Friday, May 27, 2016

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 4:7-13; Mark 11:11-26)

Poets sometimes use physical objects as symbols describing the mind’s inner-working.  For example, when Robert Frost depicts the horseman watching the woods fill up with snow, he means that the man is contemplating the eeriness of death.  Such symbols have been labeled objective correlatives.

The evangelist Mark presents an objective correlative in today’s gospel passage.  He pictures Jesus cursing a barren fig tree as a sign of his disgust with the Temple which he is about to enter.  Mark is indicating that the Temple like the fig tree is doomed because it has not fostered a righteous people.  Jesus will shortly throw the money changers out of the Temple.  More definitively, his death will bring about the tearing of the Temple veil which renders its sacrifices useless.

We should not think of the evangelist and much less Jesus as anti-environmental.  Throughout Mark’s gospel Jesus is at home in nature.  He retreats from the crowds to the mountains.  He spends time by the sea.  He even stands up to the storm.  But Jesus does expect religious people like us as well as sacred places to bring about fruits of righteousness.  

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Memorial of Saint Philip Neri, priest

(I Peter 2:2-5.9-12; Mark 10:46-52)

Faith has been called another way of seeing.  It looks beyond the physical to the spiritual realities that surround us.  It recognizes that our true goals in life are not comfort and pleasure but the joy and peace of God’s kingdom.  It also sees the Church as our help in attaining these goals.  Both readings today convey this message.

When Bartimaeus asks Jesus for sight, he no doubt wants to see colors and shapes like his companions.  Jesus grants him this ability but adds the gift of faith.  With that addition Bartimaeus does not go his own way but joins the community of disciples on the way to eternal life.

In the first reading the presbyter Peter calls the people to look beyond the attractions of the world.  He wants them to forego worldly desires so that they may enjoy the peace of living close to God.  His message serves us well today.  We are to set as our goals not luxury but friendship with both God and neighbor.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:18-25; Mark 10:32-45)

The woman is taking care of her comatose son.  She has the daunting responsibility of caring for a person in a persistent vegetative state.  She does not complain.  She only wants her other children to grow up with s similar awe of human dignity.  The woman is drinking from the same chalice that Jesus refers to in today’s gospel.

James and John make an especially bold request of Jesus.  They want to serve as his chief administrators in the kingdom that he is inaugurating.  The Lord does not admonish them for their ambition.  He only warns them that the positions they seek entail intense suffering as well as supreme glory.

Nobody should want to suffer.  It is an evil that is rightly avoided when possible.  However, often enough we should engage suffering as both a responsibility and a way to our ultimate goal in life.  When we willingly care for the sick, the aged, and the disabled, we give the same witness that Jesus asks of James and John.  We drink from his chalice.   We secure a place in eternal life.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

Vatican II underlined what the first reading today proclaims.  Its Constitution on the Church called all Christians to holiness.  Perhaps because people mistakenly think that holiness precludes sexual ecstasy, they recoil at the thought.  But for the great majority of persons, marital love paves the way to holiness.

The reading from the First Letter of Peter points out that holiness is not an outcome of human effort alone but is aided by grace.  It shows how grace -- God’s favor -- is manifest in different ways.  First, it proposes the salvation of eternal life as the goal to which humans are to aspire.  Then it indicates that the Creator is the model of holiness as it quotes the Old Testament, “’Be holy because I am holy.’”

Trouble comes when we want to have our own way.  We insist on maintaining autonomy which makes us, not God, the ultimate ruler of our lives.  We will be surprised to learn that heeding God’s commands produces greater freedom than we can achieve with ourselves in control.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Monday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:3-9; Mark 10:17-27)

Scholars doubt whether St. Peter the Apostle actually wrote the letter from which today’s first reading is drawn.  As always, they provide multiple reasons for making such a shocking charge.  First, they ask if a fisherman from Galilee could have written the eloquent Greek of the letter.  Then, they wonder why Peter would write to the churches in Asia Minor where Paul was the principal evangelizer.  Also, they note that the continual reference to persecution bespeaks a time after Peter’s own martyrdom when persecution in Asia Minor was more likely.

Today’s passage demonstrates both the eloquent argumentation of the author and the reference to persecution.  It speaks of “a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus” which is a sophisticated reference to Baptism.  It also refers to the “trials” which the addressees are experiencing as ways to prove their love for Christ.

We should not hastily conclude that a biblical author is not the one purported in the work itself.  At the same time we must recognize that such a charge does not undermine our faith.  The use of a false name as the author of a religious document did not create the scandal in the early Church that it does today.  Writers frequently used the name of a famous personage when they tried to faithfully reflect the ideas of the celebrity.  In any case we are reminded by the Second Vatican Council that Biblical inerrancy does not guarantee the historical accuracy of every detail but the general truth that God has revealed for our salvation.  We see in First Peter an inspiring testimony that we must cling to the promise of salvation which faith in Christ holds.