Sunday, , February 14, 2021

 SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

(Leviticus 13: 1-2.44-46; I Corinthians 10: 31-11: 1: Mark 1: 40-45)

We anticipate issues with the imposition of ashes this Wednesday. Some will react to the way we do it. Because of Covid, Church ministers have been instructed not to make a cross with ashes on the forehead. Instead of the conventional way, the bishops want us to sprinkle ashes upon people’s heads. The discontented will say that they do not want to be deprived of an old tradition. They will also claim that they want to demonstrate their faith by having a cross on their forehead this one day of the year.

However, Christians have shown their faith since ancient times in a more convincing way. Ancient texts exhort the faithful to demonstrate their faith with acts of charity. True followers of Jesus listen and help those in need as if they were him. Saint Mother Teresa had it right when she said that the poor are "Jesus in disguise."

The ashes, formed in a cross on our forehead or sprinkled on our hair, actually indicate something else. They tell the world that we are sinners. We remember that one of the sayings accompanying the imposition of ashes is: "Repent and believe in the gospel." We are to repent of our sins every day and particularly during the forty days of Lent. Ashes are like the scarlet letter "A" that a woman wears on her dress in a famous American novel. Because she committed adultery, the woman is forced to acknowledge her sin to everyone. Maybe our sins are not as serious as adultery, but they offend God and undermine the church’s mission of evangelization. It seems fair that we acknowledge and do something to compensate for them.

But as hard as we try, it is not possible to compensate God for our sins. We continue to long after the wrong things, be they vanities that engulf the soul, pleasures that pamper the body, or hatred that poison the spirit. Only Jesus Christ, obedient to God from the beginning, can do what is required for salvation. So we have to turn to him as the leper in the gospel.

The leper does not demand anything of Jesus. He only tells him: "'If you want to, you can heal me.'” He knows that he is in a sorry situation and only Jesus can save him. According to the first reading, he has to announce wherever he goes, "Unclean, unclean!"  We need to recognize that our situation is like his. This is the purpose of going to church this Wednesday. By receiving the ashes, we say to the world: "Unclean, unclean!"

We can count on Jesus to cleanse us. He came into the world to support us. He says to us as well as to the leper: "'Be made clean!'" Because he is God, his very words achieve what they say. To us today he says these words through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

We should feel the relief immediately. Our sins will no longer be our ruin. However, they will cost Jesus tremendously. He will suffer the torture of the cross for them. We see a rehearsal of this suffering in this gospel passage. It says that the cured leper “began to publicize the whole matter” so that “it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.” Before it was the leper who could not enter any town openly. Now it is Jesus whose movement is restricted. As with our sins, Jesus takes the leper's burden on his shoulders.

On Wednesday the season of Lent begins. We will undertake a pilgrimage, not alone or only with the faithful of the Church. Rather we march with Jesus himself. He is there to support us in our efforts to show our love to God the Father. We do this in three ways. We deprive ourselves of material goods to show that we are sorry for our sins. We help the poor who are God's special friends. And we tell God of our affection in prayer.

Friday, February 12, 2021

 

Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 3:1-8; Mark 7:31-37)

There was once a television program, “What’s My Line.”  It had a panel of celebrities guessing which of three contestants was the person fitting the description given to the panel.  We can hear today’s Genesis reading in this way.  Who owns the voice tempting the woman?  Is it a talking snake that has become extinct?  Or is it an evil spirit that has taken control of the snake?  Or is it the inner voice of the woman coming to terms with a moral choice she must make?  There may be in this case a fourth contestant.  It may be an evil spirit that is leading the woman on.

In any case, the voice asks a provocative question: “Did God really tell you not to eat of any of the tree…?”  It is a set-up that puts the woman in a vulnerable situation.  Unfortunately, she falls into the trap.  She does not acknowledge God as her and the man’s benefactor.  God gives them abundant fruit to eat.  He also tells them not to eat the forbidden fruit for their own welfare.  She only remembers a rule that sounds arbitrary.  She says that if they eat the forbidden fruit, they will die.  Testing that rule and inviting the man to do so, the two commit the “original” sin.

We must see God as always benevolent.  He gives us first life and then the world to meet our needs.  He has imposed laws for our welfare.  First and foremost, we should acknowledge them as such and heed them.  When we examine the laws, we will realize that they are not arbitrary but protective.  For example, God says, “Do not kill.” The understanding here is not to take innocent life.  We are not to bend this law by assisting in suicide.  It seems beneficial that people suffering extremely with no hope of recovery be killed.  Assisting in the killing, however, will not only enable other kinds of murder but also ruin our souls.

 

Thursday, February 11, 2021

 Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 2:18-25; Mark 7:24—30)

A man has two grown children – a male and a female.  Neither of them, however, have children.  One of them kids her father. “You don’t have grandchildren,” she says, “you have granddogs.”  My friend does not say that he is disappointed, but obviously he is.  Today’s first reading helps us understand why.

God sees that it is not good for man to be alone.  It may not be good for God that man is that way or for the rest of creation.  But probably it is mostly not good for man.  Shortly, it is seen why.  When God creates possible companions for man, man begins to speak.  Man names each the animal: an elephant, a giraffe, a dog, and a cat.  But man’s speech blossoms when God forms a creature from man’s rib. Man not only names the look alike “woman,” but in the process gives a name for himself.  She is “from man,” and he is now not adamah, that is man in general, but “a man.”  The English seem to reflect the Hebrew here.  Woman is from man as in Hebrew where ‘ishah is from ‘ish.  She is the perfect mate.  She will be able to talk with the man to draw out further knowledge.  They will come together intimately so that neither will be lonely, that is longing for another. 

Dogs can never replace other people and most especially a spouse as companions.  Jesus notes this in his teaching on marriage and divorce.  Marriage needs our support.  It is -- and will always be – the permanent union of a man and a woman both for love and for procreation.  If marriage as an institution fails, disaster will result.  People will not only feel lonely, but in their longing choose morbid options like drugs and promiscuity.

 

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

 

Memorial of Saint Scholastica, virgin

 (Genesis 2:4b-9.15-17; Mark 7:14-23)

Today’s first reading is taken from the so-called second account of creation.  Genesis has already given an ordered account of how the universe and everything in it came to be.  Now it provides a personal story to assist humans in knowing the glories and pitfalls of life.

The gospel today seemingly moves in a direction opposite to that of the first reading.  Where it relays how Jesus “declared all things clean,” the first reading shows God prohibiting a specific food.  The human is not to eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  People have speculated on what kind of food the tree bears for millennia. 

 o the best of our understanding, the forbidden fruit does not provide true knowledge of good and evil.  Rather it gives us only a semblance of it.  True knowledge of good and evil – what we know as wisdom -- comes mostly from listening to what God tells us.  By contrast, eating of the tree of knowledge is to think of oneself as wise without God.  It is to say, “I don’t need God to know what is good for me and what is bad for me; I can determine that for myself.”  This, of course, is the essence of pride.  In the gospel Jesus tells his disciples what is truly good and bad.  Eating any of the food that God provides – prudently, for sure – is good.  Evil comes from a heart set on self-satisfaction.

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

 Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 1:20-2:4; Mark 7:1-13)

Commentors often claim that God declares humans “good” at creation.  But a careful reading of the text does not support this claim.  Unlike the declaration after all other creatures, with the exception of the heavens on day two, nothing is said of humans being created as good.  The text does say that as God finished the work of creation, He said that what He had made was “very good.”  But this may mean that it was very good that God created humans as not yet good.

Genesis does say that God created humans in His image.  This means that they are like Him in some ways but in every way.  Humans can think, communicate talk, work, and create. But they cannot perform any of these functions like God.  They fail terribly and even deliberately at times in their attempt.  This is to say that they may be very unlike God.  It should be concluded then that they may not be good at all.

We should strive to be good like God.  It is an impossible task, but we can come close to perfection.  In any case, we do not go forth blindly.  God helps us to be like Him.  He establishes His laws in nature.  He gives us His word in Scripture.  And, most of all, He has sent His Son, whom we know as Jesus Christ, to help us be like Him.