February1 in Year B 12

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time to Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

Click on any date to go to the Thought for that Day

Morning Offering: O Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary, I offer you all the prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your divine heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I offer them especially for the Holy Father's intentions:

Pope Benedict's general intention for February is: "Access to Water. That all peoples may have access to water and other resources needed for daily life."

His mission intention is: "Health Workers. That the Lord may sustain the efforts of health workers assisting the sick and elderly in the world's poorest regions."

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Entrance Antiphon Ps 106 (105):47 Save us, O Lord our God! And gather us from the nations, to give thanks to your holy name, and make it our glory to praise you.

Collect Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honour you with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The "apostle of the north" (Scandinavia) had enough frustrations to become a saint—and he did. He became a Benedictine at Corbie, France, where he had been educated. Three years later, when the king of Denmark became a convert, Ansgar went to that country for three years of missionary work, without noticeable success. Sweden asked for Christian missionaries, and he went there, suffering capture by pirates and other hardships on the way. Less than two years later he was recalled, to become abbot of New Corbie (Corvey) and bishop of Hamburg. The pope made him legate for the Scandinavian missions. Funds for the northern apostolate stopped with Emperor Louis’s death. After 13 years’ work in Hamburg, Ansgar saw it burned to the ground by invading Northmen; Sweden and Denmark returned to paganism. He directed new apostolic activities in the North, travelling to Denmark and being instrumental in the conversion of another king. By the strange device of casting lots, the king of Sweden allowed the Christian missionaries to return. Ansgar’s biographers remark that he was an extraordinary preacher, a humble and ascetical priest. He was devoted to the poor and the sick, imitating the Lord in washing their feet and waiting on them at table. He died peacefully at Bremen, Germany, without achieving his wish to be a martyr. Sweden became pagan again after his death, and remained so until the coming of missionaries two centuries later. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus left there and went to his home town, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. Where did this man get these things? they asked. What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? And they took offence at him. Jesus said to them, Only in his home town, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honour. He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. (Mark 6:1‑6)

Suffering The biggest problem about life and reality is that there is suffering and evil. Given the fundamental question of why there is anything at all, the second question that arises from this is, why is there all this suffering and evil? The problem is sharpened when placed in the context of religious belief. If you say there is a good and all-powerful God who made and sustains the world — and thus providing an answer to the question of why there is anything at all — what about the second question? Why is it that this God of yours allows evil and suffering? The answer to this is awaited, and it is claimed that nothing satisfactory is given in reply. It is the ever-recurring “problem of evil.” Man naturally wants things to be different from the way they are because the way things are is very frustrating. Time and time again he is at an impasse and sunk in the quagmire of difficulty and minor or major catastrophe. The practical response to this cantankerous, indifferent and often hostile world varies from one person and society to another. Some deal resolutely with things and strive to make their way whatever be the drift of events. Others are sporting about it all, and get up when knocked down and with a laugh keep running. Others walk off the field and give up. But the question is, what sense are we to make of it? Now, let us bear in mind that the general answer of religious people with intelligence and education is that reason and natural reflection cannot provide an adequate answer to the problem of why a good and all-powerful God would choose to let evil and suffering be. A tsunami strikes a vast area of underdeveloped Asia and thousands of unsuspecting families are swept out to their deaths. What was God doing with his arms folded, as it were? That is the problem, and all grant that in terms of natural reason it is not fully soluble. But, after all, what is fully soluble? If we consider how limited is the extent of man’s understanding, it is not improbable that there is a wisdom to things that far, far exceeds him. It may be that a fallen and frustrating world is deliberately allowed by the Creator as a more fruitful scene for good than man could conceive or imagine.

All of this brings us to our Gospel today, and to what, on the face of it, appears to be a frustrating situation for the Son of God made man. Our Lord, before whom the demons fall helplessly prostrate, and before whom no natural illness or evil has power to stand defiant, has grown up in the midst of his village, family, friends and relatives. From various hints in the Gospels we can see that he thoroughly merged with his social environment over those years. So true was his immersion in his scene that those around him — with the exception of his surpassingly holy mother and foster-father — had no inkling of the altogether august nature of his divine Person. So here he is now, back in his home village, but back as an acknowledged prophet with miracles to his name that have sent his fame in all directions. He enters the Synagogue of Nazareth (which must have been small because the village was small) and, yes, he amazes them with his wisdom and the fame of his miracles. This was the young man they had known all along, and whose circle of relatives were so well known to them. “Where did this man get these things? they asked. What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:1-6). But their response? They took offence at him: the Greek is eskandalalizonto. Broadly, it was our Lord’s very human nature and situation that they could not get beyond. They could not, or rather would not, accept his thoroughly incarnate character and circumstances, together with, as well as, what he was simultaneously revealing about himself. He was just one of themselves, as far as they were prepared to allow. Now, the point here is not so much the tragedy of their darkened hearts as the limited, frustrating and sad feature of the world which our Lord had to face, and which was the arena of his mission. It is an instance of what faces man in so many situations — let us call it the frustrating problem of evil. But Christ allowed it, as he did numerous such instances right to his death, as the very arena for doing superlative good. It tells us that God allows all this because in his providence, paradoxically, so much good will result.

Our Gospel incident today throws light on the problem of evil and suffering, and the good that can and will be done in all the sad and frustrating situations that face man, if he takes his cue from Jesus Christ. Christ is the Light of the world, a world struck with so much evil and suffering. Let us learn from the Teacher of mankind that it is precisely in the midst of suffering that so much good can and will be done. Christ saved the world from sin from within the midst of suffering and evil — and our Gospel incident today is one instance of this pattern that was so central to his incomparable life. Let us learn from him in this, then, as in everything!

Divine grandeur In our Gospel today our Lord returns to his home town, having begun his public ministry. He had spent thirty years in that village and his greatness had been unnoticed. The point is even more obvious in what happened when our Lord returned. He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and his hearers were astonished at his power of address and his wisdom that was so manifest. It was so contrary to their entire experience of him to that point, that they would not accept him. Presumably they had felt so entirely his equal (and perhaps his superior) during those long years of his growing up — which indicates his humility — that they could not accept his manifest ascendancy. His greatness was being shown in part, but the true perception and acceptance of it required the readiness to go beyond mere appearances, and believe. In the plan of God a life of obedience to him requires that we live not simply by sight, but primarily by faith, for he is a God who works in the ordinary. Christ continues to be present and operative in the world and in the life of the Church through ordinary appearances. He is present and operative in the ordinary members of the faithful, in the seemingly ordinary Sacraments, in the reading of the Scriptures and in the homily of the Mass. He is present in his full reality in the ordinary-looking Host. He works in us and through us in our ordinary everyday work. God’s presence in the ordinary gives to the ordinary a grandeur.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit for an appreciation of the grandeur of all that is seemingly ordinary, for God is present there.

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For the sake of the objective truth, and to put a stop to the damage they do, I have to insist that we should give neither publicity nor hosannas to the enemies of God; not even after they are dead.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 48 (47):10-11 Your merciful love, O God, we have received in the midst of your temple. Your praise, O God, like your name, reaches the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with saving justice.

Collect Almighty ever-living God, we humbly implore your majesty that, just as your Only Begotten Son was presented on this day in the Temple in the substance of our flesh, so, by your grace, we may be presented to you with minds made pure. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

At the end of the fourth century, a woman named Etheria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her journal, discovered in 1887, gives an unprecedented glimpse of liturgical life there. Among the Presentation

celebrations she describes is the Epiphany (January 6), the observance of Christ’s birth, and the gala procession in honour of his Presentation in the Temple 40 days later—February 15. (Under the Mosaic Law, a woman was ritually “unclean” for 40 days after childbirth, when she was to present herself to the priests and offer sacrifice—her “purification.” Contact with anyone who had brushed against mystery—birth or death—excluded a person from Jewish worship.) This feast emphasizes Jesus’ first appearance in the Temple more than Mary’s purification. The observance spread throughout the Western Church in the fifth and sixth centuries. Because the Church in the West celebrated Jesus’ birth on December 25, the Presentation was moved to February 2, 40 days after Christmas. At the beginning of the eighth century, Pope Sergius inaugurated a candlelight procession; at the end of the same century the blessing and distribution of candles which continues to this day became part of the celebration, giving the feast its popular name: Candlemas. In Luke’s account, Jesus was welcomed in the temple by two elderly people, Simeon and the widow Anna. They embody Israel in their patient expectation; they acknowledge the infant Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. Early references to the Roman feast dub it the feast of St. Simeon, the old man who burst into a song of joy which the Church still sings at day’s end.

“Christ himself says, ‘I am the light of the world.’ And we are the light, we ourselves, if we receive it from him.... But how do we receive it, how do we make it shine? ...The candle tells us: by burning, and being consumed in the burning. A spark of fire, a ray of love, an inevitable immolation are celebrated over that pure, straight candle, as, pouring forth its gift of light, it exhausts itself in silent sacrifice” (Paul VI). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 24:7, 8, 9, 10; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. (Luke 2:22-40)

Prophecy Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all report of John the Baptist’s prophetic mission. It was not merely to speak of certain features of the coming One (as had, say, Deutero- Isaiah in 52:13-53:12, and various of the prophets), nor merely to speak of his coming as imminent, but to point him out and to speak in precise terms of his Messianic mission. Fr. Ted Tyler

As prophet, John attained a level greater than those who had preceded him. Inasmuch as John appeared only at the threshold of Christ’s work, he may be seen as the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets, one who recognized and proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, Redeemer and Lord. Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” who “baptizes with the Holy Spirit,” and who “is the Son of God” (John 1:29-34). Indeed, the Old Testament may be said to have reached its summit in John, who proclaimed the Gospel in simple outline. He is a signal embodiment of the beauty and grandeur of the era of the Old Testament, and his prophetic utterances cast light on the true meaning of what went before him. Christ himself would make that meaning even clearer. But now, it must be remembered that John is not the only “prophet” coming out of the Old Testament to have borne witness to Jesus. While all four Gospels, including Luke, make clear the fact and the importance of John’s prophetic designation of Jesus, Luke in particular shows that other prophetic witnesses coming out of the Old Testament also pointed to Jesus. This brings us to our Gospel passage today for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Luke 2:22-40). We are not told the age of Simeon but we get the impression of an elderly man. It had been revealed to him that he would not see death till he had seen the Messiah, and when he did see him he was ready to depart from this life. It suggests a full life behind him. Anna was an elderly woman — we are told this. That is to say, both lived in the Old Testament era and are magnificent representatives of it. They are led by the Holy Spirit to utter things on God’s behalf to certain others — Simeon to Mary and Joseph, and Anna to others in Jerusalem. They are, then, minor prophets, Anna being recognized as a “prophetess.” They both declare the Child to be Messiah and Redeemer.

What we have in our passage today, though appearing in the New Testament, are two prophetic figures who really belong to the Old Testament. Like John, but some thirty years before him, they declare on God’s behalf and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the Messianic status and mission of Jesus. Like John, they may be said to cast a light on the true meaning of the Old Testament and its prophecies. They bring it forward and narrow its focus and gaze. They raise the hand of the Old Testament and extend its finger in order to point in one direction, the direction of the Child Jesus. They say, on behalf of the Inspired Writings — its Law, its Prophets and its Psalms — “There is the One!” Nor are Simeon and Anna the only ones who do this. Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist, and Zechariah his father, also come out of and represent the Old Testament. They too utter prophecy under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit” exclaims “with a loud cry” things about Mary and the fruit of her womb (Luke 1: 41-45). Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit “prophesied” about John (1:67) and implicitly about Jesus. The point I am making is that we ought see the intervention of both Simeon and Anna in our Gospel today, following in the line of Elizabeth and Zechariah before them, as Luke’s point that in them the Old Testament bears witness to Jesus as Christ and Redeemer. Luke is not a Jew — all are agreed on this. But he presents this information in his Infancy Narrative and in doing so connects even more deeply the two Testaments. He helps us unite them in the Person of Jesus Christ. There is a further point to be observed in the testimony of both Simeon and Anna the prophetess. Both are saints. Both are persons of high moral, spiritual and religious character. Both are led by the Spirit of God. As a result, they are singularly ready, disposed and equipped for the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah and Redeemer, and are able to be led to proclaim him. In them we are reminded that a good moral ethos is normally required for recognition of and faith in Jesus Christ. It is the good person who is normally able to judge and apprehend the good and the true. How we live will affect our spiritual perception.

Let us ponder our beautiful Gospel passage today within the broad context of the entire Scriptures. The Scriptures manifest a growing crescendo of prophecy: he is coming, the long-awaited One! The Messiah will come and he will do what God intends for us! Finally the bell tolls, and certain persons from the era of the priests, prophets and kings step forward under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit and declare: There he is! Jesus is the One. With that, Christ comes forward as our Redeemer and our God. Let us treasure all that comes from God which helps us appreciate the One in whom is given every heavenly blessing, Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our consecration Our Lord is brought to the Temple by Mary and Joseph as their ‘first-born,’ to consecrate him as God’s own possession. There is the encounter with Simeon and Anna who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, bear witness to the Child’s uniqueness and his divine mission. Fr. Ted Tyler

He will be the salvation of all the nations, the glory of Israel, and a sign that would be rejected (Luke 2:22-40). In the consecration to God of Jesus our Redeemer, unique in all of human history in terms of his Person and his mission, we have the model for every human being. That is to say, in his presentation and consecration to God we are all reminded of how we too are called to be consecrated to God, and of how we who are baptised are in fact consecrated to God. We were presented and consecrated to God in our baptism and empowered further to live out this consecration through the grace that is available to us in the Sacraments. We were thus configured more and more to the Person of Christ, such that he now lives in us and we in him. At his presentation in the Temple our Lord was not only made over to God his Father, but his mission and his sufferings were announced. The shadow of the Cross fell across him and across his mother — his mother representing his entire mystical body, the Church. It was through his obedient endurance of the Cross that the world was redeemed.

At our Baptism and in our reception of the Sacraments we too are launched along the path which Christ our Redeemer followed, and so the Cross casts its shadow across us too. By our Baptism we are in Jesus, and Mary our Mother is with us too, just as she was with him. Let us pray for the grace to embrace the Cross, for the fruitfulness of our life will come through the Cross, just as was the case in the life of him who is our Master. On this feast of the Presentation let us renew our consecration to God in Christ, and set out to live it daily in company with the first and greatest of all Christians, Mary our Mother.

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Nowadays our Mother the Church is being attacked in the social field and by the governments of nations. That is why God is sending his children—is sending you!—to struggle, and to spread the truth in those areas.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 106 (105):47 Save us, O Lord our God! And gather us from the nations, to give thanks to your holy name, and make it our glory to praise you.

We know more about the devotion to St. Blase by Christians around the world than we know about the saint himself. His feast is observed as a holy day in some Eastern Churches. The Council of Oxford, in 1222, prohibited servile labour in England on Blase’s feast day. The Germans and Slavs hold him in special honour and for decades many United States Catholics have sought the annual St. Blase blessing for their throats. We know that Bishop Blase was martyred in his episcopal city of Sebastea, Armenia, in 316. The legendary Acts of St. Blase were written 400 years later. According to them Blase was a good bishop, working hard to encourage the spiritual and physical health of his people. Although the Edict of Toleration (311), granting freedom of worship in the Roman Empire, was already five years old, persecution still raged in Armenia. Blase was apparently forced to flee to the back country. There he lived as a hermit in solitude and prayer, but made friends with the wild animals. One day a group of hunters seeking wild animals for the amphitheatre stumbled upon Blase’s cave. They were first surprised and then frightened. The bishop was kneeling in prayer surrounded by patiently waiting wolves, lions and bears. As the hunters hauled Blase off to prison, the legend has it, a mother came with her young son who had a fish bone lodged in his throat. At Blase’s command the child was able to cough up the bone. Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia, tried to persuade Blase to sacrifice to pagan idols. The first time Blase refused, he was beaten. The next time he was suspended from a tree and his flesh torn with iron combs or rakes. (English wool combers, who used similar iron combs, took Blase as their patron. They could easily appreciate the agony the saint underwent.) Finally he was beheaded. (AmericanCatholic.org)

King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him. Others said, He is Elijah. And still others claimed, He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago. But when Herod heard this, he said, John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead! For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you. And he promised her with an oath, Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom. She went out and said to her mother, What shall I ask for? The head of John the Baptist, she answered. At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:14-29)

The Baptist Our Gospel passage today is about John the Baptist — a great prophet about whom we ought think more than we do. St Mark reports the circumstances of his death a little more than a third of the way through his Gospel, with our Lord being well into his public ministry. He tells us that “after John had been delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God” (1:14). Mark does not tell us how long it was after our Lord’s baptism that John’s ministry ended and Jesus’ public work began. Similarly, Matthew informs us that “when he heard that John had been delivered up, he (Jesus) withdrew into Galilee” and “from that time Jesus began to preach” (4:12-17). Luke situates the beginning of our Lord’s public ministry after John had been arrested (3:20). It was then that (after his baptism and temptations in the desert) “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and the fame of him went out through the whole country” (4:14). He also informs us that word of Jesus’ ministry was brought to John, leading John to send disciples to Jesus to ask for clarification about his Messianic status. It led to Christ’s public praise of John (Luke 7:18-35). We get the impression that by then John is confined. However, what we do notice in our Gospel passage today is that during Christ’s public ministry, there are those who think it is John raised back to life again. It suggests that John had left a powerful impression, including on the mind of his hapless executioner. So great was the impact of John that John the Evangelist, one of his disciples who at the Baptist’s bidding had become a disciple of Jesus, placed his old master very much in the Prologue of his Gospel. It is also clear from John’s Gospel that in some sense John’s ministry continued during the beginning of our Lord’s. We read of activities of Jesus in both Cana in Galilee (2:1-12) and indeed in Jerusalem (2:13-3:13) — and “after these things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and he stayed there with them and baptized. Now John was also baptizing .... for John had not yet been put into prison” (3: 22-24). It looks as if John is clarifying the sequence of things a little. Our Lord’s public ministry had in some sense begun before John’s own ministry ended with his arrest.

The point I am making here is that we ought not underestimate the great impact of John. Although our Lord’s appeal was rising and in some respects surpassing John’s (John 3:26: “all are coming to him”), it would seem that, broadly, John’s was the dominant figure while his ministry lasted. It may be likened a little to Elijah, with Elisha moving in the wing. It was only when John was “taken up” (like Elijah) by his arrest and martyrdom that Jesus began with power and force, far surpassing his precursor and with a “double portion of his spirit,” as it were. As we read in today’s passage from Mark, when the fame of Jesus began to spread — much greater than that of John — some thought Jesus had to be John come down from above. It was thought to be a case of the spirit of John in bodily form now exercising heavenly powers. Such was the spiritual stature of John that these notions were circulating. It is also clear from the Acts of the Apostles that John left a trail of disciples who were later to be found in various parts of the world. Many seem to have heard little or nothing of Jesus. John had taught them, and they passed on to other scenes, learning only much later about Jesus from Christ’s own disciples. Apollos was one such (Acts 18:25), as were others at Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7). We do not know how long this independent current of John’s disciples lasted, but I cannot help wondering if the Mandaeans emerged from it in some circuitous fashion. The Gospels, especially that of John the Evangelist, are at pains to clarify that John’s mission was to be precisely a Precursor of Jesus Christ. His greatness was accepted, insisted on, confirmed by Christ — but his true place in God’s plan had to be understood. All this serves to bring out the greatness of John’s person and prophetic ministry. He has the distinction of being a great prophet immediately preceding, and to a point standing by the side of, the Messiah. His death was a worthy climax of his noble course and our passage today from Mark (6:14-29) gives us a New Testament account of it. Herod knew John’s spiritual greatness, but fell because of his own moral weakness and gross human respect. The experience struck at his heart for he too, we see, interpreted the rise of Jesus as the return of John.

So great was John in the scheme of things that the Church celebrates each year not only his martyrdom but his very birth. Many saints have had a special devotion to John the Baptist, kinsman of Jesus Christ, his Precursor, the Elijah come again, and one extolled by Christ as greater than others. He teaches us to be faithful to our mission and work in life, faithful unto death. He teaches us to spend our lives giving way to the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Let us allow his grand figure to light up our lives and lead us ever more to the following of Jesus Christ.

And as the fat taken away from the communion sacrifice, so was David chosen from among the sons of Israel. He played with lions as though with kids: and with bears he did in like manner as with the lambs of the flock. In his youth, did not he kill the giant, and take away reproach from his people? In lifting up his hand, with the stone in the sling he beat down the boasting of Goliath: For he called upon the Lord the Almighty who gave strength to his right hand, to put to death a mighty warrior, and to lift up the horn of his nation. So they gave him credit for ten thousand, and praised him while they blessed the Lord, by offering to him a crown of glory: For he destroyed enemies on every side, and extirpated the Philistines and broke their horn for ever. In all his works he gave thanks to the Holy One, and to the Most High, with words of glory. With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God who made him: and he gave him power against his enemies: And he set singers before the altar, and by their voices he made sweet melody. And to the festivals he added beauty, and set in order the solemn times even to the end of his life, that they should praise the holy name of the Lord, and magnify the holiness of God in the morning. The Lord took away his sins, and exalted his horn for ever: and he gave him a covenant of the kingdom, and a throne of glory in Israel. (Ecclesiasticus 47:2-13)

David and Herod Our first reading from the book of Ecclesiasticus today eulogises David for his many outstanding qualities. He was a great ruler and a true man of God. At the same time he committed various sins, as we read in the book of Samuel and as is briefly alluded to in our passage today (Ecclesiasticus 47:2-13). David sinned, but he repented, obtained the pardon of God, and continued to advance in his love and service of God. He is in the category of those several saints who repented of great sins and attained holiness. In our Gospel today (Mark 6:14-29) we have, on the other hand, another kind of sinner. He was one who grossly sinned but who did not heed the voice of his accusing conscience. I refer to Herod, whose distinction was to have put to death the one of whom our Lord said that never had there been born of woman one greater than he. So then, David repented and converted, while Herod did not. Herod had his regrets, but did not repent and convert. Both persons committed grave sins, the one going on to holiness of life, the other, we may sadly suspect, died in his sins. What is the key to the difference between the two? One key is that David was willing to listen to and then obey the voice of his conscience when confronted by it, whereas Herod was not. That the voice of conscience was heard by Herod and ignored we are assured by various details in our Gospel passage today. Now, each of us to a greater or lesser extent will choose either to listen to our conscience or not to listen to it, and we shall find ourselves making this choice each day. Our conscience whispers constantly, insistently and with authority. In doing this it echoes the voice of God. Its judgment will need to be improved and corrected and guided, but the sense of duty which informs it must not be ignored. If we do ignore it, we follow the path of Herod rather than that of David. If it is ignored in the little duties of every day our hearts will be coarsened, and gradually the voice that leads us to holiness will fall silent. In the smallest things we must listen to and obey the voice of duty.

Let us then face our fundamental choice between Christ or Satan, holiness or sin. We have the figure of David in our first reading to encourage us to choose Christ and holiness, and the figure of Herod in our Gospel passage to warn us against Satan and sin. Let us be sensitive to the voice of conscience daily encouraging and warning, daily approving and reproving. So, now I begin!

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You are an ordinary citizen. It is precisely because of that secularity of yours, which is the same as, and neither more nor less than, that of your colleagues, that you have to be sufficiently brave—which may sometimes mean being very brave—to make your faith felt. They should see your good works and the motive that drives you to do them.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 106 (105):47 Save us, O Lord our God! And gather us from the nations, to give thanks to your holy name, and make it our glory to praise you.

Joseph avoided the safe compromises by which people sometimes undercut the gospel. Born at Leonissa in the Kingdom of Naples, Joseph joined the Capuchins in his hometown in 1573. Denying himself hearty meals and comfortable quarters, he prepared for ordination and a life of preaching. In 1587 he went to Constantinople to take care of the Christian galley slaves working under Turkish masters. Imprisoned for this work, he was warned not to resume it on his release. He did and was again imprisoned and then condemned to death. Miraculously freed, he returned to Italy where he preached to the poor and reconciled feuding families as well as warring cities which had been at odds for years. He was canonized in 1746.

In one of his sermons, Joseph says: "Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel. This is what St. Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘Clearly you are a letter of Christ which I have delivered, a letter written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart’ (2 Corinthians 3:3). Our heart is the parchment; through my ministry the Holy Spirit is the writer because ‘my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe’ (Psalm 45:1)." (AmericanCatholic.org)

The apostles gathered round Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognised them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. (Mark 6:30‑34)

Work and prayer The stunning claim of Jesus Christ and of the Christian religion of which he is the Founder is that he, a Jewish man of the time of Tiberius Caesar, was God. This was the special object of the early Ecumenical Councils and it is the special objection of non-Christians through the centuries since. Islam, of course, will have none of it, nor will, Fr. Ted Tyler

for instance, our Jewish brothers and sisters. It is the unyielding claim of the Catholic Church of the ages, as it was the claim of the numerous early Christian martyrs of the Empire. As St John lays it down in the Prologue of his Gospel: The Word — who in the beginning was with God and who was God — became flesh and dwelt among us. We saw his glory, the glory of the Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1.14). However, granted the momentous doctrine of his divinity, we must not forget the obvious fact of his humanity. No-one during the lifetime of Jesus Christ who saw or spoke to him, or heard others speak of him, had the slightest doubt about this feature of his Person. He was plainly a man, and his usual designation of himself as the “Son of Man” served to stress this. But it can be somewhat lost sight of by one who has attained faith in the central point about him, that his Person was divine. We must hold together before our minds the two marvellous points that are to be made about the Jesus of history. He is a divine Person with his own divine nature who at a certain point in history and in a certain place took unto himself our human nature, thus becoming truly God and truly man. So then, let us think for a moment of Jesus Christ precisely in his humanity. As man he lived as we live but without sin, such that he is the model, the exemplar of the good and holy life for every man and woman in history. This brings us to our Gospel today, in which we see the Apostles gathering together with Jesus to report all they had done and taught. They had been sent out on mission and now they were back with their accounts of how it had all gone. They were tired, perhaps exhausted, and our Lord was too. Indeed, we get the impression at times that our Lord’s exhaustion reached a much greater depth than theirs. He was sound asleep during the storm. He sat resting by the Well of Sychar while the disciples went ahead for provisions. His unending work far outstripped theirs.

Our Lord suggests that they “come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.” This is one thing we notice about the man Jesus Christ. In his ministry he is filled with work and service — so much so that at one point his relatives thought he was out of his mind (Mark 3: 21). But he does go aside to deserted places to rest and to pray. We read that the morning after many healings and exorcisms in Capernaum “he departed and went to a lonely place” (Luke 4:42). Again, he healed a leper and commanded him to keep his healing secret, but news of it got out and “multitudes gathered he hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed” (Luke 5:15-16). At a further point in his public ministry we read that “he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and would not have any one know it; yet he could not remain hidden” — a woman with a possessed daughter found him out (Mark 7:24-30). His hide-away was blown. We read that “then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis” (Mark 7:31). The Decapolis was also pagan territory and so, presumably, something of a retreat. But there was to be no let-up because here too he was presented with a deaf and dumb man for his healing. And so it went on. The point to notice is that the man Jesus, eternal Son of the Father, sought time and space for rest and prayer with his disciples. So too in our Gospel passage today (Mark 6: 30-34): “He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.” This reminds us that the disciple of Christ must work and pray. There are many incentives for man to work and to rest. Man’s flourishing largely depends on his income, and this normally depends on his readiness to work. Work will naturally require some rest. Such is the will of God, of course, but there are all those natural incentives. What can so easily be forgotten is the duty to use times of rest — to take time out — to pray. Prayer ought pervade all our work, but for this to happen we normally need time out to pray. It is the main reason for the Lord’s Day being a day of rest.

Let us notice this feature of Christ’s life of work. Let us also notice that he takes his disciples, now full of work themselves, apart for a time of rest — a religious rest with God. Let us notice too, though, that once again when this rest was interrupted to the point of being taken away, our Lord gives himself over to compassionate service. “People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” Such is Jesus Christ, our model and exemplar.

The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. “Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for — both riches and honour — so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. (1 Kings 3:4-13)

Solomon Today in our first reading we are presented with the figure of Solomon, the son of King David. Our text describes how God spoke to Solomon in a dream inviting him to ask for whatever he desired. At this Solomon replied that insofar as God had made him king in succession to his father David, he asked for the gift of a heart that could discern good Fr. Ted Tyler

from evil, and that could govern God’s people well. That is to say, he asked for the gift of a discerning judgment and wisdom. It was a request that pleased God greatly, and not only did he give to Solomon this gift of understanding, but as a reward for this choice he gave him riches and glory also (1 Kings 3:4-13). Let us learn from this that the prayer of petition pleases God, especially when we ask for what we think will please him to grant us. Our passage shows that God will be pleased if we ask for the gift of wisdom. But let us also remember what happened to Solomon. Yes, he pleased God by asking for wisdom and discernment, and yes, he received this gift to such a degree that his very name is inextricably linked with wisdom. We often refer to ‘the wisdom of Solomon’ as a byword. But despite that, he fell into profoundly serious sins which led finally into idolatry. Why did this happen? We are not told, but perhaps it was because he began proudly to rely on himself rather than on God, and confidently strayed into occasions of serious sin. He was ensnared and perhaps one morass led to another. It seems he died in his sins and his bright prospects ended badly. It reminds us that whatever be the gifts God has given us we must be correspondingly humble, relying on the grace of God and avoiding the occasions of sin.

Let us remember what high gifts the angel Lucifer was given, and yet how great was his fall. Furthermore, we notice that while Solomon asked for discernment and wisdom, he did not specifically ask for holiness of life. Let us ask for wisdom all our lives, but even more let us ask for goodness and holiness every day of our lives. Holiness too is God’s gift, and it is for holiness that we have been created.

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Children of God — like yourself — cannot be afraid of living in the professional or social surroundings which are proper to them. They are never alone! God Our Lord, who always goes with you, grants you the means to be faithful to him, and to bring others to him.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

Collect Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace, they may be defended always by your protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

As in the case of Agnes, another virgin-martyr of the early Church, almost nothing is historically certain about this saint except that she was martyred in Sicily during the persecution of Emperor Decius in 251. Legend has it that Agatha, like Agnes, was arrested as a Christian, tortured and sent to a house of prostitution to be mistreated. She was preserved from being violated, and was later put to death. She is claimed as the patroness of both Palermo and Catania. The year after her death, the stilling of an eruption of Mt. Etna was attributed to her intercession. As a result, apparently, people continued to ask her prayers for protection against fire. When Agatha was arrested, the legend says, she prayed: “Jesus Christ, Lord of all things! You see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am—you alone. I am your sheep; make me worthy to overcome the devil.” And in prison: “Lord, my creator, you have protected me since I was in the cradle. You have taken me from the love of the world and given me patience to suffer. Now receive my spirit.” (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Job 7:1-4, 6-7; Ps 147:1-6; 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother‑in‑law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon‑possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: Everyone is looking for you! Jesus replied, Let us go somewhere else— to the nearby villages— so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come. So he travelled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. (Mark 1:29‑39)

Christ and the sick We live in a technologically advanced age. Very many sicknesses have been averted due to advances in medicine and technology. However, of course, people still get sick and die. Sickness and death, and sickness alone when death is not imminent, is a tremendous issue for the individual who is suffering from it. In sickness a person experiences his powerlessness and his limitations, and he is brought to a glimpse of death. It can lead, on the one hand, to concern simply with self and even despair and revolt against God. On the other hand, it can lead to a greater maturity and a turning to God and a surrender into his care. Sickness and death is a great challenge: it can be a danger or an opportunity. In our Gospel today, Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with fever (Mark 1:29-39). Having told him about her, our Lord’s disciples bring him to her and he cures her. This Gospel incident reminds us that Jesus is the Healer and the Saviour of the one who is sick, especially the one who is in some danger of death. It reminds us too that the greatest thing we can do for the sick person is to pray to Jesus on his behalf, and to bring Jesus to the sick person, just as our Lord’s disciples did. If our Lord’s disciples had not told him about her and brought him to her, her fever would not have been taken away from her at the time that it was. She was, in this sense, dependent on our Lord’s disciples. So too when people are sick they depend on us to pray for them to our Lord, and to do whatever we can to bring the healing presence of Jesus to them. In him is to be found every heavenly blessing for the sick and dying person — as for all persons. Let us remember this when we ourselves fall sick and when we have contact with the sick. Christ is the One the sick person most especially needs. What a wonderful thing it is if the one visiting the sick person truly loves our Lord and has sufficient knowledge of the Catholic Faith to be able to speak of our Lord to that sick person. I remember nearly forty years ago reading a great Australian novel by Henry Handel Richardson. There is one scene in which one of the characters lies dying and his friend steps forward and says to him, “Have no fear of death, John!” It is a striking statement, and in a desperate moment.

Yes, it is a striking statement, but it is empty. It is an empty statement because the dying person is being told not to fear death without being given any reason. Naturally speaking, there is every reason to fear death and one needs a compelling reason not to fear it. Now, any member of Christ’s faithful has something wonderful to bring to the sick person and especially to the dying person. It is the Good News about Christ: “Have no fear of death, John, for Christ is with you! He loves you and gave himself up for you! Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ!” That is the reason for not fearing death. If he is not baptized and is of another religion, it can be the opportunity to speak about the Saviour of the world, inviting the sick person to welcome Jesus as the Healer and Redeemer of every soul. It is the chance to do what the disciples did in the Gospel of today: to bring Jesus to the sick person. If the person is baptised and is in the state of grace, Christ is in him as his hope of glory. If the sick person is a baptized member of the Catholic Church we ought speak to him of the Sacrament of Penance in which Christ forgives sin and cleanses the soul. If the person is seriously ill and beginning to be in some danger of death or about to have some serious operation, we ought suggest that the priest come for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick as well. Jesus himself comes, personally, in these Sacraments. They are channels of his coming and his grace. He comes to cleanse the person of his sins in the Sacrament of Penance. In the Anointing of the Sick, Christ comes to strengthen the sick person by his presence so as to bear the difficulties of serious illness or old age, and give healing of soul and even, at times, of body. In this Sacrament of the Anointing, Christ unites the sick person to himself in his own Passion and in this way enables the sick person to share in his redemptive work, thus doing great good from his very sick bed. But especially does our Lord in this Sacrament prepare the dangerously sick person for his final journey to God. Then in addition there is the Holy Eucharist, Jesus himself, called Viaticum when given to the dying.

Let us reflect on the implications of today’s Gospel. Our Lord wishes to be with us when we are sick. He wants to transform our sickness from being a danger to a great opportunity for holiness. Let us welcome him then, and let us make it our business to help every sick person welcome Christ. The greatest service we can do for a sick person is to do all in our power to bring Christ to him. Christ comes in his word and in the Sacraments, and it is the ordained priest who brings Christ in the last Sacraments, Penance, the Anointing and the Eucharist. Let us always be ready to do for the sick person what Peter did for his mother-in-law in our Gospel today.

Further Reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1499-1523 (Prayer and healing in the anointing of the sick)

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All for Love! This is the way of holiness, the way of happiness. Face up to your intellectual tasks, the highest things of the spirit and also those things that are most down to earth, the things we all of necessity have to do, with this in mind; and you will live joyfully and with peace.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

Nagasaki, Japan, is familiar to Americans as the city on which the second atomic bomb was dropped, immediately killing over 37,000 people. Three and a half centuries before, 26 martyrs of Japan were crucified on a hill, now known as the Holy Mountain, overlooking Nagasaki. Among them were priests, brothers and laymen, Franciscans, Jesuits and members of the Secular Franciscan Order; there were catechists, doctors, simple artisans and servants, old men and innocent children—all united in a common faith and love for Jesus and his Church. Brother Paul Miki, a Jesuit and a native of Japan, has become the best known among the martyrs of Japan. While hanging upon a cross Paul Miki preached to the people gathered for the execution: “The sentence of judgment says these men came to Japan from the Philippines, but I did not come from any other country. I am a true Japanese. The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. I certainly did teach the doctrine of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason I die. I believe that I am telling only the truth before I die. I know you believe me and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you to become happy. I obey Christ. After Christ’s example I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.”

When missionaries returned to Japan in the 1860s, at first they found no trace of Christianity. But after establishing themselves they found that thousands of Christians lived around Nagasaki and that they had secretly preserved the faith. Beatified in 1627, the martyrs of Japan were finally canonized in 1862. (AmericanCatholic.org)

When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognised Jesus. They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went— into villages, towns or countryside— they placed the sick in the market‑places. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed. (Mark 6:53-56)

Christ’s power Consider the character of the earthly “powers” that often bear down on man, adversely affecting him. If man does not work, he will starve — so the world will crush him if he does not defend and protect himself by his work. He gets sick, cold and hungry. He easily falls victim to the hostility of his fellows. He can be swept away to his death in minutes. Fr. Ted Tyler

His experience of the “powers that be” is often painful, and when he himself gains power over others, often it happens that they suffer. The possession of power can corrupt, and absolute power can corrupt absolutely. In view of all this adverse experience of power, it is not surprising that in history man has sought rescue and aid from the higher powers. The supernatural powers, the gods, are perceived as beings of “power.” Most cultures have used specific terms to designate the supernatural powers: Mana, Mungo, Numen, the Sacred, Spiritus, Vis Naturalis, Wakan, Wisdom, the gods or God. The list goes on. Higher powers were usually associated with special persons, places, and objects, and people went to these in order to gain the aid of the Supernatural. It is said that the oldest known pilgrimage site is Mount Kailash in Tibet which, situated at 18,000 feet, has been the goal of religious journeys for some 15,000 years. Some Buddhists claim that doing the long trail around that Mount erases sins, and that doing so over 100 times gives access to Nirvana. In classical Greece, there was the great oracle at Delphi from which would come utterances of the god Apollo — it was the major site for the worship of Apollo. All this is to say that the gods, as opposed to man, are imagined as powerful. They can do great things. But what we also notice in the history of man’s religious thought is that while the deities are regarded as powerful, they are not necessarily nor notably friendly and moral. The gods of the myths were a mixed bunch, and it was quite a business keeping them on side. Into this very uneven picture, and as the answer to man’s yearning, has come the intervention of the God of historical revelation, the God of Abraham and the prophets, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He revealed himself as a God of almighty power, as an all-holy God, and as a God who is love.

The God of Abraham, the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets was very new on the scene of the gods and higher powers. He had absolute power, he loved and was compassionate, and he was good and holy. He required holiness — the other gods did not require holiness, nor did they abominate sin. Perhaps the most iconic event in the history of the children of Israel was the deliverance from the land of Egypt and the passing over to the Promised Land. It was an act of Yahweh God’s power and loving compassion. He showed himself to be almighty. There is no hint in the Pentateuch of any limitation to God’s power. He was a God of power and might. In this, the religion of Israel had much to tell that was of interest to the religions of man, for they too looked to the heavens for power that would aid man. The God of the Hebrews was a God of unlimited might. The gods of the nations were as nothing to him and he prohibited any recognition of them among his chosen people. When Mary the mother of the Messiah uttered her prayer magnifying the Lord God of Israel, she spoke of him as “he who is mighty” and who “has done great things for me” (Luke 1:49). At his trial, our Lord declared that “you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power” (Mark 14:62). The Christian Creed begins its profession proclaiming the Father “almighty.” All of this brings us to our Gospel today, for it shows our Lord as the answer to man’s yearning for access to a higher power that would aid him in his distress and in his vulnerability to hostile powers about him. We read that “As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognised Jesus. They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went — into villages, towns or countryside — they placed the sick in the market-places. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed” (Mark 6:53-56). Our Lord, radiating moral goodness, was brimming with power. They had but to touch him to be blessed. The God of power and might was manifestly present in him and the divine presence overflowed with the benefits of his power. Of course, this Jesus was the living God, the source of all power.

Trite as it might sound, a kernel of true religion is belief in the power of God. If we do not look on God as powerful, we have little religion. The mark of faith in revealed religion is belief in God’s almighty power, a power that shows itself in mercy towards needy man. All of this is revealed in Jesus Christ, the image of the unseen God, the One who has made him known. Our Gospel scene today shows forth the divine power of Jesus Christ. He is our Salvation and our Friend. Let us be ever in his company, ever in direct touch with him by faith and the Sacraments, ever receiving the blessings that flow forth from his abiding and limitless power.

Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the LORD’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. All the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, and they brought up the ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up, and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted. The priests then brought the ark of the LORD’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim……These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple. Then Solomon said, “The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.” (1 Kings 8:1-7.9-13)

The Ark and the Eucharist In our first reading today we are told of how the Ark of the covenant containing the two stone tablets with God’s commandments on them were transported from Zion to the Temple. In the presence of the Ark, great numbers of sheep and cattle were sacrificed. The Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies of the Fr. Ted Tyler

Temple, and the glory of the Lord filled the Temple in the form of a cloud (1 Kings 8:1-7.9-13). The Ark was a wonderful possession of the people of God. It contained God’s writing which set out his commandments which were the terms of the covenant, and God marked its presence in the Temple with signs of his own guaranteed presence. Our Lord himself was full of love for his Father’s House and on one memorable occasion, physically cleansed the Temple of what he said defiled the place where his Father dwelt. What we read in this passage points to something far greater that was to come, something accessible to all of us who are Christ’s faithful wherever we live in the world. In every Catholic parish there dwells a far greater than the Ark: the Holy Eucharist, which is the Person of Jesus Christ in all his risen reality. With him there is present the Father and the Holy Spirit. Solomon sacrificed vast numbers of sheep and oxen to honour God and the Ark of God. Every day at Mass the greatest possible sacrifice is offered to God. It is the one sacrifice of Calvary made present sacramentally. Just as the writing on the stone tablets in the Ark came from God, so the sacrifice offered in the Mass comes from him, for it makes present again and again the one, all-sufficient and infinitely valuable sacrifice of Christ at Calvary.

Let us read our passage from 1 Kings today, thinking of how wondrously what it describes has been fulfilled every day in our midst, in the midst of the Church. Let us ask the Holy Spirit for a lively faith in the reality of what the Mass contains and of what it is under the form of signs, and let us ask for the spirit of reverence to celebrate it to the full.

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As a Christian, you can give away, within the limits of faith and morals, in everything that is your own; you can give way with all your heart. But in what belongs to Jesus Christ, you cannot give way!

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

Colette did not seek the limelight, but in doing God’s will she certainly attracted a lot of attention. Colette was born in Corbie, France. At 21 she began to follow the Third Order Rule and became an anchoress, a woman walled into a room whose only opening was a window into a church. After four years of prayer and penance in this cell, she left it. With the approval and encouragement of the pope, she joined the Poor Clares and reintroduced the primitive Rule of St. Clare in the 17 monasteries she established. Her sisters were known for their poverty—they rejected any fixed income—and for their perpetual fast. Colette’s reform movement spread to other countries and is still thriving today. Colette was canonized in 1807. Colette began her reform during the time of the Great Western Schism (1378-1417) when three men claimed to be pope and thus divided Western Christianity. The 15th century in general was a very difficult one for the Western Church. Abuses long neglected cost the Church dearly in the following century; the prayers of Colette and her followers may have lessened the Church’s troubles in the 16th century. In any case, Colette’s reform indicated the entire Church’s need to follow Christ more closely. In her spiritual testament, Colette told her sisters: "We must faithfully keep what we have promised. If through human weakness we fail, we must always without delay arise again by means of holy penance, and give our attention to leading a good life and to dying a holy death. May the Father of all mercy, the Son by his holy passion, and the Holy Spirit, source of peace, sweetness and love, fill us with their consolation. Amen." (AmericanCatholic.org)

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were unclean, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the market‑place they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands? He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. And he said to them: You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that. (Mark 7:1-13)

God’s Will It is almost a truism to say that our age is a secular one. We get along without God. We think God to be unnecessary, on the margins, and probably a non-entity. But while we who are children of our secular age and culture take life without God for granted as being normal, it is abnormal. It is an anomaly in the annals of history because typically man is religious. The usual thing — expected by anthropologists, historians and archaeologists — is that the life of a culture is permeated with belief in the gods, the higher powers, or God. The Roman Empire eventually launched a massive persecution of the Christian religion, intermittently renewed and only ceasing some three centuries after the Resurrection of Christ. The Empire did not persecute Christians because they were very religious. The martyrdoms of the second century largely occurred because of the refusal by Christians to acknowledge the state religion, leading to charges of atheism. This culminated in the edict of Decius (249 AD) followed by two edicts of Valerian which paved the way for systematic persecutions under Diocletian. The Empire regarded itself as religious. That is to say, the state kept the gods acknowledged, appeased and satisfied with due ceremonial because the welfare of the Empire depended on their being friendly and co-operative. The Christians were detested, therefore, because they were atheists. Christianity firmly precluded its followers from worship of any gods other than the Triune God revealed by Jesus Christ. In a society where the well-being of the state was so dependent on the goodwill of the gods, this could only be viewed as sedition and radically subversive of the security of the Empire. It was not just the state that entertained this religious detestation: the populace did too. The ‘atheism’ of Christians was often blamed for ill-fortune. One fourth century proverb sums up the situation well: “No rain, because of the Christians” (Lane Fox, R. 1986. Pagans and Christians, London: Viking, p.425). Cardinal Newman in his novel, Callista, describes the blame which the North African populace heaped on the Christians for the great locust-plague. The government and people of the Empire persecuted precisely because they saw themselves as being “religious.”

What I am saying is that there is nothing special in history about being “religious.” The story of humanity shows that man is naturally religious and tends instinctively to acknowledge the divine. Typically he does this not only personally, but socially. In his social and public life too he is religious — and the Roman Empire was one of many instances which could easily be cited. Our modern secular age views itself as having come of age in shaking off all this religion. It professes to rely, rather, on science, observation and the management of things through the knowledge of the laws of nature. But to say the least, a mind-set that excludes religion is out of step with the testimony of the millennia, for mankind has typically recognized the divine and its involvement with the world. Be all that as it may, the point here is that while the challenge facing our modern secular man is to reclaim religion itself, this alone is not sufficient. Being religious is but natural. What the secular man and the secular age must do is reclaim a religion that seeks the holiness of desiring and doing God’s will. It is this which is truly meritorious. Man is called to be religious in the sense of seeking to know the true God and what his will for man is, with the resolve to do it. Religion, Cardinal Newman once wrote, is essentially a matter of authority and obedience. He was saying that it should involve a true acknowledgment of God’s sovereign and abiding authority over one’s own life and all reality, and a rendering unto him of constant obedience. All of this brings us to our Gospel today (Mark 7: 1-13). Our Lord does not accuse the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of lacking religion — they were, after all, religious professionals. But there is nothing exceptionally meritorious about being “religious” — it is natural, and of course the social and public life of Israel was imbued with “religion.” What our Lord condemned was that their religion did not lead to a true recognition of God’s authority, and to obedience to his declared will. What God wanted was being substituted by what they wanted. “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.... Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Of course, we must be religious. But let us understand this properly. Religion is the recognition of God’s authority, the authority of the God of mercy and compassion who has revealed his will for man. That will tells us his commandments and the way to salvation and heaven. Religion seeks to know, acknowledge and accept this. It sustains a life of obedience to the will of God. As our Lord said on one occasion: “Who are my mother and my brothers? Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.” Above all, let us do God’s will.

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven and said: “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below — you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way……..”But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy, O LORD my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day. May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. Hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. (1 Kings 8:22-23.27-30)

God I remember years ago when visiting Ecuador in South America, I met a deacon of that country whom a priest told me was one of the leading poets of Ecuador. I saw a small book of poems he had published. Its title was “The Silence of God.” I was told at the time that a leading theme of his poetry was the apparent inaction of God in the face of petitions. In 2006 there was a television program about the life and writings of the famous English author and Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis. His Christian faith (which he had come to after atheism and agnosticism) underwent a great shock at the death of his wife. The apparent silence of God in the face of his heartfelt prayer and need was a great stumbling block to him. At length he came to understand God’s inaction and silence as a loving gaze from the One who was so far greater than he. That gaze summoned him to shed his own notions and to trust in God. In our first reading from the first book of Kings (1 Kings 8:22-23.27-30) we read of Solomon appealing to God for kindness and pardon. He asks God to “listen to the cry and to the prayer your servant makes to you today.” In his prayer of petition he asks that God will watch over the completed Temple and the people who pray in it. He asks also for forgiveness for their sins. It is a heartfelt prayer which would receive its fullest answer in the coming and the redemptive mission of Christ. Let us notice the boldness and directness of Solomon’s petition to God. It manifests a lively faith in the reality and the character of God. God is a living Person to him, a Person of goodness and compassion.

It is difficult to pray persistently for something if our faith is not real and lively. One suspects that most people do not pray for much, let alone pray persistently for what they need. Why? Basically it is because they do not believe that God is really God. God’s so-called “silence” has been their stumbling block. They have not gone on from this experience to acknowledge that God’s ways are far greater than man’s, and so to trust in him. When we do not see our petition answered immediately, nor in the way we thought best, it does not mean that God is silent. He continues to be near, gazing on us with love, and intent on answering our prayer in ways beyond expectation. Let us then pray with faith, knowing that God is not just one of us, but God.

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When you have to give orders, do not humiliate anyone. Go gently. Respect the intelligence and the will of the one who is obeying.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

For many years, Josephine Bakhita was a slave but her spirit was always free and eventually that spirit prevailed. Born in Olgossa in St Josephine Bakhita

the Darfur region of southern Sudan, Josephine was kidnapped at the age of seven, sold into slavery and given the name Bakhita, which means fortunate. She was re-sold several times, finally St Josephine Bakhita

in 1883 to Callisto Legnani, Italian consul in Khartoum, Sudan. Two years later he took Josephine to Italy and gave her to his friend Augusto Michieli. Bakhita became babysitter to Mimmina Michieli, whom she accompanied to Venice's Institute of the Catechumens, run by the Canossian Sisters. While Mimmina was being instructed, Josephine felt drawn to the Catholic Church. She was baptized and confirmed in 1890, taking the name Josephine. When the Michielis returned from Africa and wanted to take Mimmina and Josephine back with them, the future saint refused to go. During the ensuing court case, the Canossian sisters and the patriarch of Venice intervened on Josephine's behalf. The judge concluded that since slavery was illegal in Italy, she had actually been free since 1885. Josephine entered the Institute of St. Magdalene of Canossa in 1893 and made her profession three years later. In 1902, she was transferred to the city of Schio (northeast of Verona), where she assisted her religious community through cooking, sewing, embroidery and welcoming visitors at the door. She soon became well loved by the children attending the sisters' school and the local citizens. She once said, "Be good, love the Lord, pray for those who do not know Him. What a great grace it is to know God!" The first steps toward her beatification began in 1959. She was beatified in 1992 and canonized eight years later.

During his homily at her canonization Mass in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II said that in St. Josephine Bakhita, "We find a shining advocate of genuine emancipation. The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but the firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and violence, and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their rights." (AmericanCatholic.org)

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean’. After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. Are you so dull? he asked. Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body. (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean’. For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean’. (Mark 7:14-23)

The heart of man Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) who, between 1905 and 1915 developed the theory of general relativity, effected a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. Over the course of his academic career, he had a prolific output, publishing more than 300 scientific papers along Fr. Ted Tyler

with over 150 non-scientific works. Einstein expressed views on Judaism, theological determinism, agnosticism, and humanism. He also wrote on features of ethics. In respect to religion, it seems he preferred Spinoza's god over belief in a personal God. For me, as one with little background in physics and mathematics, Einstein’s most interesting attempt was to use (beginning in 1917) his general theory of relativity to provide a model of the structure of the universe as a whole. He was looking for a basic formula for the entire universe, a key around which pivots the cosmos, and in 1950 he described his "unified field theory" in his paper on a “Generalized Theory of Gravitation." It is agreed that this attempt to unify the fundamental forces of the universe in some formula was unsuccessful. I have read that Einstein's dream of unification motivates modern quests for a theory of everything — in particular the string theory, about which there have been television documentaries. What is interesting is this pursuit in physics and mathematics of a theory of everything. If only we could get to the heart of things, that element (formula, equation, key or component) constituting the linchpin of the universe and which is its pivot. The same goal has driven various schools of philosophy — Einstein was German, and many German philosophers over the last few centuries have, amid all their obscurities, sought a basic principle of reality. In one of his observations in his Philosophical Notebook, Blessed John Henry Newman reacted adversely against this quest for a single philosophical principle that is meant to account for everything. He writes that he had always disagreed with it. I mention this quest for a central hinge, a key pivot, a basic principle, this search for something around which will turn a great deal of life and the world’s course, as an introduction to our Gospel passage today. If there is a fulcrum of the universe, it is the heart of man. What do I mean?

The problem of evil in the world is the standard objection against theism. There is no doubt that the universe constitutes a problem for the happiness of very many. For a tremendous number, age after age, the world is not a happy home and many are crushed by it. But what are we to make of this? There have been many answers and from reason alone, the jury has always been out. But from on high there has come the revelation that there is one God and he is the Author of all, and most especially of man. He created man in his own image, and that included free will. Man used his power of choice to rebel against his Maker, and this resulted in a profound dislocation of everything. Death entered the world through one man’s sin, and death has spread to the whole human race. This is a mystery, but it has been revealed. “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you .... In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:17-19). Because man sinned against God, the world became hostile and death arose and dragged him down. The point, though, is that the fundamental problem of the universe is the sin which arises from the heart of man. At the beginning God created man in his own image, and as very good (Genesis 1: 26.31). It all went awry when man chose to sin. The temptation came from without — from the Serpent — but the consent to sin came from his own heart. It is from the heart of man that both good and evil flows. Thus the fulcrum of the universe is the human heart. If the heart of man is made right, ultimately the universe will be set on the right course and will share in the glory to come. The Redeemer came to take away the sin of the world — and sin resides in the heart of man. If we must identify a single element around which pivots the life and ultimate health of the cosmos, it is the heart of man. So it is that our Lord says in our Gospel today: “What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean'. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'” (Mark 7:14-23).

Let us understand that the one thing we must do in life is conquer our own hearts — which is to say, to conquer them for God. But of course, we ourselves cannot conquer our hearts alone. We can only do so by the power of God’s grace. It is the task of life and everything hinges on the success of this enterprise. We must make of our hearts the abode of God as the Lord of our lives and of everything we choose to do. Religion is supremely a matter of the heart. Let us take our stand with Christ, then, and resolve to be his disciples in truth. All that we do, in life and at death, should be done for the glory of God.

Sin and sanctity Cardinal Newman, one of the greatest religious and theological writers of the nineteenth century, wrote in his Apologia that he had always been greatly oppressed by the degree of evil in the world. Were it not for the unmistakable testimony of his conscience as to the existence of God, the presence of such evil would have confirmed Fr. Ted Tyler

him in agnosticism or atheism. Testimony such as this from such a religious mind as his ought give us pause when considering the scale of evil in the world. We are very familiar with the immense natural disasters that have rocked modern life — the famines, the earthquakes, the cyclones. There are unending wars. There is so much suffering. But there is this to consider. The greatest disasters and evils occur within the human heart. It is there that the worst catastrophes are constantly occurring. Our Lord came to take away the sin of the world, St John the Baptist told his disciples. It is sin that constitutes the greatest offence against God. Indeed, God has revealed that the death and destruction which is so manifest around us and which constitutes the stumbling block which Newman referred to, ultimately stems from the sin of mankind. The primary battle of man’s life is the battle to be waged within and over his own heart. It is a vast and unending war, when we think of the sea of humanity across the sweep of human history. However great might seem the task of combating material evil and suffering, the task of combating and overcoming the evil of sin is incalculably greater. It called for a divine champion to enter the lists on our behalf. The ensuing struggle involved immeasurable suffering for him but he gained the victory and broke the power of sin. Sanctity is now possible for the human race, but it requires a tremendous apostolic activity by the whole of the Church, especially — especially! — on the part of the laity whose mission is the sanctification of the world. Their task is to bring Christ to the world of everyday secular life. The great evil of sin is overcome by union with Christ and living his life.

Our Lord in today’s Gospel (Mark 7:14-23) refers to what comes out of a man’s heart, and how it is this that makes all the difference for good or for evil. The Christian religion is a religion above all of the heart, in which by the power of God’s grace, the heart of Christ’s disciple is transformed into the likeness of Christ’s heart. Let us then take up the daily work of our transformation into Christ. No other work compares with this.

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Naturally, you have to use earthly means. But put a lot of effort into being detached from everything of the earth, so that you can deal with it with your mind always fixed on the service of God and of your fellowmen.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

A careless and irreligious soldier for the city-state of Venice, Jerome was captured in a skirmish at an outpost town and chained in a dungeon. In prison Jerome had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned how to pray. When he escaped, he returned to Venice where he took charge of the education of his nephews—and began his own studies for the priesthood. In the years after his ordination, events again called Jerome to a decision and a new lifestyle. Plague and famine swept northern Italy. Jerome began caring for the sick and feeding the hungry at his own expense. While serving the sick and the poor, he soon resolved to devote himself and his property solely to others, particularly to abandoned children. He founded three orphanages, a shelter for penitent prostitutes and a hospital. Around 1532 Jerome and two other priests established a congregation, the Clerks Regular of Somasca, dedicated to the care of orphans and the education of youth. Jerome died in 1537 from a disease he caught while tending the sick. He was canonized in 1767. In 1928 Pius Xl named him the patron of orphans and abandoned children. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. First let the children eat all they want, he told her, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs. Yes, Lord, she replied, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs. Then he told her, For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter. She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. (Mark 7:24-30)

The “signs” If there is one thing which is plain from our Gospel scene today it is that our Lord was known as a great and effortless worker of extraordinary miracles. He could scarcely escape his fame for this feature of his ministry, although he worked constantly to prevent his being seen primarily, let alone simply, as a miracle-worker. In our scene today, our Lord is escaping from the hubbub of his intense work and disappears into the region of Tyre (some manuscripts add ‘and Sidon’) with his disciples. Mark tells us that he entered a house to remain even more hidden — but it was impossible. Somehow word got around and out came the Syro-Phoenician woman. She wanted one thing from Jesus. It was a miracle. She knew she could get it from him because he was a good and holy man and so would be good to her, and he was powerful before God. He could get anything for her from God — and she wanted her daughter delivered from the demon. It was yet another instance of the fame of Jesus for his miracles and his power over the devils. So striking was this power over the demonic that at one point his enemies among the religious aristocracy accused him of being in league with Satan. It was precisely this power of working miracles which was being heard of beyond the borders of Galilee and Judea, and our Gentile woman is an instance of how this fame of Jesus of Nazareth was spreading. Had his public career not been by God’s plan so short, my own guess is that word of it would have spread further. The point here, though, is that Christ displayed effortless and enormous power over nature and the demonic. It was a striking sign that he was sent by God. As Nicodemus, a Pharisee and one of the leaders of the Jews readily admitted — addressing him as “Rabbi” — “we know that you are a teacher who comes from God; for no one could do these signs that you do, unless God is with him” (John 3:2). Despite this, many of the best educated in the Scriptures refused to recognize that he came from God, despite “these signs.” There were others who saw the “signs” and did not get beyond them to real faith in him. For instance, even many his disciples left him when he taught what was beyond natural reason: the holy Eucharist. It was too much for them (John 6:60).

The miracles had real importance. Our Lord appealed to them in the presence of his enemies: “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. Again they tried to arrest him...” (John 10:37-38). That was with his enemies. He said the same thing to the Twelve. At the Last Supper our Lord, in response to Philip’s request that he show them the Father, said that “the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (John 14:10-12). There is no-one in the annals of history who displayed such a power for miracles as did Jesus Christ — and those who have worked miracles in his name did so precisely in his name. He was the worker of the miracles when invoked by them. They showed that God was with and in him — indeed, as it turned out, that he himself was God the Creator become man. Setting aside the further and, indeed, more important matters of the supernatural character of his teaching and the surpassing holiness of his life — who can match this? What has Confucius to show, or Buddha, or Zoroaster, or Mahomet, in terms of miracles that manifest the presence of the Creator in all that is done and claimed? Can our Muslim brothers and sisters point to an instance of Mahomet raising someone from the dead, or calming a tempest in the midst of a vast inland lake, at a word? Did he expel demons? Did he grant sight to a person born blind? Christ forgave sins, and then instantly — to prove his authority to do this — effected a remarkable cure of a paralytic. Above all, what can possibly equal Christ’s prediction of his death, his prediction of the circumstances of it, and his rising from the dead by his own power, and on the predicted day — the third day? There is nothing like this anywhere, and even the prophet designated by Christ as the greatest — John the Baptist — had nothing of these “signs” to his credit.

St Jerome wrote that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. What he was saying is that the contemplation of the contents of the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, gives us a true realization of the Person of Jesus Christ. Let us contemplate all aspects of what the Gospels present of him, including his miracles — of which we have an instance in our Gospel today (Mark: 7:24-30). Let us contemplate him, and contemplating him come to know and love him — not merely the Jesus of history, but the living Jesus now, who is head of his body the Church.

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD’s command. So the LORD said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.” (1 Kings 11:4-13)

Fidelity In today’s first reading from the first book of Kings we are told of the sad end of Solomon. He began his career as king with such promise, choosing wisely and being abundantly blessed by God. But gradually he sank into the most serious of sins, being led astray into deliberate idolatry. That his idolatry was deliberate we can see from the very text: “The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD’s command.” (1 Kings 11:4-13) He violated the very first and most pivotal of the commandments of the covenant. David ended his days faithful to the Lord, while his son Solomon did not. Solomon’s path proved to be the pattern for so many of the kings of Israel, and indeed for much of the history of the people itself. The national fragmentation which Solomon drew down upon his people because of his sins also proved to be the pattern for much of the history of Israel. But God was faithful, showing his fidelity and his mercy in preserving as a remnant the tribe of Judah. All through the history of God’s people the Scriptures reveal that pattern at work — the infidelity of the people and the fidelity of God. From the remnant, the tribe of Judah, would come the salvation long promised, the blessing for all the nations of the earth. God the Son, born of Mary and sprung from the tribe of Judah, came to endure all that our sins deserved. By his fidelity he made up for our infidelity, and by means of this expiation God established the new and eternal covenant.

By this new covenant we have received the gift of God’s Spirit to enable us to be truly faithful. Let us learn from the sad example of Solomon to strive to be faithful, and let us learn from the merciful fidelity of God the great lesson that we can constantly trust in him. Let us always begin again. So then, now I begin!

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Plan everything? Everything! you told me. All right: we need to use our prudence. But bear in mind that human undertakings, whether they are hard or simple, always have to count on a margin of the unforeseen; and that a Christian should never shut off the road of hope, or be forgetful of God’s Providence.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

Twins often share the same interests and ideas with an equal intensity. Therefore, it is no surprise that Scholastica and her twin brother, Benedict, established religious communities within a few miles from each other. Born in 480 of wealthy parents, Scholastica and Benedict were brought up together until he left central Italy for Rome to continue his studies. Little is known of Scholastica’s early life. She founded a religious community for women near Monte Cassino at Plombariola, five miles from where her brother governed a monastery. The twins visited each other once a year in a farmhouse because Scholastica was not permitted inside the monastery. They spent these times discussing spiritual matters. According to the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, the brother and sister spent their last day together in prayer and conversation. Scholastica sensed her death was close at hand and she begged Benedict to stay with her until the next day. He refused her request because he did not want to spend a night outside the monastery, thus breaking his own Rule. Scholastica asked God to let her brother remain and a severe thunderstorm broke out, preventing Benedict and his monks from returning to the abbey. Benedict cried out, “God forgive you, Sister. What have you done?” Scholastica replied, “I asked a favour of you and you refused. I asked it of God and he granted it.” Brother and sister parted the next morning after their long discussion. Three days later, Benedict was praying in his monastery and saw the soul of his sister rising heavenward in the form of a white dove. Benedict then announced the death of his sister to the monks and later buried her in the tomb he had prepared for himself. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spat and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, Ephphatha! (which means, Be opened!). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. He has done everything well, they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. (Mark 7:31-37)

Our Model In Mark’s account of the public ministry of Jesus, the sequence is as follows. After John the Baptist’s arrest, Jesus returns to Galilee and begins his work in earnest. He calls his disciples by the Sea of Galilee, teaches, exorcises demons and heals many in Capernaum — proceeding on throughout Galilee. He returns to Capernaum, teaching, healing, Fr. Ted Tyler

even forgiving sins, calling disciples and disputing with the scribes and Pharisees. Great multitudes are following him and he teaches them, his enemies now in tow and sowing criticism. We notice that he is beginning to teach the crowds by parables only — the explanation being left to his disciples. We also read that he gets away from it all with his disciples, sailing across to the “country of the Gerasenes” on the eastern side of the Lake. It is at the threshold of the Decapolis region. In Mark’s sequence, this is our Lord’s first visit during his public ministry to an area beyond the chosen people. Seeking a retreat with his closest disciples in the nearby pagan or semi-pagan territory, he is immediately confronted with the man possessed by “Legion.” Christ sovereignly drives the demons out, permitting them to enter the herd of pigs that is close by. This good deed leads to his being asked to leave by the benighted inhabitants (Mark 5:17), so he leaves the Decapolis — but with the ex-demoniac as a now-active disciple in the region (5:20). His rest with his disciples is cut short, and his ministry once again resumes in Galilee. There is the usual pattern of healings, exorcisms, powerful teaching, and his now sending the Twelve ahead of him with a share in his own powers. People pursue him for his miracles, while the hostility and criticism of the scribes and Pharisees continues to mount. This is the general pattern of his work in Galilee to this point. We notice, as has been mentioned, Christ’s periodic visits to pagan territory. There was the brief excursion to “the country of the Gerasenes” to the east. There was also the visit to “the region of Tyre (and Sidon)” to the north-west where he was prevailed upon by the Syro-Phoenician woman to exorcise her daughter from a demon. Perhaps the word was now out in that pagan area, and once again he left, this time passing through or in “the region of the Decapolis.”

Mark writes that from Tyre he “went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through (or in) the region of the Decapolis.” The Greek is not altogether clear about the route, but it was quite circuitous. Perhaps our Lord was taking his time in order to instruct the Twelve. He was heading for the Lake to get across to Galilee, but it seems he was doing so via the Decapolis region. Nor are we told exactly where in “the region of the Decapolis” our Lord paused. Arriving there in that pagan area, he was presented not with a demoniac but with a seriously hearing and speech impaired man. Incidentally, this detail among many such shows that the Gospels do not attribute all illnesses to the demons, though some are attributed to them. When our Lord healed the woman who was bent double, he said that Satan had held her bound all those years. There is no mention of Satan causing this man’s physical afflictions. But what arrests our attention is the unusual way in which Christ chooses to exercise his divine power. All that the man’s friends and other onlookers wanted was for him to “lay his hand upon him.” That would be enough as far as they were concerned. But no. Our Lord, “taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, ‘Ephaphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened and his tongue was released” (Mark 7:33-35). Why did our Lord go through all this seeming rigmarole? We are not told and so we do not know. We can only speculate, and we ought not take seriously our own speculations. Being Mark’s account, Peter (his likely source) may well have been present as witness to the event. Some have suggested it may have been part of Christ’s gradual instruction about features of their future sacramental ministry to members of the Twelve. I suspect it was also his response to the very particular circumstance he was in. He did not want acclaim, least of all in this pagan territory. Nor did he want reports of magic spreading among non-Jewish folk. So he took the man “aside from the multitude privately,” and when it was all over he commanded “them to tell no one.” Still, during the process itself, perhaps Christ did wish to give a truly personal touch to the deaf-mute man. So he gave to his action a gradual character that would have sunk into the heart of the man and left an unforgettable memory. In all things, the all-holy Christ was the Good Shepherd.

The response of the people is one that can give us a perspective in all our contemplation of the Person of Jesus Christ. “People were overwhelmed with amazement. He has done everything well, they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak” (Mark 7:31-37). He did all things well — they would not have realized the depth of truth that was in their spontaneous remark. When Caiaphas said that it was better for one man to die for the nation than for the nation to perish, he did not realize the depth of truth his words expressed. So too in our passage today: Christ’s deeds were absolutely admirable and perfect. He is the model for mankind, the greatest Man who ever lived, the truly perfect man, the man without defect, our Brother and our God. Let him be the object of our constant contemplation and inspiration, our model forever. He, our model, did all things well.

Prayer of faith Once again in today’s Gospel according to St Mark we are presented with an account of one of our Lord’s many healings. The man was deaf and he had an impediment in his speech. The man was brought to our Lord by others, and they asked him to lay his healing hand on the deaf man. Now, as we read this account we are struck by Fr. Ted Tyler

the variety of ways in which our Lord grants petitions. In yesterday’s Gospel (Mark 7: 24-30) a pagan woman pursued our Lord with loud and repeated cries that he cast out the demon from her daughter. Our Lord’s response? He delayed, was silent, and initially rebuffed her. Then he granted her persistent petition. Why did he do this? We can offer guesses, but we are not explicitly told. By contrast, on another occasion all that a woman did was to reach out and touch his garment and she was healed. Again, on yet another occasion nobody explicitly asked for a favour, but our Lord spontaneously raised a young man from the dead and gave him back to his mother. On this occasion today our Lord takes the deaf man away in private and goes through a relatively complex process of restoring his hearing and speech (Mark 7:31-37). Why did he do this? We are not told. So then, if we have the faith to ask Christ for a favour (and many do not have the faith to do this) we may have a certain expectation as to how God might answer the prayer. But then when he does not answer it in this way, or when he answers it only gradually, or when he appears not to answer it, we may be tempted to give up our faith and our expectations as being futile.

But it is not futile. It is just that God’s ways are not man’s ways, and even in the Gospel we see how our Lord answers in a variety of ways the petitions put to him. So, when we pray for what we need, we must remember that we are praying to God and not to someone who is more or less a projection of ourselves. Let us never give up on prayer, including the prayer of petition because of the appearances. The prayer of faith can move mountains, but it must be prayer based on faith and not on appearances.

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You have to work with such supernatural vision that you let yourself be absorbed by your activity only in order to make it divine. In this way the earthly becomes divine, the temporal eternal.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 95 (94):6-7 O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus. A little more than three years later, on February 11, 1858, a young lady appeared to Bernadette Soubirous. This began a series of visions. During the apparition on March 25, the lady identified herself with the words: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette was a sickly child of poor parents. Their practice of the Catholic faith was scarcely more than lukewarm. Bernadette could pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Creed. She also knew the prayer of the Miraculous Medal: “O Mary conceived without sin.” During interrogations Bernadette gave an account of what she saw. It was “something white in the shape of a girl.” She used the word aquero, a dialect term meaning “this thing.” It was “a pretty young girl with a rosary over her arm.” Her white robe was encircled by a blue girdle. She wore a white veil. There was a yellow rose on each foot. A rosary was in her hand. Bernadette was also impressed by the fact that the lady did not use the informal form of address (tu), but the polite form (vous). The humble virgin appeared to a humble girl and treated her with dignity. Through that humble girl, Mary revitalized and continues to revitalize the faith of millions of people. People began to flock to Lourdes from other parts of France and from all over the world. In 1862 Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions and authorized the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes for the diocese. The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes became worldwide in 1907. (AmericanCatholic.org)

During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance. His disciples answered, But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them? How many loaves do you have? Jesus asked. Seven, they replied. He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied. Afterwards the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. About four thousand men were present. And having sent them away, he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. (Mark 8:1-10)

Creator and Lord We have various terms for human actions. One word for this is “to create.” We speak of “creating” a work of art, or even of “creating” trouble for someone. An artist or some other person of action may be referred to as “creative.” Thus far, it is just a matter of current terminology. In anthropological literature on the Australian Aboriginal religion, the beings of the Dreaming are often called “creators” — by their activities they arranged the land and the world. Within Christian theological and philosophical thought, the word “to create” is restricted to an act whereby the entire substance of a thing is brought into existence from a state of non-existence. When it is a question of a thing altering in its state or nature from one kind of thing to another — say, from a living being to a dead corpse, or from a block of wood to a pile of smoke and cinders — then the word “change” is used. An agent will have “changed” something into a new substance by acting on it in some way, rather than having “created” the new substance. It is thus an agent of change, rather than a creator. This is the kind of action we observe in our human experience, and of which we are capable. I clearly remember reading in a science book when I was in my early teens the statement that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. It can only be changed. I think I can even visualize and remember the very type in which that sentence was written — there was nothing religious about it. It was written as a plain scientific fact, but of course, and perhaps unbeknown to its author, it had religious implications. I suppose the author would also have written, if called upon to do so, that nothing can come out of nothing. If anything new is to appear, it will be the result of something or someone acting on something else to change it into something new. I mention this to highlight the relative originality of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the “creation” of the world out of no single thing whatsoever. It escaped the greatest pagan philosophers and, as far as I am aware, has not been a feature of the religions of man and their conceptions of the divine — because it is altogether beyond human experience.

Consider the grand declaration of the mother of the Maccabees: "I beseech you, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them, and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also, so you shall not fear this tormentor...." (2 Maccabees 7:28). One has only to compare the various biblical statements of God’s creative work with that narrated on the clay tablets unearthed from the ruins of Babylon to see the sublimity of God as Creator. The early Church and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church repeat the doctrine of God as the almighty creator, who creates from nothing. He wills, and things come to be. For man, immersed in his limited experience, the thought of creation from nothing is a remarkable thought. When Christ raised a person from the dead — as with Lazarus after four days in the tomb — there would surely have to have been, at some level of the process, a creation from nothing of the elements necessary for Lazarus to be called instantly from the tomb. It was the same with the dead young man at the village of Nain: from death he was instantly raised and given back to his mother in full health. All of this brings us to our Gospel today (Mark 8:1-10) because among the features of Christ’s miracles, there is the element of divine creation. Consider what happened. There was a large crowd — “About four thousand men were present,” we read. Doubtlessly they were all hungry. Christ was presented with a handful of food: “How many loaves do you have? Jesus asked. Seven, they replied.” They had a few small fish as well. So, we read, “he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied. Afterwards the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” Visualize the scene: each of the Twelve, (Judas included), went forth among the crowd with a tiny portion of food. It multiplied as they distributed it. There was no “change” here: it was manifestly an ongoing coming into being of bread and fish, sufficient and more for the crowd. At the end it was discovered that there were “seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” It was manifestly a case of creation from nothing, something which God alone could do.

Let us place ourselves in the company of Jesus Christ and contemplate him with a heart of faith. Let us not dismiss his miracles: they are signs, as John is wont to refer to them in his Gospel. They are signs of his glory, and in them he let his glory be seen, the glory of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He is the Light of the world, the One of whom the Father said from the bright cloud that he is his beloved Son. Listen to him! he said. Let us love to gaze upon him wherever the Gospels portray him in his ministry. Let us draw near to him and learn to love and follow him with all our heart, right to the end whatever be the cost.

A God involved There is one interesting feature which we notice time and again in the religion of primal peoples. It is that the highest god seems to be remote and withdrawn, and little concerned with the common and everyday needs of the people. This is left to a variety of lesser gods or spirits. Now, while we could consider the significance of this in the light of Revelation, we ought also notice that this receding action of the highest god in people’s imagination is not a phenomenon peculiar to primal peoples. I refer to the prevalence of deism. While it was especially in the eighteenth century that the deist philosophy had greatest sway, one gets the impression that for great numbers of people in our modern Western culture, God is remote and uninvolved. That is their image of him. They grant that as the Creator he began the world and sustains its laws, but their constant assumption and fundamental image is of a God who leaves the world largely to its own devices, or to lesser forces. The Christian religion is the antithesis of this, and today’s Gospel reveals a God who is indeed involved in man’s ordinary needs. We are presented with the scene of our Lord being followed by a great crowd for three days. What is his attitude to them? His heart is filled with compassion for their needs. They are hungry and lack anything to eat, and so he proceeds to feed them with a great miracle (Mark 8: 1-10). The scene is a revelation of God’s concern for and involvement in the ordinary needs of his children. He is not a God who disregards our needs, even though time and again how this is played out is shrouded in mystery, for there is an abundance of evil in the world.

This fact of evil makes it ever so important that we shape our image of God not by natural appearances but by his own historical Revelation. Let us then form and nourish our image of God by contemplating the figure of Jesus in the Scriptures and in the Church’s Tradition. The way to God is pre-eminently through the human nature of Jesus. God became man in order that we might go to him. In Jesus, God has come to us and made himself known. No-one comes to the Father but by me, Christ said. God is a God of loving involvement in the world, and of constant care for us his children. He is a transcendent God, yes, but an immanent God too.

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Things done in the service of God never fail through lack of money: they fail through lack of spirit.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 31 (30):3-4 Be my protector, O God, a mighty stronghold to save me. For you are my rock, my stronghold! Lead me, guide me, for the sake of your name.

Collect O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The persecution of Christians began in Alexandria during the reign of the Emperor Philip. The first victim of the pagan mob was an old man named Metrius, who was tortured and then stoned to death. The second person who refused to worship their false idols was a Christian woman named Quinta. Her words infuriated the mob and she was scourged and stoned. While most of the Christians were fleeing the city, abandoning all their worldly possessions, an old deaconess, Apollonia, was seized. The crowds beat her, knocking out all of her teeth. Then they lit a large fire and threatened to throw her in it if she did not curse her God. She begged them to wait a moment, acting as if she was considering their requests. Instead, she jumped willingly into the flames and so suffered martyrdom. There were many churches and altars dedicated to her. Apollonia is the patroness of dentists, and people suffering from toothache and other dental diseases often ask her intercession. She is pictured with a pair of pincers holding a tooth or with a golden tooth suspended from her necklace. St. Augustine explained her voluntary martyrdom as a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, since no one is allowed to cause his or her own death. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11; 1 Cor 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, If you are willing, you can make me clean. Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said. Be clean! Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them. Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere. (Mark 1:40-45)

Obedience and authority We are born into the social setting which is our family, we grow up in various social settings, and we live out our lives in various social settings. These settings are our family, school, workplace, friends and acquaintances, our parish. Whichever it is, we can hardly live life without living in a community of one kind or another. Fr. Ted Tyler

Part and parcel of living in any community will be living subject to some form of authority. Within the family, the parents have the responsibility of exercising authority, and children of respecting it. Within the school, the principal and staff exercise various degrees of authority, and pupils should respect it. In the workplace there are some who exercise some kind of authority, and many others who ought respect and obey it. So too in the nation and also in the Church. The fact is that by divine arrangement human society cannot be properly ordered nor can it prosper unless some are invested with legitimate authority. These persons protect the common good of all and preserve the institutions of society. By God’s plan every human community needs an established and recognized authority. What then ought be our attitude to authority, inasmuch as it is necessarily part of our life? The danger is that, living in a democracy in which those who exercise authority are constantly and publicly criticised, our attitude to authority will often tend instinctively to be grudging and reluctant. This has at times reached the point of some developing, espousing and promoting a philosophy of anarchism. The properly-formed Christian will recognise that legitimate authority comes directly or indirectly from God, and that by respecting legitimate authority we are respecting God. He recognizes that wherever authority is legitimately exercised over us, there God is touching our lives by making known his will. If we are intent every day on doing the will of God and of showing our love for him by serving him generously, then we are able to do this by obeying the legitimate authorities that bear on the various dimensions of our life. A most important means of living in union with God during each day is to respect with our cordial obedience the legitimate authorities that are placed over us in our everyday life.

Of course, it is often not that simple, because those entrusted with the authority that ultimately comes from God often exercise it in at least partially sinful ways. Blindly to follow the directives of authority in society could mean collaborating in things which are intrinsically sinful. An example might be if a Government passes a law allowing the prescription by doctors of deadly abortion pills. To obey such a law would be to participate in an extremely sinful act. However, the Christian, while knowing that authority can be sinfully abused, will nevertheless respect authority as something that comes from the will and plan of God. Authority in society enables the members of society to please God in their daily life in the world by their civil obedience. It also means that the one invested with some authority has the responsibility of serving God by governing and administering in a way pleasing to God and not just arbitrarily. In all of this the Christian has the example of our Lord himself to inspire and guide him. At the age of twelve, having shown to Mary and Joseph who had been seeking him that he obeyed his heavenly Father, Jesus went down to Nazareth and was, we read in the Gospel of St Luke, subject to their authority. Then in his public ministry, even though he was being persecuted by the religious authorities because of his teachings, he nevertheless respected their authority. In our Gospel today (Mark 1:40-45) he tells the leper he had cured to go off and report to the priest and make the offering as prescribed by Moses as evidence of his recovery. In this instance, our Lord respected the legitimate authority given by God to the priests to certify a healing. So, too, in relation to the authority of the state, he told the religious leaders that one should give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. And then in the presence of Pilate he told him that the authority he had was given to him from above. The lay person whose mission is to serve Christ in the world ought have a lively sense of the fact that in obeying legitimate authority in the various spheres of daily life, be it in the family, in the world and in his parish, he is serving God and showing his love for him. Very important it is to render religious obedience to the teaching authority of the Church, which Christ founded to speak and minister in his name.

So then, respect for authority is a very important means of keeping in union with God in daily life. In the Person of Jesus there is a wonderful example for the person who is called upon to exercise authority, and a wonderful example for the person who is called upon to respect and obey it. Christ is more than an example. He lives in us by grace. Cardinal Newman once wrote that the essence of religion is authority and obedience. Let us pray for the grace to recognise God in the authority that is legitimately exercised over us, just as Christ would. If we ourselves exercise that authority over others, let us do so just as Christ would.

Further Reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 1897-1904 (Authority)

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Aren’t you glad to feel the poverty of Jesus so close to you? How splendid it is to be lacking even what is necessary! But in our case, as in his, it should pass silently and unnoticed.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 31 (30):3-4 Be my protector, O God, a mighty stronghold to save me. For you are my rock, my stronghold! Lead me, guide me, for the sake of your name.

In the same year that a power-hungry Napoleon Bonaparte led his army into Russia, Giles Mary of St. Joseph ended a life of humble service to his Franciscan community and to the citizens of Naples. Francesco was born in Taranto to very poor parents. His father’s death left the 18-year-old Francesco to care for the family. Having secured their future, he entered the Friars Minor at Galatone in 1754. For 53 years he served at St. Paschal’s Hospice in Naples in various roles, such as cook, porter or most often as official beggar for that community. “Love God, love God” was his characteristic phrase as he gathered food for the friars and shared some of his bounty with the poor — all the while consoling the troubled and urging everyone to repent. The charity which he reflected on the streets of Naples was born in prayer and nurtured in the common life of the friars. The people whom Giles met on his begging rounds nicknamed him the “Consoler of Naples.” He was canonized in 1996. In his homily at the canonization of Giles, Pope John Paul II said that the spiritual journey of Giles reflected “the humility of the Incarnation and the gratuitousness of the Eucharist” (L'Osservatore Romano 1996, volume 23, number 1). (AmericanCatholic.org)

The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it. Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side. (Mark 8:11-13)

Behold the Man To say the very least, the mere fact that suddenly, out of nowhere as it were, a powerful movement appeared from within the midst of Judaism claiming that a dead and risen man was the great God of Abraham, the Patriarchs, Moses and the Prophets — Yahweh himself — was an extraordinary phenomenon. It was not just a “movement” — it was a definite body with a Message. For this most unlikely of events (the unique Message of the infant Church), something extraordinary must have occurred. There were other striking features of the Church’s claim. This Man Jesus was the one God, yes, but the one God was not just this one Person. There were three divine Persons, each of whom was the same one God of the Prophets. Further, by his shameful death he had effected the redemption of the world and the benefits of this came to each person who believed and was baptized into his Church. Who could have dreamed up such a system involving mysteries beyond human ken, while defying rational attack and winning some of the best minds to its cause — Saul of Tarsus being an obvious example? It carried no sword, mounted no chariot, but decade by decade it gained ground, despite persecution. It could not be put down — it seemed to know that the gates of Hell would not prevail. At the heart of the whole business was the undying thought of the Man Jesus, the proclamation of his divinity, and the Blessing he had brought. It was no mere myth — it was for real and those involved were prepared to stake their lives on the matter. The core of it was that the historical Man Jesus was said to be the great God of Abraham, the Patriarchs, Moses and the Prophets. There had been an Incarnation. God had become man, the Word had become flesh. People had seen his glory, the glory of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He had suffered, died, risen, and was in glory yet living in the midst of his Church as its head. His divine Spirit fuelled the Church’s dynamism in its life and proclamation. It was an amazing phenomenon and the Empire became profoundly concerned for it would mean a new foundation to everything. It did not like what it saw and heard, and the linchpin of the matter was the Incarnation. All the gods were being threatened, and for Judaism too a very new interpretation was now proposed.

The revelation of the Incarnation requires a lifetime of appreciation. We can never take it for granted, just as we can never take other Christian mysteries for granted, such as that of the holy Eucharist. But at the heart of it all is the Incarnation: God becoming man. The Christian nurtures in his heart the thought of the living Jesus, once walking among us and now abiding in his Church. He, man as he truly is, is God. This brings us to our Gospel passage today in which our Lord is once again confronted by his enemies and critics who this time demand a heavenly spectacle of power as proof of his claims. “The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven.” Let us notice what then happened. Our Lord emitted a profound sigh and simply left them. It was a profoundly human reaction, and for me it is a further demonstration of the absolutely authentic character of the Incarnation. This second divine Person of the most holy Trinity had truly become man, and we see him uttering from the depths of his heart a sigh of utter frustration. “He sighed deeply and said, Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it. Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side” (Mark 8:11-13). The Greek for Christ’s “sigh” suggests a profound groan: (anastenaxas: ana — up from the depths, and stenazō — groan). It comes from his spirit (tō pneumati), which means from the core of his inner life. This reaction of Christ to stubborn sin is profoundly human in its emotional manifestation. On another occasion in the same Gospel, Mark tells us that Christ “looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). It shows Christ’s humanity. Christ preaches in his home town and is amazed at their lack of faith (Mark 6:6). He is amazed at the degree of faith possessed by the pagan centurion (Luke 7:1-10). Christ’s amazement is indicative of the genuineness of the Incarnation. At times we see him acting divinely as when he commanded the storms at a word, or raised a dead person to life. At times we see him acting very humanly as in our Gospel today. At times he acts according to both human and divine natures. He cured the sick woman at her touch of his garment, and then looked around to learn who it was.

God truly took to himself a human nature, and thereupon possessed, in addition to his divine nature, a human nature with its human soul, mind and will. The Incarnation is the most wonderful thing in all of human history. There walked a man who was God. He is our Saviour, our Brother, our Friend. He shares his life with us when we accept his word and enter into union with him by faith and the Sacraments of the Church. Union with him is the essence of membership in the Kingdom of God. Let us understand that in Christ is to be found every heavenly blessing. He is the one and only way to the Father, the means of life everlasting. Let us accept and live his message with all our heart.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business. (James 1:1-11)

Suffering All through life the natural tendency is to avoid difficulty and to hate suffering. This is normal and natural, but inasmuch as difficulty and suffering is so much part of life and indeed is unavoidable — especially if we take our responsibilities seriously and truly work at them — the challenge will be to find meaning in difficulty and suffering. Otherwise happiness will not be possible. Very many see no meaning in suffering, and this finds expression in so many ways. There are those who find little meaning in work when it is burdensome. Many see no meaning in ill-health, and we see the consequences of this in the push for euthanasia. In our first reading (James 1:1-11) St James makes it clear that there is meaning in suffering, provided it is borne in the process of doing what is right. He tells us that we shall always have our trials, but when they come, how ought we look upon them? They ought be looked upon not just as a burden but, St James teaches, as “a happy privilege”. Let us always remember this when trials come: our trials are a “happy privilege” — and he assures us that they will “always” come. Moreover, St James tells us that when trials come our faith is being “put to the test to make you patient” and that patience will lead to Christian maturity “with nothing missing”. The sufferings that God allows will enable us to advance to our full potential in Christ. Trials are not a purely negative phenomenon, but rather they contribute to our progress in God’s sight.

Every day we have difficulties which at times will become real trials. Let us use them to remain united with Christ in his trials, which is to say in his Passion and Death which redeemed the world.

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Sincere devotion — true love of God — leads us to work hard, to fulfill the duty of each day, even though it is far from easy.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 31 (30):3-4 Be my protector, O God, a mighty stronghold to save me. For you are my rock, my stronghold! Lead me, guide me, for the sake of your name.

Because their father was an officer in a part of Greece inhabited by many Slavs, these two Greek brothers ultimately became missionaries, teachers and patrons of the Slavic peoples.

After a brilliant course of studies, Cyril (called Constantine until he became a monk shortly before his death) refused the Sts Cyril & Methodius

governorship of a district such as his brother had accepted among the Slavic-speaking population. Cyril withdrew to a monastery where his brother Methodius had become a monk after some years in a governmental post. A decisive change in their lives occurred when the Duke of Moravia (present-day Czech Republic) asked the Eastern Emperor Michael for political independence from German rule and ecclesiastical autonomy (having their own clergy and liturgy). Cyril and Methodius undertook the missionary task. Cyril’s first work was to invent an alphabet, still used in some Eastern liturgies. His followers probably formed the Cyrillic alphabet (for example, modern Russian) from Greek capital letters. Together they translated the Gospels, the psalter, Paul’s letters and the liturgical books into Slavonic, and composed a Slavonic liturgy, highly irregular then. That and their free use of the vernacular in preaching led to opposition from the German clergy. The bishop refused to consecrate Slavic bishops and priests, and Cyril was forced to appeal to Rome. On the visit to Rome, he and Methodius had the joy of seeing their new liturgy approved by Pope Adrian II. Cyril, long an invalid, died in Rome 50 days after taking the monastic habit.

Methodius continued mission work for 16 more years. He was papal legate for all the Slavic peoples, consecrated a bishop and then given an ancient see (now in the Czech Republic). When much of their former territory was removed from their jurisdiction, the Bavarian bishops retaliated with a violent storm of accusation against Methodius. As a result, Emperor Louis the German exiled Methodius for three years. Pope John VIII secured his release. The Frankish clergy, still smarting, continued their accusations, and Methodius had to go to Rome to defend himself against charges of heresy and uphold his use of the Slavonic liturgy. He was again vindicated. Legend has it that in a feverish period of activity, Methodius translated the whole Bible into Slavonic in eight months. He died on Tuesday of Holy Week, surrounded by his disciples, in his cathedral church. Opposition continued after his death, and the work of the brothers in Moravia was brought to an end and their disciples scattered. But the expulsions had the beneficial effect of spreading the spiritual, liturgical and cultural work of the brothers to Bulgaria, Bohemia and southern Poland. Patrons of Moravia, and specially venerated by Catholic Czechs, Slovaks, Croatians, Orthodox Serbians and Bulgarians. Cyril and Methodius are eminently fitted to guard the long-desired unity of East and West. In 1980, Pope John Paul II named them additional co-patrons of Europe (with Benedict). (AmericanCatholic.org)

The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. Be careful, Jesus warned them. Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod. They discussed this with one another and said, It is because we have no bread. Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? Twelve, they replied. And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? They answered, Seven. He said to them, Do you still not understand? (Mark 8:14-21)

The Truth “Awareness” is something we all know from constant experience — it is so basic an activity and so fundamental to all that we do that we find ourselves defining the term by recourse to its synonyms. I suppose we could say that “awareness” is, broadly, the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, or objects or sensory patterns. Fr. Ted Tyler

In such a definition we are saying that awareness is a form of perception or consciousness — showing by our use of these synonyms how basic an activity awareness is. Further, we are conscious of being aware of things, and we are conscious that we can have an understanding of the things of which we are aware. Awareness is a simple perception of something, while understanding involves a more advanced grasp of its nature. I can be very aware of something in front of me because I can see, hear, smell, touch or even taste it. But I may have very little understanding of it. A child may be very aware of something coming towards her, but lack all understanding of it — it is, say, a large python snake. Consider, then, the phenomenon of awareness. The universe is unbelievably vast and it occupies the attention of great numbers of astronomers and a huge battery of technology across the globe. But the stars, the galaxies, the planets, the meteors, the seemingly endless range of matter all lack one simple thing: awareness. The seas, the lands and the mountains that cover such a proportion of our globe all lack, of course, awareness. Many classes of living things — such as the trees and the crops — lack awareness. A great threshold is crossed when we pass from the mighty cosmos of mere physical and living matter to the tiniest creature that is in some sense aware of things. It possesses rudimentary consciousness which the cosmos of matter does not. In this sense, the smallest animal surpasses a galaxy. Further, just as there is an ascending complexity within the world of mere matter, so there is an ascending power of awareness within the world of conscious things. A tiny goldfish has a certain level of awareness, but this cannot compare with the powers of awareness of what to do possessed by, say, a gifted sheep-dog. Plainly, the cosmos shows an ascending direction towards higher and higher awareness.

But this ascending awareness or consciousness which distinguishes the world reaches a new climax in what to that point it did not possess. I refer to understanding. The most sophisticated animals transcend brute matter because of their instinctive awareness. But a new threshold is crossed with the appearance of understanding. Man stands forth as one who can understand what he is aware of, and on the basis of his understanding he can make free choices. He can strive to understand more deeply what he is aware of, and on the basis of this he can make better choices. He can distinguish and abstract and categorize. He can classify and see what is the root feature of the things he is aware of. He can reason to what various phenomena imply. Manifestly, all this is oriented towards the grasp of the truth of things. Man is at the pinnacle of the cosmos because he possesses not only awareness but the power to understand and grasp the truth. The “truth” is a broad notion, embracing not only concrete facts but their true meaning. Man’s understanding brings with it a responsibility: he must choose in accord with the truth. He knows he has a duty to seek the truth and to abide by it. Now, all this is well and good, and indeed is fairly evident. There is a profound complication, however, and it sets everything awry. It is that while man manifestly has the power to know the truth, and while this sets him atop the cosmos as its master and champion, all too often he fails in what distinguishes him. He fails to perceive the truth. He is manifestly in error very, very frequently, and while this can happen despite his best efforts, it often happens culpably. That is to say, it is often due to the state of his heart. He does not want to know, serve and submit to the truth. All of this brings us to our Gospel today (Mark 8:14-21), in which our Lord speaks of perception and understanding. Speaking to his very disciples, our Lord says, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?” Our Lord is lamenting their lack of understanding, and he asks if it is not because their hearts are hardened. His loving lament reminds us how we must strive to know the truth.

We must strive to live in the truth. This is a moral imperative. It is not some casual option. Knowing the truth, accepting it, submitting to it, living according to it, obeying it, ensuring that our hearts are such that we are able to perceive the truth — all this is what distinguishes the endowments of man and sets him on the mountain in respect to the rest of the world. It is what makes him not only a man but a better and better man. Indeed, Christ described himself as the Truth — I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. He came to bear witness to the truth about himself and us. Our vocation in life is to accept him as the Truth and to live in him totally.

Be on guard One of the very intriguing phenomena of societies, especially those shaped by Western culture, is the profound and radical differences of opinion obtaining among men and women. That there is an objective truth (whatever it might be) ought be self evident, and yet despite the fact that human beings have minds that are designed to attain the truth, Fr. Ted Tyler

men differ radically from one another in matters of the highest and most pressing import. Inasmuch as contradictory propositions cannot both be correct, it means that many people are wrong. They lack perception in respect to matters of the greatest import. Many instances of this could be cited — such as the claim of many that there is no God and that Christ was purely a man. One of the most fundamental needs of life is to attain the light of truth, and yet lack of perception is a fact of human nature and of human society. Our Lord confronted this problem (of blindness and lack of understanding) among his own disciples. In our Gospel today (Mark 8:14-21), he warned them against the lead that was being given by the Pharisees and the Herodians (the yeast of Herod), and he upbraided them for their lack of perception. Does our Lord offer advice on how to guard against the danger of blindness? Yes, for he warns his disciples to be on guard and to watch: “Keep your eyes open and be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” At various times our Lord asks for vigilance in his disciples. In our passage today, our Lord’s words imply that a failure in vigilance will result in a lack of perception.

So then, let us constantly ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of wisdom whereby we might attain the light of truth and live by it. We are called to be people of perception and not of blindness. We must put on the mind of Christ, and in this way perceive as God perceives.

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People have often drawn attention to the danger of deeds performed without any interior life to inspire them; but we should also stress the danger of an interior life — if such a thing is possible — without deeds to show for it.

Liturgical Season	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Fourth Week of Ordinary Time B-2				1	2 The Presentation of the Lord	3	4
Fifth Week of Ordinary Time B-2	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Sixth Week of Ordinary Time B-2	12	13	14