SPIRITUAL LEPROSY

 

6^TH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME B

Mark 1:40-45 

PODCAST: http://cradio.org.au/resources/homilies/6th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-3/

         The life of a leper before and during the time of Jesus was a total wreck.  Being an outcast, not able to live and worship together with the community, he/she was considered a living dead.  He was considered a sinner punished by God. In the story of the healing of the leper in the gospel today, Jesus wanted to correct the popular interpretation of leprosy and show the mercy of God. 

         In the story, we see two bold actions: On the part of the leper – for his braveness to break the social norms to go to Jesus, carrying with him his unwavering hope ("If you are willing, you can cleanse me") and utter humility (he knelt down).  On the part of Jesus – for his boldness to welcome, to touch and to heal the leper.  A miracle like this takes the boldness of man and God to make an impossible thing possible.

         Let’s analyze the actions of Jesus: a) feeling sorry for the leper (Jesus understood the wretchedness of the leper being an outcast and rejected because He Himself will also experience the same and even worse, later in His life) b) stretched out His hand (Jesus bridged the social and ritual gap, the leper being separated from the community)  c) touched him (nobody is allowed to touch any leper lest the person becomes ritually unclean; Jesus, by touching, became one with the leper) d) Jesus said “I am willing, be cleansed” (the miracle took place with the actions of Jesus together with the power of His word;  the healing was called cleansing when the skin was put back to normal).

         The once dreaded disease though still exists today is now contained, thanks to the wonder of research, science and medicine.  Presently “leprosy” has taken many other forms in our society: drug addiction, alcoholism, abortion, etc.  But there is a spiritual leprosy that continues to plague humanity even today and this is SIN.   Because of this, we don’t have to look around because the reality is deep inside us.  Nobody is spared, we have to accept it.  And yet in spite of our sinfulness, we continue to hope because we are not a wretched and hopeless case for God.  Yes, we maybe the worst sinner but nonetheless we are a loved sinner!

         If God sees us this way and treats us in very special manner, should we not pay the favor to others?  It’s not just about celebrating the goodness within us that matters but most especially the overflowing of that goodness and channeling it to others.  This is what Jesus did to the leper; he did not see the leprosy but the inherent goodness of the man and let it overflow through acceptance and love. After the healing, the man started proclaiming the story everywhere so that people from all around kept coming to Jesus. The goodness of the man was overflowing and he could not help but to share it to others.  How do you overflow your goodness to others?

PRAY-ER

 

5^TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME B

Mark 1:29-39

 http://cradio.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/FrVlad_20120205.mp3  
    

What’s in a day for Jesus?  Our gospel today shows us how Jesus would normally spend his day.  After his preaching at the synagogue, he 1) went to the house of Simon (Peter) and healed Simon’s mother in law 2) he healed all who were sick and possessed by the devils 3) he went off to a lonely place to pray and 4) he continued to preach and perform miracles.

Because Jesus would be spending his public ministry only for three short years, he was as busy as a bee.  He was a man of action and yet in spite of his very busy life, he took time to be with His Father in prayer.  That is why we can say that his life swings like a pendulum between action and contemplation. 

If we ever evaluate how we spend the time of the day, normally we are more active most of the time because we have to work and earn our living.  To those who are retired from work, the time is almost not enough do the things we want to in a day, and there will always something to do the following day.  To the active amongst us, there is actually no dull moment even as we spend some time in between to relax.  But how much time do we spend to be with God?  Some of us would say, “But Father, I have almost no more time to pray.  Would my work be my prayer?”  Of course, all the good works we do glorify God even if we are not conscious about it.  We could even say that because of the dignity of our work, we participate with God in His continuous work of creation.   But it should not justify us not to find time to be with God.  For Jesus, his prayer is the time he spent in communion with His Father.  After the day’s long activities, He would always find time to be alone in prayer, not just to rest but to bask in the presence of His Father.  

If we are able to regain our strength after we rest from our busy schedule, how much more when we spend some time to pray and be spiritually re-charged.   It does not cost unlike when we go to our favorite recreation; it just takes our willingness to commit ourselves to be with God like the way we long to be with our loved ones.  A father may be exhausted after the day’s work but when he’s home with his loving wife and children, he’s simply re-created!  We may experience the burdens and pains of life or even the unexplainable sufferings like that of Job’s in the first reading today, but if we spend more time with God, life becomes bearable and enjoyable. 

If you do not have time to go to the church to pray, then  “go to your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt. 6:6). 

In as much as we set a specified time to eat, re-create and do some other things, can we not set a time to be with God?  Maybe for three minutes in the evening, in the garden or in the living room… on a regular time!  Turn off the TV, radio, get away from the children and be quiet.  That can be our rendezvous with God everyday! This should be the life of a pray-er (a person who prays).

THE DEVIL: ROARING LION

 

4^TH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME – B

Mark 1:21-28 

When God gave the commandments to the Israelites, He spoke with them face to face in the fire (Dt. 5:4).  But the Israelites begged to be spared in hearing the voice of God directly so Moses came in as intermediary between God and the people.  From then on the prophetic tradition in the Old Testament continued with the long row of prophets.  In the first reading today, Moses prophesied that God will send one final prophet who is Jesus Christ!

After the calling of the first apostles, now St. Mark presents Jesus’ first preaching and the first miracle in his gospel.  This all happened in the synagogue in Capernaum.  The temple in Jerusalem was the only temple where the high priest would offer worship, sacrifice and atonement while the synagogues were used to proclaim the Torah or the Old Testament scriptures by the people.  Since there was no permanent teacher in the synagogue, the reading and exposition of the scriptures can be done by any competent Jew just like what Jesus did in our gospel today.

Jesus preached with authority!  This is how Jesus differed with the other prophets before Him and the Pharisees and scribes.  While the others were quoting the scriptures from which they got their authority to teach, Jesus was the Dabar of God, the Word personified.  That Word spoken by God to create everything in Genesis is now the Word alive re-creating creation.  This was manifested by the first miracle ever recorded in the gospel of St. Mark in the exorcism of the man with an unclean spirit.  By saying the name of Jesus, the evil spirit thought that he had control over Him, but the word of Jesus proved to be more powerful.  This is more than just exorcism!  Here we can see the power of the Word: “Be quiet!  Come out of him!”  When the evil spirit was defeated, it meant that the proclamation of the Kingdom ushered in the healing of humanity who had been suffering from the grip of the Devil.  That is why those who saw the miracle were amazed about the unusual authority of Jesus.

The Devil is as real as it was in the time of Adam and Eve, the time of Jesus and in our own time as well.  It continues to pester humanity in the many disguised forms of injustice, genocides, wars, poverty, oppression, etc.  It creeps its tentacles in the very fiber of our personal existence which manifest in our anger, addictions, hatred, indifference and our refusal to follow the way of righteousness.  We have to be always alert because “the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).   The Evil One continues to triumph not just when bad people sow bad deeds but most especially when good people stop doing good. 

That is why, every time we do something good to others, it is not just about pricking a thorn on the devil’s head but celebrating our inherent goodness that glorifies God.  Before we close our eyes in the evening, let us ask ourselves “What good have I done today?”  If we can remember at least one good deed that we have done for the day, then we have not lived our day in vain…. and we are not far from the Kingdom!

FISHERS OF MEN

3^RD SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME – B             (Mark 1:14-20) 

To listen to the Australian Catholic Radio Online:
http://cradio.org.au/resources/homilies/3rd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-2/     

 For this year’s cycle B of the liturgical calendar of the Church, we take on the gospel of St. Mark in our Sunday readings.   St. Mark does not have the genealogy of Jesus and His infancy narratives of St. Luke and St. Matthew, assuming that his readers already know them.  His gospel starts with John the Baptist, the Baptism and temptations of Jesus.  This third Sunday, St. Mark presents the beginning of the Galilean or public ministry of Jesus.

St. Mark places Galilee as the locus of the ministry of  Jesus which will stamp an indelible mark to Jesus as “The Galilean”.   As an opening salvo to His public ministry, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God.  In the olden times, good news meant an enthronement of a new king but when Jesus announced His good news, His message was not just about a king but the coming of the kingdom of God.  His very first spoken words in the gospel of St. Mark were “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is close at hand.”   Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom marked the fulfillment not just of the longings of the Old Testament but the whole world as well.  When He did this, He also proclaimed that He Himself is the personification of that kingdom, He is the auto-basilea! 

After the proclamation, came the invitation to repent and believe in the good news.  To concretize this, St. Mark presents the calling of the first disciples.  The first disciples who were called were two sets of brothers Simon and Andrew, James and John.  They were fishermen who later on will be called fishers of men.  There was an urgency both in the call and the response and immediately they abandoned their boats and their fathers. Nothing was written about their verbal response, their feelings, no questions were asked but one thing was certain: they left everything and followed Jesus. Jesus’ call demands immediate and complete obedience.

The call of Jesus this time is not just about young men becoming priests, missionaries being sent to missions, young ladies entering the convents or monasteries.  He meets us in the different shores of our lives, where we live, where we work, in all our goodness and sinfulness.  There is a universal call to holiness addressed to everyone: Catholics, Muslims, Jews, even those who have and will never hear the name of Jesus. But wherever we come from, we have to “break off” (metanoeite) from the old self to welcome the Kingdom of God in our hearts. Yet this conversion is not a one-time-off experience, it continuous through life.   To some this means, leaving homes and families, parting away from loved ones, giving up dreams and life’s securities.  Although the responses of some are more radical than others, our following of Jesus takes a lifetime to fulfill.  Our big YES is lived out in the little yeses of the ordinariness of our lives.  Jesus does not expect of us to do the impossible as long as we continue to follow him.  That’s what discipleship is: To follow Jesus who lives in our hearts…