artistic way.
There is one man, however, who does not perpetrate evil. Noah finds favor with the Lord because, as is soon shown, he does exactly what the Lord commands him. He is unlike all the other men and women of his age. Because of him God will try again. But the next time humans are allowed to flourish they will have covenantal laws for guidance. More than one covenant, however, will be necessary to finally put humans firmly on the path of righteousness.
Some have belittled Genesis’ flood story as a mere retelling of part of the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic. Although it is more than likely that some borrowing went on, there are still critical distinctions between the two which highlight the biblical conception of life. Succinctly put, these differences amount to God being in complete control of the reestablishment of human society. The ark only preserves life which God will reshape. It does not attempt, as the ship in the Gilgamesh epic, to save a vestige of human civilization which has proved to be entirely wanting.
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