January2 in Year B 12

Monday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time to Tuesday of the Fourth 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 January is: "Victims of Natural Disasters. That the victims of natural disasters may receive the spiritual and material comfort they need to rebuild their lives. "

His mission intention is: "Dedication to Peace. That the dedication of Christians to peace may bear witness to the name of Christ before all men and women of good will. "

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Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

Collect Almighty ever-living God, who govern all things, both in heaven and on earth, mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times. 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.

Preaching the gospel is often dangerous work. Leaving one’s homeland and adjusting to new cultures, governments and languages is difficult enough; but martyrdom sometimes caps all the other sacrifices. In 1219 with the blessing of St. Francis, Berard left Italy with Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis to preach in Morocco. En route in Spain Vitalis became sick and commanded the other friars to continue their mission without him. They tried preaching in Seville, then in Muslim hands, but made no converts. They went on to Morocco where they preached in the marketplace. The friars were immediately apprehended and ordered to leave the country; they refused. When they began preaching again, an exasperated sultan ordered them executed. After enduring severe beatings and declining various bribes to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ, the friars were beheaded by the sultan himself on January 16, 1220. These were the first Franciscan martyrs. When Francis heard of their deaths, he exclaimed, "Now I can truly say that I have five Friars Minor!" Their relics were brought to Portugal where they prompted a young Augustinian canon to join the Franciscans and set off for Morocco the next year. That young man was Anthony of Padua. These five martyrs were canonized in 1481.

Before St. Francis, the Rules of religious orders made no mention of preaching to the Muslims. In the Rule of 1223, Francis wrote: "Those brothers who, by divine inspiration, desire to go among the Saracens and other nonbelievers should ask permission from their ministers provincial. But the ministers should not grant permission except to those whom they consider fit to be sent" (Chapter 12). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not? Jesus answered, How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. No one sews a patch of unshrunken cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. (Mark 2:18-22)

God of love As a philosophy of religion, Deism holds that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for a special supernatural revelation, can determine the existence and nature of a Creator — the world’s Architect. Typically deists further insist that the Supreme Architect does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the laws he has implanted in the universe. So they reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles. Among the Ancient Greeks there were theories resembling modern deism. Heraclitus posited a logos, a supreme rational principle, and said the wisdom "by which all things are steered through all things" was "both willing and unwilling to be called Zeus (God)". Plato envisaged God as a Demiurge or “craftsman”. Outside ancient Greece many other cultures have expressed views that resemble deism in some respects. However, the word “deism,” as it is understood today, is generally used to refer to the movement toward freethinking natural theology that occurred in 17th-century Europe, and most specifically in Britain. I am convinced that the deism of the last few centuries has had a much deeper influence on popular culture than is generally acknowledged. The point I wish to highlight, though, is its image of the deity as withdrawn. Providence is imagined as general and not particular to the individual. So, life is pursued as if God is not around and as if what matters is taking careful account of the laws of life and the world. So it is thought that in effect it makes little difference what “God” is like — if “God” there is at all. What counts is the world as it is. There is a positive side to this secularism, and it is that the laws of the world are taken seriously, for a typical feature of classical, traditional and popular religion was to fail to do so. The laws of the world were not taken seriously. Now, while Deism has cast the image of a withdrawn and uninvolved God into an intellectual system, the image itself has long held possession in the mind and heart of man. Man has not tended to think of God as very interested in him by nature. God is distant — perhaps because the world itself is not very friendly towards him. The world seems to bear down on vulnerable man, and he is bruised and hurt by the experience.

This may be called the perennial context of the religious instinct of man. He yearns for peace and happiness, and he knows that higher powers must come to his aid. But they are difficult of access, and do not appear interested. They are interested in their own affairs above, and must be appeased, pleased, enticed to take friendly notice. Suddenly, the true God intervened and called to his service certain chosen persons — Abraham, the Patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, indeed a whole people. He made himself known. It was realized, perhaps gradually, that there is but one God and he is almighty, holy, compassionate. His servants the prophets, and his chosen people had a mission — the world would be blessed through them. The world would come to know the true God. God had a plan, and it was to bring all mankind into communion with him and to share with mankind his own divine life. He was very different from what had been imagined. He yearned for communion with man his creature, and for communion among men. He is a God of communion, not of distance and disinterest. Indeed he described himself through the mouth of his servants the prophets — oh, wonder! — as Husband, as Bridegroom, and his people as his Spouse. He is the One who is — Yahweh! — but who is, precisely with his people and his chosen ones. He is, and he is with them — as would a husband always be with his spouse. All of this brings us to our Gospel today, in which our Lord calmly applies to himself these hallowed expressions which had revealed the name and character of the living God. In his conversation with “some people,” our Lord refers to himself as the Bridegroom: “Jesus answered, How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast” (Mark 2: 18-22). In the Gospel of St John, John the Baptist himself refers to our Lord as the bridegroom: “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice” (John 3:28-29).

In the Book of Genesis, God creates man in his own image: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1: 26-27). The union between husband and wife reflects the very being of God, and their love for one another reflects his nature as the one true God of loving communion. His attitude to man and his creation is one of surpassing love. Marriage itself is a symbol of this bond which God has with his people, and in Christ is the fulness of the godhead bodily. Christ is the image and revelation of the invisible God. Thus is God revealed to us as in no way unconcerned or distant, but as intimately close to us and as One who will never allow us to slip from his loving hand. Let us abandon ourselves to his love and obey him always.

“Stop!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied. Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the LORD ? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD ?” “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.” But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.” (1 Samuel 15:16-23)

Duty One of the most insidious obstacles to growth in the Christian life is the tendency to find excuses and reasons to commit sin. The imperious voice of conscience is muffled by reasons that are accepted to justify doing what is wrong. In our first reading today, Samuel confronted Saul with his disobedience. The Lord (Samuel says) had commanded Saul to exterminate the Amalekites (we are not told why), and this ban included their possessions (1 Samuel 15:16-23). But Saul thought better of this and allowed the people to take some booty. He replied to Samuel that he had a good reason to allow this – it was in order to sacrifice the booty to God. But Samuel said that he had disobeyed God, and because of that the kingship was to be taken away from him. The thought of this biblical interchange serves to remind us that the one thing that ultimately matters is the will of God. Nothing ought be allowed to replace it, least of all our own private judgment as to what would be more fitting, more useful or more convenient. All too often, in some big things and in numerous little things, we find ourselves substituting duty for some other motive, especially the motive of the useful, the effective or the pragmatic. Especially insidious is finding excuses for deliberate venial sin. Gradually one’s conscience is dulled and one becomes to a greater or lesser extent morally blind, ceasing to see anything wrong in what the conscience is prohibiting. Spiritual progress is rendered impossible because darkness envelops one’s moral and spiritual life. As with Saul, the conscience has been ignored.

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Christian responsibility in work cannot be limited to just putting in the hours. It means carrying out the task with technical and professional competence ... and, above all, with love of God.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

The life of Anthony will remind many people of St. Francis of Assisi. At 20, Anthony was so moved by the Gospel message, "Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor" (Mark 10:21b), that he actually did just that with his large inheritance. He is different from Francis in that most of Anthony’s life was spent in solitude. He saw the world completely covered with snares, and gave the Church and the world the witness of solitary asceticism, great personal mortification and prayer. But no saint is antisocial, and Anthony drew many people to himself for spiritual healing and guidance. At 54, he responded to many requests and founded a sort of monastery of scattered cells. Again like Francis, he had great fear of "stately buildings and well-laden tables." At 60, he hoped to be a martyr in the renewed Roman persecution of 311, fearlessly exposing himself to danger while giving moral and material support to those in prison. At 88, he was fighting the Arian heresy, that massive trauma from which it took the Church centuries to recover. "The mule kicking over the altar" denied the divinity of Christ. Anthony died in solitude at 105. (AmericanCatholic.org)

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the cornfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some ears of corn. The Pharisees said to him, Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? He answered, Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. (Mark 2:23-28)

Son of man and Lord In the Gospel of St Mark, our Lord’s public ministry begins at 1:14, after the arrest of John the Baptist. It is interesting to notice with what titles our Lord introduces himself. The demons address “Jesus of Nazareth” as “the Holy One of God” — and our Lord imposes silence on them (1:24). Fr. Ted Tyler

In Mark’s account of the first encounter with “some of the scribes,” our Lord has just done something unprecedented: he has forgiven the sins of the paralytic. In their thoughts, the scribes refer to him as “this” — houtos (fellow, man, person) (2:7). It lacks any title, suggesting little respect. Our Lord, reading their hearts, took up the challenge and in the process refers to himself as “the Son of man” (2:10). In St Mark, it is our Lord’s first public designation of himself involving a title. It occurs in the context of his acting as God would act, and in an encounter with “the scribes,” who will pursue him during his public ministry. He repeats the title soon after — and in the context of an encounter with “the Pharisees.” In our Gospel today (Mark 2:23-28), our Lord permits his disciples to pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath. This was serious for the Pharisees, as it involved, they deemed, a violation of the Sabbath rest. Our Lord summarily showed how little his critics were in harmony with Scripture, and proceeded to make an extraordinary claim: “The Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath” (2:27). So the title is repeated in the context of a clash with his enemies, and our Lord is implicitly assuming authority over a divine institution — the Sabbath rest. He is “the Son of man” and he is “Lord even of the Sabbath.” He is the Son of man while acting divinely. This title, Son of man is by no means unprecedented in the Scriptures. It is used for man, or for the ideal man, e.g. "God is not as a man, that he should lie nor as a son of man, that he should be changed" (Numbers 23:19). "Blessed is the man that doth this and the son of man that shall lay hold on this" (Isaiah 56:2). "Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand: and upon the son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself" (Psalm 79:18). Notably, the Prophet Ezechiel is addressed by God as "son of man" over seven dozen times, e.g. "Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee" (Ezekiel 2:1).

Perhaps the most striking and unusual setting for the term in the Old Testament is in the great vision of Daniel after the appearance of the four beasts. We read: “I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of days: and they presented him before him. And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom shall not be destroyed” (7:13-14). It is a remarkable and memorable prophecy, and in view of the frequency with which our Lord designates himself as the “Son of man” one cannot help but think that he was implicitly pointing to himself as the one to whom power, glory and a kingdom would be given, a power that is everlasting, a kingdom that shall not be destroyed. This is especially so in view of the prominence of the idea of the Kingdom of heaven or God in his preaching to the people and his disciples. It is not that the title “Son of man” would necessarily and instantly evoke the vision of Daniel in the minds of the authorities and the people. It may have carried a modest connotation: I am man, a man like you, your brother, a son of man. Our Lord had submitted to the baptism of John as if he were but one of his sinful brothers. He stands in the place of mankind as one of them. But he was using perhaps a favourite title which suggested not only his humanity, but his messianic status without using the politically-charged term, Messiah. A “Messiah” was not only expected by God’s chosen people to liberate them from oppression as Moses had liberated the people from the oppression of the Egyptians. The expectation had spilled over to other peoples in the East. There was a wider expectation of a coming king. Many of the chosen people were looking for a King, God’s anointed, who would lead the people back to, and on to, glory. Our Lord would have none of this — and the title “Son of man” perhaps seemed most suitable to him. The frequency of his use of it is remarkable — almost as much as in Ezechiel. It must, then, be very important. I suggest it denotes Christ’s humanity and his Messianic dignity.

But what is even more remarkable — as has already been suggested — is our Lord’s passing and sovereign assumption of divine action. He is “Lord of the Sabbath.” It was Almighty God who introduced the Sabbath, and our Lord is stating that he, Son of man, is the Lord of the Sabbath. He says this calmly, without hesitation, and almost in passing, though with full deliberation. He also says this in the presence of the authorities of religion in the nation who are quickly becoming his enemies. That is to say, it is a very deliberate claim of Jesus Christ to be the Lord of revealed religion and its divinely-instituted practice. Jesus Christ is Lord, Lord of lords and King of kings.

The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.” The LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.” Samuel did what the LORD said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?” Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The LORD has not chosen this one either.” Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the LORD chosen this one.” Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The LORD has not chosen these.” So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he is tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.” So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the LORD said, “Rise and anoint him; he is the one.” So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah. (1 Samuel 16:1-13)

The heart Today in our first reading we have the inspired account of the anointing of David son of Jesse to be king. Saul had disobeyed God and in consequence had the kingship taken from him. In the choice by God of David we see a pattern that recurs in sacred history. God often chooses what seems weak and unpromising to the eyes of the world, Fr. Ted Tyler

but which nevertheless bears great fruit. We may ask, what is the key to this phenomenon? It lies in what the Lord said to Samuel while he was reviewing the sons of Jesse: “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:1-13) The implication of this is that David had a heart that was given to the Lord. Once Samuel anointed him, we are told that “the spirit of the Lord seized on David and stayed with him from that day on.” Each of us has been chosen by God in Christ before the world began, to be holy and full of love in his sight. This eternal choice of us culminated in our baptism, when the Holy Spirit came upon us and has been with us ever since. God is and will be working in our life, but the pivotal issue will be where our own hearts lie. Is sin reigning in our heart? The heart of David lay with the Lord, and so must our hearts too. If they are, then due to God’s power and grace our lives will bear the fruit God intends for them, as was the case with David himself. Of special importance in this is our daily work.

We must commit our hearts to the Lord in our work and in the fulfilment of our daily responsibilities. We must aim to do our work for God, and to do it thoroughly. However hidden and unpromising our responsibilities may appear to man who “looks at the appearances”, “the Lord looks at the heart.” Our work will then sanctify us, it itself will be sanctified, and through it others will be sanctified. Thus will our lives bear fruit.

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Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

Charles thought that God was calling him to be a missionary in India, but he never got there. God had something better for this 17th-century successor to Brother Juniper. Born in Sezze, southeast of Rome, Charles was inspired by the lives of Salvator Horta and Paschal Baylon to become a Franciscan; he did that in 1635. Charles tells us in his autobiography, "Our Lord put in my heart a determination to become a lay brother with a great desire to be poor and to beg alms for his love." Charles served as cook, porter, sacristan, gardener and beggar at various friaries in Italy. In some ways, he was "an accident waiting to happen." He once started a huge fire in the kitchen when the oil in which he was frying onions burst into flames. One story shows how thoroughly Charles adopted the spirit of St. Francis. The superior ordered Charles — then porter — to give food only to travelling friars who came to the door. Charles obeyed this direction; simultaneously the alms to the friars decreased. Charles convinced the superior the two facts were related. When the friars resumed giving goods to all who asked at the door, alms to the friars increased also. At the direction of his confessor Charles wrote his autobiography, The Grandeurs of the Mercies of God. He also wrote several other spiritual books. He made good use of his various spiritual directors throughout the years; they helped him discern which of Charles’ ideas or ambitions were from God. Charles himself was sought out for spiritual advice. The dying Pope Clement IX called Charles to his bedside for a blessing. Charles had a firm sense of God’s providence. Father Severino Gori has said, "By word and example he recalled in all the need of pursuing only that which is eternal" (Leonard Perotti, St. Charles of Sezze: An Autobiography, page 215). He died at San Francesco a Ripa in Rome and was buried there. Pope John XXIII canonized him in 1959.

Father Gori says that the autobiography of Charles "stands as a very strong refutation of the opinion, quite common among religious people, that saints are born saints, that they are privileged right from their first appearance on this earth. This is not so. Saints become saints in the usual way, due to the generous fidelity of their correspondence to divine grace. They had to fight just as we do, and more so, against their passions, the world and the devil" (St. Charles of Sezze: An Autobiography, page viii). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shrivelled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, Stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked round at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:1-6)

True Man There are some beautiful and outstanding religious icons. The icon, a venerated religious image of Christ, or the Virgin Mary, or the Holy Trinity, or a biblical scene has the power to represent a lofty reality precisely by depicting one or several of its heavenly aspects. It does not attempt to be — as we might put it — “down to earth” and realistic in its detail. The form that is depicted is idealized. Shapes are very symmetrical, colours are pure — and the predominant idea is brought forward, be it of Christ as Lord of all, or of Mary as Mother of God, or of Christ’s baptism as involving a revelation of the Trinity. The lesson, the moral, the principal teaching is thus conveyed with beauty, colour, and in a luminously recognizable scene or personage. A certain timelessness is achieved by the icon because the characteristics of a particular time and place are eschewed. By contrast, consider the “realistic” paintings of biblical scenes in various epochs — such as during the humanist revival of the sixteenth century — many magnificent portrayals are manifestly dated and anachronistic in their detail. The detail derives from the artist’s historical imagination and resources, while the icon does not have this limitation. That having been said, the icon, in not portraying the living, concrete, historical biblical scene or personage in its hard detail, will not convey so well its historical reality. Consider one instance of religious depiction which may be said to show forth the advantages of both: the Shroud of Turin — prescinding from the question of the evidence of its authenticity (and the evidence is very persuasive). There is great form and beauty in the figure, so much so that it could even be regarded as an “icon.” But how very realistic and concrete it is — how very “historical” — especially when portrayed in its positive image, of which the visible figure on the cloth is a negative! Of course, the Shroud commands tremendous interest because of its plainly historical credentials, and it is a remarkable relic. But it is so very helpful, too, for its concrete and entirely realistic portrayal of the crucified Jesus. It is not just an “icon” in its beautiful portrayal of a religious reality in its lofty aspects. It also realistically depicts that reality in its “down to earth” and historical features. My point here is that in the Christian religion, it is very important that we gain a sense of the Incarnation and the Atonement as objective historical Facts.

I say all this in order to stress the importance of gaining a sense of Jesus Christ and his revelation as deeply historical realities. Jesus Christ, the Object and Love of the Christian religion, was a real man in real situations. He was not just a man — for he was divine — but he was truly man nevertheless. The perennial temptation has been to deny his divinity, nevertheless if his real and true humanity is forgotten or lost sight of, one’s personal love for him will probably be affected. God became man. The Word became flesh. We gained a Brother whom it is so easy to love, and that Brother is our God, the object of the heart’s yearnings. Let us strive to appreciate that God did really become man. The Gospels are our great help in attaining this realization, for they depict Jesus Christ in what he did and in various of his reactions. For instance, in our Gospel passage today, there is shown Jesus Christ reacting with holy anger. He was confronted with a man in need — his need was that his hand was useless. He was also confronted with representatives of the religious leaders of the people who were hostile to his pretensions, as they perceived them to be. Christ towered above his contemporaries in his power and in his love. He wished to do good for all, especially the greatest good of all which was to take away sin. But it meant the acceptance of him in faith, and here were the religious leaders resolutely refusing him. It was sinful stubbornness of heart and, we read, Christ was angry for grief at their moral state. Let the fact of Christ’s holy anger, the anger issuing from utter love when confronted by sinful refusal, help us to appreciate the concrete humanity of Jesus Christ. He had a heart of flesh, a heart that throbbed, raced, warmed, simmered, and always felt, often most keenly. It was the sacred heart of God made man, a heart filled with holy feelings for man and his salvation. Our Lord was not a plaster-cast “icon” as some might imagine him. He was a real, living man who was the eternal, almighty and all-holy God. His human anger, lacking any trace of the sin which all too often suffuses our anger, was a manifestation of his human mind, heart and soul. If we are to appreciate the mystery and the doctrine of the Incarnation, we must fully accept the divinity of Jesus Christ — but we must also accept his humanity, a humanity that was entirely historical.

“But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand’” (Mark 3: 1-6). I have often thought that it would be good to see an outstanding religious artist attempt to paint this biblical scene, and to capture the all-holy Christ looking around on his critics with anger. It would be a difficult enterprise, but I think it would assist people to appreciate more keenly the humanity of Jesus Christ. This in turn would help them to appreciate the love of God for them, for God became truly man, a real man for love of us. Christ loved me, St Paul writes, and gave himself up for me.

God’s anger At times we hear dismissed all talk of the anger of God at sin. He is a God of love and compassion, and therefore, we are told, to speak of God being angry is inappropriate and demeaning to his divine nature. It is an anthropomorphism. Well, let us consider today’s Gospel passage (Mark 3: 1-6). Our Lord was faced with the silent hostility of the Pharisees who were watching “to see if he would heal” on the Sabbath day. Our Lord confronted them with his question and they refused to answer. Their sinful obstinacy was impenetrable. What was our Lord’s response? He was angry: “Then, grieved to find them so obstinate, he looked angrily round at them and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored.” His anger was an expression of his loving grief at the intractability of sin.

Let us beware lest we too be obstinate with God, especially in seemingly little things. This is the seriousness of deliberate venial sin, the little sins we commit with eyes wide open and our conscience informed. We can quietly shut out the voice of conscience and repeatedly commit venial sins, which means we are repeatedly ignoring the voice of the Holy Spirit. We are to that extent making ourselves obstinate, intractable – like the Pharisees. St Paul speaks of us making the Holy Spirit sad by our sins, and our Gospel today portrays the Son of God becoming angry and grieved at the sins of the Pharisees before him.

What is the answer to this? It is repentance. It is most important that there be an ongoing pattern of repentance from venial sin in our life. This repentance is expressed and assisted by frequent recourse to the Sacrament of Penance. It is impossible to attain holiness unless we become strong in the virtue of repentance, especially repentance from venial sin. God is love and he is holiness. Obstinate sin and the refusal to repent will make him angry.

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All honest professions can and must be sanctified. No child of God, then, has a right to say: I cannot do apostolate.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

Fabian was a Roman layman who came into the city from his farm one day as clergy and people were preparing to elect a new pope. Eusebius, a Church historian, says a dove flew in and settled on the head of Fabian. This sign united the votes of clergy and laity and he was chosen unanimously. He led the Church for 14 years and died a martyr’s death during the persecution of Decius in 250 AD. St. Cyprian wrote to his successor that Fabian was an “incomparable” man whose glory in death matched the holiness and purity of his life. In the catacombs of St. Callistus, the stone that covered Fabian’s grave may still be seen, broken into four pieces, bearing the Greek words, “Fabian, bishop, martyr.” (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, You are the Son of God. But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was. (Mark 3:7‑12)

Galilean There was no doubt about it: it was unusual for news to reach the Holy City for a prophet — a great one, indeed — to appear out of Galilee. When influential members of the Sanhedrin berated the temple officers for not arresting Jesus (John 7:45-52), Nicodemus protested that he was not being given a hearing. They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Fr. Ted Tyler

Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee” (7:52). As a matter of fact, they had not got their Scriptures right. We read in 2 Kings 14:25 that Jeroboam, king of Israel (the northern kingdom) restored the border of Israel ... “according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amitai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.” Gath-hepher is west of the Lake of Galilee, a little north-west of Mount Tabor, and within several miles of Nazareth and Zephoris. Indeed, he is usually identified also as the prophet of the Book of Jonah — with a mission, then, to the heathen (Nineveh), and one of the earliest prophets of whose writings we have some record. He may have been a near-contemporary of Hosea and Amos. Our Lord describes himself by referring to Jonah: there is a greater than Jonah here. Again, there is the great Elijah who appeared together with Moses conversing with our Lord in glory at his transfiguration. He, then, is an archetypal figure of the prophets of the chosen people of God. He suddenly appears in 1 Kings 17:1 — and he is “the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead.” He delivers a message from the Lord to Ahab the king of Israel. Tishbe is generally located in Galilee — so Elijah was a Galilean. We read in the Book of Nahum (1:1) that Nahum the prophet was from Elkosh — which is thought by some to be in upper Galilee (though others place it near the Tigris). It is to be noted that both Jonah and Nahum have prophecies directed to the Gentiles, the Assyrians (Nineveh). Admittedly it was rare for prophets to be from Galilee, but Isaiah had predicted that “there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honour Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan” (Isaiah 9:1). Jesus was the great fulfilment of this.

There is a certain universalist dimension in the very fact of our Lord being a Galilean, a prophet from Galilee. For the Judean Temple aristocracy, Jesus of Nazareth came from “away out there.” His very accent would have been different — and Peter’s Galilean accent was identified as such during the trial of Christ. When dying on the Cross, our Lord cries out to his heavenly Father, “Eloi, Eloi...” The Targum of Psalm 22 begins with Eli, Eli — as in the Hebrew. It could be that Christ’s pronunciation of Psalm 22:1(2), carefully recorded by Mark, is an instance of Christ’s Galilean accent. All this could be seen as part and parcel of Christ’s being of a setting already connected with the nations, even though he himself had for his mission the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Further, in our Gospel today we read of people coming to him not only from Galilee, not only from Judea and from Jerusalem, but from Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. Idumea was situated south of Judea and the Dead Sea, but its limits, bordering on the wilderness, are difficult to determine. It was understood as encompassing the territory occupied by those claiming descent from the Edomites. Herod the Great was an Idumean. People came to our Lord also from “across the Jordan” — to the east, that is. This may have included parts of the Decapolis, which was a Gentile area. They came from the opposite direction as well, from “around Tyre and Sidon,” in the area of present Lebanon. All up, we have a picture that suggests not only the chosen people of God, but an openness to the nations. Our Lord himself — the most striking of the prophets for his teaching, his powers, his goodness and the awesome acknowledgment of him by the demons themselves — was of a setting that had a Gentile touch to it. There were being drawn to him not only persons from the chosen people of God but beyond. That is to say, while from the very first our Lord is utterly and lovingly committed to the House of Israel, he is also from the first showing — as we see and as his disciples would have seen by hindsight — the beginnings of a universal reach, a universal kingdom. It will not be a great step for him, risen from the dead and about to ascend to his heavenly Father, to command his disciples to go to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations.

Let us place ourselves in our Gospel setting and mingle with this diverse crowd. We are in “Galilee of the Gentiles.” The Master himself, though born in Bethlehem, is a Galilean — and speaks as one. Jostling in the crowd are people from various parts, many with little connection to Judea, many with less connection to Jerusalem and the Temple. There are those who come from the Gentile world nearby. It is the beginning of the grandest story of all, and it will carry on to the end of the world. The Church has history for its field, and the task is to bring Jesus to the nations. Let us enter into the work then — the work of bringing the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ to the world around us.

When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David. Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan was very fond of David and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.” Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly. He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The LORD won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?” Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the LORD lives, David will not be put to death.” So Jonathan called David and told him the whole conversation. He brought him to Saul, and David was with Saul as before. (1 Samuel 18:6-9.19:1-7)

Jonathan Fr. Ted Tyler

One of the beautiful figures of the Old Testament is that of Jonathan, the son of Saul and the beloved friend of David. He was noble in his character, he respected his father and was unswervingly loyal in his friendship with David. Especially impressive is his filial respect for his wayward father and his upright friendship with David, and in our first reading today we see an instance of this (1 Samuel 18:6-9.19:1-7). His friendship with David leads him to warn David of the harm to him that his father was contemplating; and his loving respect for his father Saul leads him to convince his father not to commit the sin of attempting to murder David. Jonathan is an inspiring figure who teaches us the beauty, the value, and the nature of true friendship. As his example indicates, friendship is a great good in life and it is a gift from God. But is ought be shaped by the will of God and his laws, and all that is done in the name of friendship or to increase it, should be such as to please God and not to offend him.

It is obvious that a friendship can lead a person away from the obedience due to God (and we merely have to think of how Eve tempted Adam to sin), but Jonathan shows how a friendship can lead to a good and higher path. All this is to say that friendship ought be a holy friendship rather than a sinful one. An immense amount of good can be done precisely through the cultivation of good and holy friendships. As already mentioned, Jonathan warned David of danger. Through our friendships we can warn others of dangers we see are ahead of them. As mentioned, Jonathan reasoned with his father and convinced him not to sin. We can do this with our relatives and friends, and often it will be only through a respectful friendship with them that this can be done at all. In turn we can be warned and wholesomely corrected to better ways by our friends. Furthermore, our friendship with others can prompt us to intercede for them in our prayers to God and to have Masses said for them, be they living or dead.

The spread and cultivation of good and holy friendships is a most important apostolate in life. Let us commit ourselves to the work of cultivating such friendships as are pleasing to God.

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You must draw from the hidden life of Jesus this further consequence: you must not be in a hurry ... even though you are! First and foremost, that is, comes the interior life. Everything else — the apostolate, any apostolate — is a corollary.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

Nothing is historically certain about St. Sebastian except that he was a Roman martyr, was venerated in Milan even in the time of St. Ambrose and was buried on the Appian Way, probably near the present Basilica of St. Sebastian. Devotion to him spread rapidly, and he is mentioned in several martyrologies as early as a.d. 350. The legend of St. Sebastian is important in art, and there is a vast iconography. Scholars now agree that a pious fable has Sebastian entering the Roman army because only there could he assist the martyrs without arousing suspicion. Finally he was found out, brought before Emperor Diocletian and delivered to Mauritanian archers to be shot to death. His body was pierced with arrows, and he was left for dead. But he was found still alive by those who came to bury him. He recovered, but refused to flee. One day he took up a position near where the emperor was to pass. He accosted the emperor, denouncing him for his cruelty to Christians. This time the sentence of death was carried out. Sebastian was beaten to death with clubs. HE was buried on the Appian Way, close to the catacombs that bear his name. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve— designating them apostles— that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. (Mark 3:13-19).

Hero indeed The idea of a Superman has recurred in history. One of the most striking was the twentieth-century character of popular comics, radio plays and movies, “Superman.” I remember when I was a boy I loved the character — together with “Tarzan” and “The Phantom.” The origins of the Superman character are interesting: it is said to have been originally inspired by Nietzsche’s “Over-man.” I refer to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s initial invention of the bald villain bent on dominating the world, in the 1933 short story “The Reign of the Super-Man.” The front cover shows a bald-headed ogre dominating the scene. Almost immediately Siegel began to remake his “Super-Man” into the hero the world later knew. The new “Superman” appeared in April, 1938 and gradually took the popular imagination by storm. “Superman” soon became a highly moral and brave (but not religious) character who fights evil, a hero in the mythic tradition with obvious parallels to Hercules and perhaps (without the religion) to Samson. His predominating feature is his overpowering strength, though he has his limits. “Superman,” of course, does not share our human nature in his most obvious characteristic — he is precisely a super-man in his physical strength. Paradoxically, his recurring adversary had features of Nietzsche’s “Over-man” (Ubermensch) in the arch-villain. I mention this as an instance of the fascination in history and culture with power, strength, and the idea of a good man being superior in strength to opposing evil forces. One of Thomas Carlyle’s notable publications was his work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History — it consisted of his lectures on heroes (1840). The idea of the heroic is a very important feature of human culture, and it brings us to the real hero of history, the Hero of heroes who took on the greatest evil in the world, which is sin. He entered into combat with the arch evil spirit (and his minions) who wishes to inspire each man and woman, as he did Adam and Eve, to be an Over-man, a Super-Man of Nietzsche’s hapless imagination. I refer to Jesus Christ, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, who has gained for us the victory.

While Jesus Christ is the true Hero of history, the one of surpassing strength who prevailed over the sin of the world, the distinguishing thing about him is that he was defeated. He gained the victory by means of his humble and obedient submission to the defeat of death. This is not like Hercules, or Superman — and it is the very opposite of Nietzsche’s Over-man, or Super Man. All of this brings us to our Gospel passage today (Mark 3:13-19). Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the eternal Son of the Father, chose very ordinary mortals to be his direct associates, his first and foremost generals, in what was to be a Kingdom without end. We read that “He appointed twelve— designating them apostles— that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” They were to be his alter-egos, as it were, and would have power to dominate the demons. So it is that we read, “These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.” These were ordinary people, and right at the end of this list there is Judas Iscariot. Christ wanted Judas to be a saint, an Apostle, a foundation of his Church. But he turned out so terribly. This was not what our Lord wanted, but so it was — and during his public ministry our Lord, we read in the Gospel, saw it coming. “Have I not chosen you?” he said to the Twelve after announcing the doctrine of the Eucharist. “Yet one of you is a devil” — he was referring, St John informs us, to Judas Iscariot who would betray him (John 6: 70-71). But our Lord did not turn him out. He did not expel him from this unique company. Our Lord lived patiently with this growing tragedy, praying and discretely endeavouring to reclaim the straying sheep. Our Lord lived and worked patiently in a world profoundly wounded by sin. When “the Jews” took up stones with which to stone him, he did not disable them with his divine power — rather, he escaped. He lived patiently in the fallen world around him.

Our Lord is the true Superman, the true Hero. But he shares our human nature entirely, with the exception, of course, that not the slightest trace of sin could possibly touch his divine Person. He immersed himself in our human condition and thoroughly took part with it, which meant that he lived and worked and suffered within all its limitations. He did not exercise his divine power to turn stones into bread for his own advantage. His divine power was at the service of sinful man, and above all to show sinful man that he would and could liberate man from the power of sin and sanctify him. But we must repent and come after him. We have the greatest of heroes — he is Jesus Christ.

He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. The men said, “This is the day the LORD spoke of when he said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.’” Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the LORD.” With these words David rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way. Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. He said to Saul, “Why do you listen when men say, ‘David is bent on harming you’? This day you have seen with your own eyes how the LORD delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, ‘I will not lift my hand against my master, because he is the LORD’s anointed.’ See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand! I cut off the corner of your robe but did not kill you. Now understand and recognize that I am not guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life. May the LORD judge between you and me. And may the LORD avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you. As the old saying goes, ‘From evildoers come evil deeds,’ so my hand will not touch you. Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea? May the LORD be our judge and decide between us. May he consider my cause and uphold it; may he vindicate me by delivering me from your hand.” When David finished saying this, Saul asked, “Is that your voice, David my son?” And he wept aloud. “You are more righteous than I,” he said. “You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly. You have just now told me of the good you did to me; the LORD delivered me into your hands, but you did not kill me. When a man finds his enemy, does he let him get away unharmed? May the LORD reward you well for the way you treated me today. I know that you will surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands. Now swear to me by the LORD that you will not cut off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father’s family.” (1 Samuel 24:3-21)

Respect At the end of December 2005 Sydney witnessed the so-called race riots, beginning at Cronulla. Many were wondering how, in Sydney of all places, this ever came to pass. News of it went all over the world. One person who was interviewed said that the gradual loss of respect in Australian society was a factor. A comment such as that can prompt us to reflect on the importance of mutual reverence and respect for others in social life, for it is clear that some people are habitually respectful and others habitually lack respect. Most, I suppose, lie somewhere in between. It is obvious that the virtue of respect is pivotal in social life, a respect showing itself in good manners, justice, and many other virtues. In our first reading today from the first book of Samuel (1 Samuel 24:3-21), Saul is pursuing David but unknowingly falls into his power. David could have easily killed him, but refused to harm him. He cut off the border of Saul’s cloak and even reproached himself for doing that. Later from a distance he revealed himself to Saul and showed him that he could have harmed him but refrained from doing so. All of this he did with reverence and respect for the person of Saul. David reverenced Saul’s person as the anointed king of Israel, even though the king was wrongly seeking to harm him. In this David is an example to us. We have so many reasons to grow in the virtue of reverence and respect for others. Each person we deal with is a creature of God, God’s handiwork made in his image. God constantly holds each person in being. We are all in this sense God’s children and he is our common Father. This gives to each human being an immense dignity worthy of reverence. Our Lord has told us that at our judgment, whatever we have done to the least he will count as having been done to him. As well as this, each baptised person in the state of grace is a temple of God, in which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit constantly dwell. Due to baptism each member of the Church is an adopted child of God, sharing in the sonship of the Son, not by nature of course but by grace.

Indeed, we have so many reasons to show constant reverence towards others. Consider what respect God showed towards us in sending his Son to become one of us, and then laying down his life for each of us!

(E.J.Tyler)

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Face up to the problems of this world with a sense of the supernatural, and following the principles of ethics. They do not threaten or undermine your personality: they provide a framework for it. In this way you will bring to your behaviour a living strength which will win people over; and you will be confirmed in your progress along the right path.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 66 (65):4 All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Most High!

Almost nothing is known of this saint except that she was very young—12 or 13—when she was martyred in the last half of the third century. Various modes of death have been suggested—beheading, burning, strangling. Legend has it she was a beautiful girl whom many young men wanted to marry. Among those she refused, one reported her to the authorities for being a Christian. She was arrested and confined to a house of prostitution. The legend continues that a man who looked upon her lustfully lost his sight and had it restored by her prayer. She was condemned, executed and buried near Rome in a catacomb that eventually was named after her. The daughter of Constantine built a basilica in her honour. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, He is out of his mind. (Mark 3:20‑21)

God of love Sir David Attenborough, the famous British broadcaster and film maker of numerous natural history pieces, has been said to have received more honorary degrees from British universities than any other person. He is the recipient of honorary Doctor of Science awards from the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, and an honorary Fr. Ted Tyler

Doctor of Letters degree by the university of Leicester. He received the title Honorary Fellow from Clare College, Cambridge, the Zoological Society of London, the Linnean Society, the Institute of Biology and the Society of Antiquaries. His films have excelled in their teaching power, rather than in presenting the cutting edge of science. I myself, viewing his impressive nature television shows, have been led to a deeper sense of the grandeur, the might, the wisdom and the very reality of the Creator. Famously, this is not so with Attenborough himself. In a BBC interview of December 2, 2005, Attenborough declared himself to be an agnostic. I remember watching an interview with him (I forget the date) and it was the cruelty and suffering that he saw in nature which turned him away from positive theism. On other occasions he has referred to the tapeworm causing blindness. “You ought to think of … well, think of a parasitic worm that lives only in the eyeballs of human beings, boring its way through them, in West Africa, for example, where it's common, turning people blind. So if you say, ‘I believe that God designed and created and brought into existence every single species that exists,’ then you've also got to say, ‘well, he, at some stage, decided to bring into existence a worm that's going to turn people blind.’ Now, I find that very difficult to reconcile with notions about a merciful God. And I certainly find it difficult to believe that a God — superhuman, supreme power — would actually do that.” In a BBC interview of January 2009, when Attenborough was asked if he had ever had religious faith, he said, “No.” It seems he has never believed in God — nor were his parents religious. He may be regarded as the typical secular Briton. Specifically, Attenborough does not see evidence for the being of a God. All this suggests that the world alone gives an ambiguous message to the one with certain starting points.

This may seem a long way from the point I wish to make, which derives from our Gospel scene today. To modern secular man, God is a curious puzzle, an uncertainty, an unlikely proposition, unnecessary, and is scarcely engaged with the world or with the individual man as would a living flesh-and-blood person. He is not committed to man nor is involved with him. If he is somewhere around, he is out of sight, and to that extent is a non-entity. How the believer deals with such a position is a challenging question — but it at least requires the engagement of persons who are profoundly convinced of the reality of the God of historical revelation. That God is indeed involved. He is indeed engaged with man and his suffering. The testimony of historical revelation is that he is the only true God, and so involved was he in man’s plight, and in the world’s plight, that he became man to take upon himself the root cause of all the trouble — sin. Thus we are brought to our Gospel scene today, in which we stand before the God of the universe become man. What do we see him doing? He is utterly consumed with service for the people around him. He does not spare himself. He has no time on his hands. He has no time to eat. He wishes to serve. This is the God of the universe, standing revealed for us all — the Attenboroughs included. So intent is he on serving his creatures, now his brothers, that we read, “Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind’” (Mark 3:20-21). They thought he was out of his mind, so given over was he to the needs of those before him. He himself said to his disciples at the Last Supper, “He who sees me, sees the Father.” He said elsewhere — to his enemies — that “The Father and I are one.” What we see him doing here for love of the least, is a powerful and entirely true reflection of the attitude of the Most High, the Origin of that world which Sir David Attenborough has portrayed so effectively. Attenborough forgot the revealed teaching on the Fall. But all that aside, the point at hand is what our Gospel scene of Jesus Christ in action reveals to us of God: God is at the service of man.

So greatly is God at the service of his creatures that he became one of us, took upon himself the sin of the world, at unparalleled cost to himself atoned for it, then rose from the dead for our salvation. He gives himself for us in the Eucharist, abiding in our Tabernacles night and day under the humblest of appearances, giving himself to us in the Sacraments and most of all in the Mass which is Calvary made present. The God of all things is a God of unceasing love, love without limit. The situation is very different indeed from what our modern agnostic imagines.

Second reflection: (Mark 3:20-21)

Service Our Gospel scene today is brief but very revealing in what it presents about Jesus. Our Lord and his disciples are besieged by the crowds pressing around him and making their demands on him. We are told that they could not even have a meal (Mark 3:20-21). Fr. Ted Tyler

There we have a picture of our Lord giving himself over to the service of others without respite and drawing his disciples into that constant and overflowing zeal. We may ask ourselves, what would our Lord be doing were he to be physically and visibly in our midst now? He would be given over to his mission of service and drawing his disciples – depending on their vocation – into this work too. Our Lord was a man of work. On one occasion our Lord was attacked for healing on the Sabbath. He said: my Father is working, so I work too. We then, who are made in God’s image are made to work, which is to serve God and others by our work. Our vocation is to serve, to serve God and others and we do this in our work, by working for them. Even our life of prayer can be understood as part of our work for God. For that reason liturgies are at times called services: in them we serve God by public prayer. We are here on earth to serve and not to be served — just as, our Lord tells us, the Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for the many. There is a second detail in our Gospel passage today. Our Lord’s relatives, seeing how utterly given over to his mission he was, thought he was out of his mind and set out “to take charge of him.” This implies that during those years at Nazareth he fitted in completely. He was a true and unobtrusive member of his wider family, making himself subject to the limitations of the Incarnation. St Luke specifically mentions how, after being found in the Temple as a child, he returned to Nazareth with his parents and was subject to them. Our Gospel passage today implies that he made himself subject to his family and the local situation humbly and fully. The Incarnation was very real.

The Son of God came to serve and not to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for the many. Let us resolve to follow the example of our Lord and to fill up our life with the work of service, service of God and of our fellow man.
(E.J.Tyler)

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God Our Lord wants you to be holy, so that you can make others holy. For this to be possible you need to look at yourself with courage and frankness; you need to look at the Lord Our God; then, and only then, you need to look at the world.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 96 (95):1, 6 O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

Collect Almighty ever-living God, direct our actions according to your good pleasure, that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works. 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.

(January 22) St. Vincent (d. 304) (Window to right: The Passion of St Vincent)

When Jesus deliberately began his “journey” to death, Luke says that he “set his face” to go to Jerusalem. It is this quality of rocklike courage that distinguishes the martyrs. Most of what we know about this saint comes from the poet Prudentius. His Acts have been rather freely coloured by the imagination of their compiler. But St. Augustine, in one of his sermons on St. Vincent, speaks of having the Acts of his martyrdom before him. We are at least sure of his name, his being a deacon, the place of his death and burial. According to the story we have (and as with some of the other early martyrs the unusual devotion he inspired must have had a basis in a very heroic life), Vincent was ordained deacon by his friend St. Valerius of Zaragossa in Spain. The Roman emperors had published their edicts against the clergy in 303, and the following year against the laity. Vincent and his bishop were imprisoned in Valencia. Hunger and torture failed to break them. Like the youths in the fiery furnace (Book of Daniel, chapter three), they seemed to thrive on suffering. Valerius was sent into exile, and Dacian, the Roman governor, now turned the full force of his fury on Vincent. Tortures that sound like those of World War II were tried. But their main effect was the progressive disintegration of Dacian himself. He had the torturers beaten because they failed. Finally he suggested a compromise: Would Vincent at least give up the sacred books to be burned according to the emperor’s edict? He would not. Torture on the gridiron continued, the prisoner remaining courageous, the torturer losing control of himself. Vincent was thrown into a filthy prison cell — and converted the jailer. Dacian wept with rage, but strangely enough, ordered the prisoner to be given some rest. Friends among the faithful came to visit him, but he was to have no earthly rest. When they finally settled him on a comfortable bed, he went to his eternal rest.

“Wherever it was that Christians were put to death, their executions did not bear the semblance of a triumph. Exteriorly they did not differ in the least from the executions of common criminals. But the moral grandeur of a martyr is essentially the same, whether he preserved his constancy in the arena before thousands of raving spectators or whether he perfected his martyrdom forsaken by all upon a pitiless flayer’s field” (The Roman Catacombs, Hertling-Kirschbaum). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 25:4-9; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news! As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men. At once they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. (Mark 1:14-20)

Repent and believe It is important that we examine our conscience daily, reflecting on what thoughts, beliefs and goals are driving us in our daily life. This self-reflection ought raise the question of what it is that will make life worthwhile. I once was speaking to a young university graduate, and asked her what work she wanted to do in life. She said she wasn’t interested in work as such – she looked on her work as little more than something she had to do. It was clear that she had not considered seriously what she believed to be important — what made life worthwhile. In our Gospel passage today, our Lord presents us in simple terms with the most important thing of all: “The time has come and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” We have it in a nutshell: the Gospel. The Gospel in its totality ought have our full assent. The Good News is Jesus, his teaching and his grace. God is with us, addressing us as friends and inviting us to live in his friendship. Our response should be that of faith in his Person and in his teaching, a full assent coming from our whole being. This introduces the question of what it is to have faith. Our Lord in the Gospel invites his hearers to believe: repent and believe, he says. By this faith, a person assents to God and to what he has revealed. Scripture calls this the obedience of faith. It is a form of obedience. I remember being in a religious discussion group made up of about five doctors. I was surprised at how poor an understanding they had of their Catholic Faith. But even worse, I noticed how some of them seemed to think that in all matters of religion, one basically makes up one’s own mind as to what to believe, in place of a higher, divinely-endowed authority. In respect to our Christian belief, once the Christian accepts that Christ is God and our Redeemer, he then accepts whatever Christ has revealed. He bases his belief on Christ’s authority. He does so not because he happens to agree with it, but because it is Christ who has revealed it. When our Lord in today’s Gospel invites us to believe in the Good News, he is inviting us to submit our intellect and will to him with our whole being. Faith is obedience to God. We believe on God’s authority.

But there is a further step in the obedience of faith. The Catholic understands that Christ dwells in his body the Church as her Head, and through the power and action of the Holy Spirit, guides the Church to teach in his name. Therefore the Church’s formal and binding teaching is the teaching of Christ. This is one thing a young person must learn when it comes to religion, because many adults have never learnt it and it is possible to go right through life without thoroughly accepting it. Cardinal Newman, one of the Church’s greatest modern converts, insisted that a person accept this before becoming a Catholic. Many adults go through life thinking that in matters of religious belief, ultimately it is right and proper to be making up one’s own mind, that is to say without recourse to and dependence on the Church’s teaching authority. The result is that one’s religion is a religion based simply on one’s private judgment, rather than on the divine authority of God’s revelation. Christ, dwelling in his Church, makes of the Church God’s living Oracle. The Church in her formal teaching is the Oracle of God, and therefore the “pillar and ground” of revealed truth (1 Timothy 3:15). If what one believes is simply what one works out for oneself, then one’s religion is a religion of man. It is not the religion revealed by God by which he means to redeem and sanctify us. There is a further point which our Lord makes clear in the Gospel today (Mark 1:14-20). Before we can hope to give to Christ and his Church the assent of mind and heart which we call faith, we must repent. Our Lord tells us to repent and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:14-20). In order to embrace with our whole being the Person and teaching of Christ, we must submit to him. We must submit our mind and our will to him. To submit to our Lord and to his teaching as it comes to us in the teaching of the Church requires that we be prepared to put aside our own will and preferences. It requires submission and obedience, which goes against our pride and inclinations. Cardinal Newman once said that the essence of religion is authority and obedience. He was referring to the authority of God and the obedience of faith.

To exercise the obedience of faith we have to repent of pride and independence of mind. On the basis of this repentance we can enter into an authentically religious relationship with Christ and his teaching Church. Let us then resolve to renounce anything within us that might lead to resist accepting and living our Catholic Faith. That is to say, let us resolve to do what our Lord says: repent and believe the Good News.

Further Reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 144-165 (“I believe” — the obedience of faith and the characteristics of faith.)

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Encourage your noble human qualities. They can be the beginning of the building of your sanctification. At the same time, remember what I have already told you before, that when serving God, you have to burn everything, even “what people will say”, and if necessary even what they call reputation.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 96 (95):1, 6 O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

Though leprosy scared off most people in 19th-century Hawaii, that disease sparked great generosity in the woman who came to be known as Mother Marianne of Molokai. Her courage helped tremendously Mother Marianne Cope

to improve the lives of its victims in Hawaii, a territory annexed to the United States during her lifetime (1898). Mother Marianne’s generosity and courage were celebrated at her May 14, 2005, beatification in Rome. She was a woman who spoke "the language of truth and love" to the world, said Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. Cardinal Martins, who presided at the beatification Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, called her life "a wonderful work of divine grace." Speaking of her special love for persons suffering from leprosy, he said, "She saw in them the suffering face of Jesus. Like the Good Samaritan, she became their mother." On January 23, 1838, a daughter was born to Peter and Barbara Cope of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany. The girl was named after her mother. Two years later the Cope family immigrated to the United States and settled in Utica, New York. Young Barbara worked in a factory until August 1862, when she went to the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Syracuse, New York. After profession in November of the next year, she began teaching at Assumption parish school. Marianne held the post of superior in several places and was twice the novice mistress of her congregation. A natural leader, three different times she was superior of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, where she learned much that would be useful during her years in Hawaii. Elected provincial in 1877, Mother Marianne was unanimously re-elected in 1881. Two years later the Hawaiian government was searching for someone to run the Kakaako Receiving Station for people suspected of having leprosy. More than 50 religious communities in the United States and Canada were asked. When the request was put to the Syracuse sisters, 35 of them volunteered immediately. On October 22, 1883, Mother Marianne and six other sisters left for Hawaii where they took charge of the Kakaako Receiving Station outside Honolulu; on the island of Maui they also opened a hospital and a school for girls. In 1888, Mother Marianne and two sisters went to Molokai to open a home for "unprotected women and girls" there. The Hawaiian government was quite hesitant to send women for this difficult assignment; they need not have worried about Mother Marianne! On Molokai she took charge of the home that Blessed Damien DeVeuster (d. 1889) had established for men and boys. Mother Marianne changed life on Molokai by introducing cleanliness, pride and fun to the colony. Bright scarves and pretty dresses for the women were part of her approach. Awarded the Royal Order of Kapiolani by the Hawaiian government and celebrated in a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mother Marianne continued her work faithfully. Her sisters have attracted vocations among the Hawaiian people and still work on Molokai. Mother Marianne died on August 9, 1918.

Soon after Mother Marianne died, Mrs. John F. Bowler wrote in the Honolulu Advertiser, "Seldom has the opportunity come to a woman to devote every hour of 30 years to the mothering of people isolated by law from the rest of the world. She risked her own life in all that time, faced everything with unflinching courage and smiled sweetly through it all." (AmericanCatholic.org)

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons. So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no‑one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin. He said this because they were saying, He has an evil spirit. (Mark 3: 22-30)

Light and darkness One of the figures of 19th century England who has commanded constant interest since his death in 1890 is John Henry Newman — beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in Birmingham in 2010. One of the things that has contributed to the inherent interest of Newman’s life was the array of personalities Fr. Ted Tyler

with whom his life was involved. He was a close friend of Pusey, and a close friend — a disciple, indeed — of Keble. He was a close friend and, in the early stages, a protégé of Whately. The list could go on. One of his friends in the first few years of their acquaintance, was Joseph Blanco White who moved to Oxford University in 1826. Blanco White was granted the Oxford MA diploma for his anti-Catholic publications, and was admitted to Oriel College during Newman’s first year as a tutor there. His most memorable sonnet is "Mysterious Night." Blanco White has been receiving new attention in recent years. Juan Goytisolo, Spanish poet and writer, has hailed his work both as a writer and as a daring intellectual heretic who attacked the so-called power of the Catholic Church and the various establishments of his time. In June, 2001, the first international Congress in Spain on the life and work of Blanco White was held in Madrid. Newman always remembered him as one of the saddest tragedies he had known. Born in Seville, Spain, his name was José María Blanco y Crespo (July 11, 1775-May 20, 1841). In spite of various doubts, he was ordained a priest at the end of 1799, and was appointed to a royal chaplaincy. His doubts about the Catholicism and indeed about religion itself secretly grew: "believing religion a fable,” he later wrote, “I still found myself compelled daily to act as a minister and promoter of imposture." Finally abandoning his priesthood he left Spain during the Peninsular War in 1810, and sailed to England — having rejected religion. During his first years in England he read Paley, reconsidered his opposition to religion, embraced Anglicanism, took Anglican Orders, and while preaching on occasion (including in Newman’s pulpit at Oxford), never held an Anglican living. He passed from Anglicanism back to his rejection of Christian doctrine (of the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Church, etc) and embraced Unitarianism. In this belief he finally died, seeing himself as a witness to fidelity to conscience and the truth.

Newman saw Blanco White as sincere, but as having entered a final blindness due to moral fault. Now, we must hope that God in his mercy and power saved him, but we can derive certain lessons from his life. Let us not linger on Blanco White himself because obviously we cannot know the state of his soul and how he really stood before God his Creator. However he can be taken as a symbol of the formal rejection of revealed doctrine. One can be sincere — truly thinking that what one maintains is correct — while being in a state of hopeless error and blindness, and being in that condition ultimately because of secret moral fault. That was Newman’s judgment of him. But this itself I mean to be an analogy of something even more serious, and which our Lord refers to in our Gospel of today. Listen to our Lord’s solemn words, addressed to those who were accusing him of being led by a demon (and not by the divine Spirit). He said something awesome indeed: “I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit” (Mark 3:22-30). The precise meaning of this has long been controverted and discussed. What is it to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit? What it does tells us, though, is that a person is able to place himself out of the reach of grace and somehow beyond forgiveness. Blanco White is not to be placed in this category, but his case shows how a person can gradually lose the light of God while thinking of himself as following the light of his conscience. His case is an analogy that might help us appreciate the dark possibilities facing man. He can do tremendous harm to himself by failing to follow the light and a blindness can set in, according to which he thinks he is in the light. He can even reach the point of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, our Lord warns. Our Gospel passage suggests that those who were accusing our Lord of being in league with Satan were verging on this state. We remember that Peter in the Acts of the Apostles said “I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (Acts 3:17). They were blind, culpably so, acting “in ignorance,” and verging on blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Let us never take sin for granted, or regard it casually — especially the secret sin of our hearts that is out of the sight of man. There are all sorts of secret sin. A person could close his eyes, fold his arms, and commit the most heinous sin of all in his heart. For instance, he could reject God, reject his revelation, reject his very existence, and choose not to care about the divine judgment. This would be an example of a profoundly deadly sin. But we can sin venially, deliberately, secretly, and all the while be moving towards the darkness. Secret sin can grow more serious. Let us renounce sin and choose the will of God. Religion is, as Newman wrote, a matter of accepting God’s authority and choosing the path of obedience. Thus do we grow in the light.

Sin and Satan In our Gospel passage today we are confronted with a strange phenomenon. There in the midst of the people and the scribes from Jerusalem was the all-holy Christ, God Fr. Ted Tyler

himself, in whom there was, of course, not a trace of sin. Moreover he was casting out demons. But what do we see some of the observers do? They accuse him not merely of sin, but of being in active league with Satan! (Mark 3: 22-30). How could such a thing come to pass? It was because of sin, the sin that in this case reigned in the minds of Christ’s accusers. It shows not only the real presence of sin, but its great power. We not only see sin at work in Christ’s accusers. Our passage also presents us with Christ’s words about Satan, in whom sin and pride and hatred of God reigns without any possibility of diminution or repentance. It is well to wonder at the terrible phenomenon of Satan and his angelic minions. Our Lord refers to them in this passage as a kingdom and a household. Words such as these imply that Satan and his fellow demons are organized in their hostile campaign against the kingdom and the household of God. To think that God’s creatures could thus rebel against him!

But of course we should recognise that every time we deliberately sin, we are aligning ourselves with the scribes of this passage on the one hand and with Satan on the other. That is to say, we must resolutely renounce sin and intrepidly renew that renunciation daily and regularly in the Sacrament of Penance. Sin is what the Son of God made man was sent to overcome. He has overcome it and broken its power. By prayer and the grace of the Holy Spirit we must make the results of Christ’s work our own. Let us then commit ourselves to Christ and have nothing to do with Satan and with sin. This is the will of God, St Paul writes, your sanctification. So then, now I begin!

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You need formation, because you need a profound sense of responsibility, if you are to encourage and direct the activity of Catholics in public life and do so with the respect that everyone’s freedom deserves, reminding each and every one that he has to be consistent with his faith.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 96 (95):1, 6 O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

Francis was destined by his father to be a lawyer so that the young man could eventually take his elder’s place as a senator from the St Francis de Sales

province of Savoy in France. For this reason Francis was sent to Padua to study law. St Francis de Sales

After receiving his doctorate, he returned home and, in due time, told his parents he wished to enter the priesthood. His father strongly opposed Francis in this, and only after much patient persuasiveness on the part of the gentle Francis did his father finally consent. Francis was ordained and elected provost of the Diocese of Geneva, then a centre for the Calvinists. Francis set out to convert them, especially in the district of Chablais. By preaching and distributing the little pamphlets he wrote to explain true Catholic doctrine, he had remarkable success. At 35 he became bishop of Geneva. While administering his diocese he continued to preach, hear confessions and catechize the children. His gentle character was a great asset in winning souls. He practised his own axiom, “A spoonful of honey attracts more flies than a barrelful of vinegar.” Besides his two well-known books, the Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise on the Love of God, he wrote many pamphlets and carried on a vast correspondence. For his writings, he has been named patron of the Catholic Press. His writings, filled with his characteristic gentle spirit, are addressed to lay people. He wants to make them understand that they too are called to be saints. As he wrote in The Introduction to the Devout Life: “It is an error, or rather a heresy, to say devotion is incompatible with the life of a soldier, a tradesman, a prince, or a married woman.... It has happened that many have lost perfection in the desert who had preserved it in the world.” In spite of his busy and comparatively short life, he had time to collaborate with another saint, Jane Frances de Chantal (August 12), in the work of establishing the Sisters of the Visitation. These women were to practice the virtues exemplified in Mary’s visit to Elizabeth: humility, piety and mutual charity. They at first engaged to a limited degree in works of mercy for the poor and the sick. Today, while some communities conduct schools, others live a strictly contemplative life.
Francis de Sales tells us: “The person who possesses Christian meekness is affectionate and tender towards everyone: he is disposed to forgive and excuse the frailties of others; the goodness of his heart appears in a sweet affability that influences his words and actions, presents every object to his view in the most charitable and pleasing light.” (AmericanCatholic.org)

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you. Who are my mother and my brothers? he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother. (Mark 3:31-35)

Brothers and sisters A distinctive feature of the religion of Islam is its catchcry, There is no god but Allah! Further, that Allah alone is great! I introduce the Islamic insistence on the one God and its unrelenting opposition to idolatry, in order to bring into focus man’s images of God. But more than anything, we ought think of the image which God has revealed he wants us to have of himself. That is to say, we ought think of the manner and content of God’s revelation of himself: it is a progressive revelation of himself as tender and merciful love. With respect for the strengths of important features of Islam, the Christian does not regard it, strictly speaking, as part of the historical revelation. That revelation subsists in Judeo-Christian religion. The Christian regards Islam as basically natural, drawing heavily on and enhanced by elements of that historical revelation which was granted to the prophets and definitively completed and fulfilled in the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man. A very distinctive feature of this revelation is its progressive character. One authority on both religions (Jacques Jomier, O.P. in The Bible and the Quar’an, Ignatius, p.92) writes that “there is in the Bible a whole religious aspect that has no equivalent in the Quar’an, the historical aspect properly so-called, that of the progressive revelation of God’s love for his people, through all the vicissitudes of history; with the growing awareness of the grievous character of sin considered as an offence against God’s love and the needs of all mankind, that of the ‘poor of Yahweh.’” Regarding sin, for instance, the Quar’an ignores the great lesson of the Exile on the seriousness of sin. As a matter of fact, as the Bible appears in the Quar’an, it is only certain passages of the Pentateuch and certain bits of the Gospel that feature (and seriously distorted, the Christian will have to say). I mention Islam only to bring out the distinctiveness of historical revelation. In the Quar’an there is no progressive revelation of the mystery of God over the course of time, whereas in the Bible God as the Lord of love is progressively shown. He is gradually revealed as God-with-us, a Husband to his people. This revelation reaches its highest point in the Person and teaching of Christ.

This brings us to our Gospel today. The mere fact of the Incarnation is a wonder, of course. God became man, truly man, in order to be with us and to share with us his life of love. It is the greatest revelation of divine love: God so loved the world, St John writes, that he sent his only Son not to condemn the world (which might have been expected, granted its sin) but to save the world. Without having pursued the matter exhaustively, I suspect that the dogma of God being a God of infinite love is peculiar to the Judeo-Christian revelation. The Gospels are full of it. In our Gospel scene today “Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mark 3:31-35). If the assumption is that Jesus Christ is at most a prophet, then of course this statement of his is not especially significant. It simply expresses the view of a holy man who regards those who do God’s will as especially close to him. If the belief is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and equal to the Father, then it is a statement that gives us a tremendous revelation of the attitude of God to us his creatures. If we endeavour to do his will, we become brothers and sisters of the Incarnate God. This is part and parcel of, and all of a piece with, the mounting revelation of God as a God of love. In the Old Testament prophets he speaks of himself as Israel’s Husband. The most wonderful thing in human experience is love — and it is this which is the distinguishing feature of God’s revelation of himself, but to an incalculable degree. Here in our passage today, in the Person of his incarnate Son, God wishes us men and women to become his brothers and sisters, as it were! Let us ponder on the scene of our Gospel today, allowing our Lord’s words to light up our grand vocation. We are called to an eternity of intimate communion with the living, infinite God.

We ought give glory daily to God for his goodness. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. We give most glory to God when we accept with our whole heart his revelation of himself and act upon it. This means hearing his word of love, and entrusting ourselves to it entirely.

The true light As we think of the great course of human history, we think also of the ongoing course of human thought as expressed in literature, philosophy and religion. Great efforts have been put into understanding life and its meaning. Many of these efforts have had a greater or lesser success, some have been a dismal failure. Ultimately, though, we notice in human thought profound differences of opinion in the fundamental issues. The history of philosophy is a case in point. Consider, for instance, the difference between the philosophy of Aristotle and that of Nietzsche. Again, consider the differences in religion, such as that between Islam and Buddhism. What does all this profound diversity and disagreement point to? It surely points to man’s need of a divine Revelation, man’s need for light from God. This light has come and is present in the Person and teaching of Christ, who is the light of the world. Now the surprising thing is that, while great mysteries are included in this Revelation (as is to be expected, since it is divine), astonishingly simple teaching is also included. Consider today’s Gospel reading, in which our Lord receives a message to the effect that his mother and his relatives were outside asking for him. He looked around at those sitting before him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:31-35). We have, in those simple words coming from the Son of God himself, the key to ultimate success in life. If only we do the will of God, we will be close to God and God will look upon us as his own.

In the company of Jesus and, as it were, as part of his circle gathered around him, let us endeavour to do the will of God in the ordinary things of daily life, no matter what might be the cost.

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Through your professional work, which you bring to completion with all the human and supernatural perfection that is possible, you can and should give Christian standards in the places where you carry out your profession or job.

Entrance Antiphon 2 Tm 1:12; 4:8 I know the one in whom I have believed and I am sure that he, the just judge, the mighty, will keep safe what is my due until that day.

Collect O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world. 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.

Paul’s entire life can be explained in terms of one experience — his meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that St Paul Conversion by Caravagio

all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted, like the strength of a boxer swinging wildly. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealot’s hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church: “...entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment” (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was “entered,” possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goal—being a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Saviour. One sentence determined his theology: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5b). Jesus was mysteriously identified with people — the loving group of people Saul had been running down like criminals. Jesus, he saw, was the mysterious fulfillment of all he had been blindly pursuing. From then on, his only work was to “present everyone perfect in Christ. For this I labour and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within me” (Colossians 1:28b-29). “For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and [with] much conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5a). Paul’s life became a tireless proclaiming and living out of the message of the cross: Christians die baptismally to sin and are buried with Christ; they are dead to all that is sinful and unredeemed in the world. They are made into a new creation, already sharing Christ’s victory and someday to rise from the dead like him. Through this risen Christ the Father pours out the Spirit on them, making them completely new. So Paul’s great message to the world was: You are saved entirely by God, not by anything you can do. Saving faith is the gift of total, free, personal and loving commitment to Christ, a commitment that then bears fruit in more “works” than the Law could ever contemplate. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Acts 22: 3-16 or 9: 1-22; Psalm 116; 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31; Mark 16: 15-18

Jesus said to the Eleven, Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. (Mark 16:15-18)

Religious certitude In my own opinion, the greatest philosophical issue in British and perhaps all of Anglo-saxon philosophical thought has been the nature of knowledge and the possibility of certitude. Any sensible person knows that he can make mistakes, and that he has made many of them. They may have been very serious mistakes which have brought him suffering Fr. Ted Tyler

and a lot of anguish to others. Mistakes that we make can occur because, for instance, of faulty sense perception. We think we see water on the roadway but it turns out an optical illusion — a minor error, but an example of error nevertheless. We think we hear our name being called, but our hearing is faulty, as might be our vision. We think we’re tasting beef, but it turns out to be kangaroo. But of course, this “faulty sense perception” involves mistakes in reasoning on the objective data we apprehend through our senses. This ordinary experience of error has spawned certain philosophical currents which have ended in the denial of the power to know objective reality. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) decided to by-pass sense knowledge, which is to say, starting from external objects which we are sure we know for certain. He began with his own sure consciousness of thinking and built up by logical process a system of certainties. The experiment was disastrous and resulted in human thought being locked up inside itself, unable to attain the certitude that is in fact natural, given and evident. What compounds this problem, in the mind of many, is that claims to truth are absolutely contested. This suggests, they assume, that objective truth is impossible. I mention this, not to follow through with a philosophical analysis of the evident fact of human certitude, but because of its obvious links with religion. This is not just a question discussed in the soirees and journals of philosophy. It infects the popular mind and can debilitate a person’s natural ability to know the truth. I have discussed religion with people who have never studied philosophy formally: they doubt the ability of the mind to attain certitudes. All that can be gained is a probability, at most your personal view on the matter. This was a major topic of concern for John Henry Newman. He wrote his greatest philosophical work, his Grammar of Assent, on it.

As I say, let us not linger on the philosophy of it — the common sense of man knows he attains and can attain certitude — even about matters that have not been observed and tested by him personally. We know for certain that Australia is surrounded by water. That having been said, it is critical that in religion certitude be attained. It can never be good enough to say to oneself that, well, all of this business of religion might be the case but who is to say? The stakes are too high for that, and the dangers are too great. If there is a tsunami warning put out, it will not do to think that it may or may not happen — but who is to say? The dangers are too great. If God has revealed something, and there are tremendous factors involved, then one must do all one can to attain certitude about the matter. All of this brings us to our Gospel today, a Gospel selected by the Church for the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul the Apostle. Consider what our Lord says about the acceptance of his word. He says it must be accepted as being true, and on faith — and if this acceptance is deliberately and knowingly refused then the consequences will be eternal. The issue is reality, and being certain of the reality that is involved. “Jesus said to them, Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-18). So real is all of this, so true, so objective, and so absolutely attainable by the human mind, that every man and woman will be judged on his performance in respect to it. Have you done your best to come to know the truth revealed by Jesus Christ — the Gospel, that is? The stakes are very high because our Lord says that if a person does not believe — meaning, of course, in a sense that is culpable — then he will be condemned. It is a solemn teaching about a certainty. Our Lord is telling us that what he has revealed is an absolute certainty, and that it is very possible to attain certitude about it. Further, it is morally required of us that we do our best to attain this certitude. The incarnate God tells us that faith in his word is required of the man who hears it, and if this faith is not given, there will have to be very good reasons shown. It is the greatest of man’s obligations in God’s sight.

On the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul the Apostle we think of one who thought he was certain about Jesus Christ and who persecuted him unremittingly. He then, in dramatic fashion, came to see that he had been in profound error. The fact of religious certainty, and the critical importance of attaining to certitude about it, is manifest in the conversion, in the life and in the death of St Paul the Apostle. He spent his life bearing witness to the certainty of Christ’s revelation, and of the moral necessity of every man and woman to be certain about it. This religious certitude, based on faith, is what can take a person to sanctity and to heaven.

Then Paul said: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.” ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him. Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’ (Acts 22:3-1)

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” The men travelling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.” “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. (Acts 9:1-22)

Conversion Conversion is often considered simply as a turning away from sin. It is this, of course, but the sense of conversion as a turning away from falsehood to the truth is often completely forgotten. When we speak of the conversion of St Paul (Acts 22:3-16 or Acts 9:1-22), we do not think primarily of his turning away from the darkness of sin as from Fr. Ted Tyler

the darkness of error. He regarded Jesus as an impostor and rejected the claim that he was the Messiah, let alone the Lord (God). Accordingly he fought the Church and its claims about Jesus. His conversion was a triumph of the truth due to the power of grace, and it shows the priority of the truth in God’s action and in human endeavour. It also shows what havoc error brings, because it was due to his errors that St Paul was doing such damage to the Church. We ought pray not only that we will constantly turn away from sin, but also that we will know how to constantly shun doctrinal error. The conversion of St Paul also bears witness to a very specific truth to which St Paul was converted. For many years now we have heard in one form or another the cry: Christ yes, the Church no! That is to say, many are quite prepared to accept Christ but wish to reject the Church. In the conversion of St Paul, Christ identifies himself with the Church and asks Saul why he is persecuting him. “I am Jesus of Nazareth, and you are persecuting me.” Saul’s rejection of, and attack on the Church, are actions directed against the Person of Jesus. The truth is that the Church has a mysterious identification with the divine Person of Jesus while remaining a very human community. The Church is the spouse of Christ, and is one mystical Body with him. The Church is his creation. Furthermore, if the Church is rejected, then its teaching about Christ is rejected to a greater or lesser extent. All too often the result of the cry: the Church, no! is that the truth of Christ is in effect rejected, abandoned, lost. If we wish to give our yes to Christ, we must give it to the Church, for the revealed truth about Christ comes from what is uttered and taught by the Church.

Paul attacked and harassed the Church because of its teaching on Christ. Christ’s intervention and encounter with Paul led to his conversion to the doctrine not only of Christ but of the Church. He saw that the Church is the body of Christ – that what was done to the Church was done to Christ. Let us use the thought of the conversion of St Paul to renew our commitment to the truth of Christ and his Church.

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As a Christian you have a duty to act and not stand aloof, making your contribution to serve the common good loyally and with personal freedom.

Entrance Antiphon I will praise you, Lord, among the peoples, among the nations sing psalms to you, for your mercy reaches to the heavens, and your truth to the skies.

Collect Grant, we pray, O Lord our God, that as the Cross shines in our southern skies, so may Christ being 1ight to our nation, to its peoples old and new, and by saving grace, transform our lives. 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.

(January 26) On Australia Day the citizens come together as a nation to celebrate the nation, its culture and its history. It is the day to reflect on what has been achieved and the blessings that are the source of gratitude and national pride. It is the day for all to re-commit themselves to making Australia an even better place for the future. Australia Day, 26 January, is the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of 11 convict ships from Great Britain, and the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove by its commander Captain Arthur Phillip, in 1788. Though 26 January marks this specific event, Australia Day celebrations reflect contemporary Australia: its diverse society and landscape, its remarkable achievements and its future. It is an opportunity to reflect on the nation's history, and to consider how Australia can be made a better place in future.

Scripture today: Isaiah 32: 15-18; 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11 or Romans 12: 9-13; Matthew 5: 1-12

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:1-12)

The nation There is, in numerous countries, a day set aside to celebrate the fact of the nation. It is often a Day whose date is connected with the nation’s origins and so is similar to a birthday. It is thus a day when the nation thinks of the benefits and blessings that its citizenry have enjoyed. They think of the distinctive qualities and strengths of the nation, its various resources, its history and achievements — all the good things associated with it that call for celebrations. The national day serves to deepen the distinctive culture and cohesion of the people, and it is a day when new citizens can strengthen their own identification with their new home. It is a very good thing that there is a national day when the citizens of a country can express and deepen their love for the fatherland. The fourth of the Ten Commandments, and therefore the first of the seven Commandments that govern our relationships with our fellow-man, is that we honour our father and our mother. This ought to be interpreted broadly to include all those from whom we have drawn life. This includes our physical parents, of course. It includes, too, our God-given pastors. It also includes our fatherland. That we render due honour to these our “parents” is a law of our very nature which the natural reason confirms. God has exalted this natural law to the level of making it one of the Ten Commandments revealed to Moses and confirmed by Jesus Christ. On a birthday, a person may take stock not only of his origins but of where he is heading and what his mission in life could well be, and ought to be. We remember that when the Angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah the coming birth of John the Baptist, he revealed what would be the mission of the child. It was the same at the annunciation by the Angel to Mary of the birth of the Messiah. His “birthday” was inextricably connected with his mission. If he acts, a free agent will have goals. The question is, what are those goals and has he reflected on them? The real question is, not what goals a person or institution or country wishes to have, but what goals ought he have? Ultimately, this is to ask what goals does God want him to have? So too with a free nation. The celebration of a national day is an appropriate day on which to reflect on a nation’s mission.

The only sure way we shall know our ultimate mission in life, including the ultimate mission of a nation, is if it has in some way been revealed to us from above. In the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel, “all peoples, tribes and tongues” are mentioned. The prophet beheld “in the vision of the night, and lo, one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came to the Ancient of days, and they presented him before him. And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom, and all peoples, tribes and tongues shall serve him. His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away, and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14). This son of man foretold by the prophet is Jesus Christ. During his trial, when put on oath by the High Priest, Christ told him that he was “the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One,” and that “you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62). Risen from the dead, he told his disciples that “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:18-19). The ultimate goal of history is that all men and all nations be part of the kingdom of the “son of man” of Daniel, which is to say, subject to the universal kingship and authority of Jesus Christ. This is the case for individuals and nations. When we think of the mission, the goal of a nation — to a point such a goal can be set by its people and government. But its ultimate goal has been revealed by God, and that is to recognize, accept and live by the universal lordship of Jesus Christ. This is not a sovereignty which is imposed during the course of history: it must be freely recognized and chosen. Further, those who do recognize and freely choose for Christ as Lord must respect those who do not. But at the end he will come again as the Judge, and then his kingdom will have no end. It is an act of charity for the Christians of a nation, and it is the mission of the Church, to work and to strive so that all will come to recognize Jesus as Lord.

In our Gospel today we have before us Christ’s Beatitudes, which is the summary in maxim form of his Way. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and the Beatitudes express his life and the way he wishes all to live. Let us work and pray that our nation will come to know, love and serve Jesus Christ as the One whom God has sent as Saviour, Teacher and Lord of the world. Let us pray and work that our nation will shape its life at every level in accord with this recognition. Christ came that we might have life and have it in abundance. He is the true life of our nation.

(E.J.Tyler)

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We children of God, who are citizens with the same standing as any others, have to take part fearlessly in all honest human activities and organizations so that Christ may be present in them. Our Lord will ask a strict account of each one of us if through neglect or love of comfort we do not freely strive to play a part in the human developments and decisions on which the present and future of society depend.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 96 (95):1, 6 O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

Angela has the double distinction of founding the first teaching congregation of women in the Church and what is now called a “secular institute” of religious women. As a young woman she became a member of the Third Order of St. Francis (now known as St Angela Merici

the Secular Franciscan Order), and lived a life of great austerity, wishing, like St. Francis, to own nothing, not even a bed. Early in life she was appalled at the ignorance among poorer children, whose parents could not or would not teach them the elements of religion. Angela’s charming manner and good looks complemented her natural qualities of leadership. Others joined her in giving regular instruction to the little girls of their neighbourhood. She was invited to live with a family in Brescia (where, she had been told in a vision, she would one day found a religious community). Her work continued and became well known. She became the centre of a group of people with similar ideals. She eagerly took the opportunity for a trip to the Holy Land. When they had gotten as far as Crete, she was struck with blindness. Her friends wanted to return home, but she insisted on going through with the pilgrimage, and visited the sacred shrines with as much devotion and enthusiasm as if she had her sight. On the way back, while praying before a crucifix, her sight was restored at the same place where it had been lost. At 57, she organized a group of 12 girls to help her in catechetical work. Four years later the group had increased to 28. She formed them into the Company of St. Ursula (patroness of medieval universities and venerated as a leader of women) for the purpose of re-Christianizing family life through solid Christian education of future wives and mothers. The members continued to live at home, had no special habit and took no formal vows, though the early Rule prescribed the practice of virginity, poverty and obedience. The idea of a teaching congregation of women was new and took time to develop. The community thus existed as a “secular institute” until some years after Angela’s death. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus also said, This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces corn— first the stalk, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come. Again he said, What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade. With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything. (Mark 4:26‑34)

Grace One of the striking things about our Lord’s public career was, in terms of appearances at the time, its lack of success. To begin with, our Lord’s life and appearance on the public scene was short — somewhere between two and three years. Mahomet (571-632) began his career as a professed and acknowledged Fr. Ted Tyler

prophet at a mature age and lived to his seventy-first year, which is to say, he had time to get things done. He died in his bed in peace, surrounded by his wives and having achieved, by normal measures of success, a great deal. His status as prophet was accepted, he had won the allegiance of very many of his region in Arabia, and with his military forces had conquered the rest. His work lived on in abundance and he can be counted as one of the most influential men in history. In respect to his chosen mission (which the Muslim regards as divine in origin), he was a very successful man. Jesus Christ was unassailably holy, his doctrine lofty, his miraculous deeds stunning, but he made no headway among those who counted most — those with clout. He did not win over the nation (as Mahomet had done), and was absolutely rejected by the nation’s highest echelon. The people were divided about him, many of his disciples deserted him when he announced the Eucharist, and one of his closest companions not only deserted him but betrayed him. At the critical point of his arrest, his best friends ran off. He ended up crucified between two criminals. By normal standards, this does not look very good. What would have happened to the new religion had Mahomet been crucified some thirty five months after starting out? What would it have meant for Buddha, or Confucius? The Cross looms high over the life, the Person and the teaching of Christ. The day of gloom ended, and the gloom deepened the next day, but on the third day — as he had predicted — glory shone forth. Life sprouts forth from blood and tears. Christ the Shepherd had triumphed over death, and the scattered sheep then became a growing force. Conversion followed conversion amid persecution after persecution. Within less than three centuries, without fists or swords being raised against persecuting Rome, the Empire was Christian. There were no Christian terrorists, no political cells — only the quiet proclamation of the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ.

Plainly there was a divine power at work driving the Christian growth. Christ’s own life and death, the beginnings and vicissitudes of the infant Church, and the persecutions and emergence of the early Church are iconic of the pattern of growth by means of the Cross. In our Gospel today (Mark 4: 26-34), our Lord refers to the power of grace at work in the life of his Church. “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain – first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” I referred to the growth amid tremendous difficulty during the first nearly three centuries. During the fifth century the Western section of the Roman Empire fell and the so-called Dark Ages began. They were dark centuries of waves of invasion, collapse and difficulty but amid all this, once again the Light of Christ was advancing. Within half a millennium Christian Europe was on the way towards its zenith which may be taken as, perhaps, the thirteenth century. The point here, though, is that a divine power is at work where Christians are intent on being truly faithful to Christ and his body the Church. At whatever point of history we care to begin, there is light and there is darkness, difficulty and the beginnings of triumph — if there are faithful friends of Jesus Christ. Let us take our own times, with its profound secularism and religious scepticism. It has been centuries in the making, with a growing philosophical rejection of religious faith. But there are tremendous Christians both high and low, known and unknown, seen and unseen. In them divine grace works and acts on the world. Our Lord tells us in the Gospel that the Kingdom of God “is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.” Human history is the arena of the struggle between the Kingdom of God and other kingdoms which stand in opposition to it. It has been revealed to us that the Kingdom of God, of which Jesus Christ is the King, and of which the Church is the bearer, will assuredly win out.

The pattern that has been revealed to us of divine grace at work in human history is the pattern in the life of each Christian. There is a daily struggle between light and darkness, good and evil, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan and sin. Let each person take his stand with Christ, then, and join with him in the combat. His is the strength, his will be the victory. Come it will, and the end is certain. How sad it will be if, through lack of decision or bad and sinful decisions, we are found among the scattered. Let us gather with him who is Lord, and thus be ready for him at his coming.

Faith Our Lord constantly stressed faith and he looked out for it. There are various phenomena that can tempt one to abandon one’s faith. One is what might appear to be divine inactivity. One hopes in God and hopes that he will act, and yet all the while God can appear to be silent and doing nothing about the problem or the evil one is enduring. Fr. Ted Tyler

St John the Baptist pointed Our Lord out to his disciples as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. Yet we read in the Gospel how, some little while after our Lord began his public ministry, John sent his disciples to ask him if he really was the One who was to come. Clearly, John saw nothing that pointed to this. The phenomenon before him did not represent the divine activity that he expected. Our Lord in reply pointed to what he was doing, and sent the message that the one who did not stumble at what they saw in him would be blessed. Our Lord in our Gospel passage today (Mark 4:26-30) uses parables to show that, just as in nature growth is real, constant, and yet imperceptible, so too the same pattern is present with the Kingdom of God. The phenomenon may seem to be one of inactivity but this is not so. The seed is constantly sprouting and growing – how, the sower does not know. So too the mustard seed, the smallest of the seeds, grows to become the biggest shrub of them all. God’s reign (in the Person of Jesus) is like that. Our Lord is speaking of the action of God in human hearts and in the course of the world drawing man and creation to him. Christ’s message and his gift is that of grace and its work. Our hope lies in the hidden action of God’s grace, whatever be the appearances. Whatever be the apparent lack of fruit in our efforts to serve God, if we truly serve him in union with our Lord, those efforts will bear fruit. If our efforts do not have the apparent results we would like, let us leave the appearances to God. Our hope lies in the power and presence of God’s grace.

Let us resolve to believe in God’s reality – that he is present and that he is God. That is to say, let us resolve to be persons of unfailing faith in the almighty power and loving mercy of God. He is always present and active in our humble efforts for him, whatever be the phenomena, whatever be the appearances.

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With a sense of profound humility — strong in the name of our God, and, as the psalmist says, not “in numbers of our chariots and of our horses” — we have to make sure, without regard for human considerations, that there are no corners of society where Christ is not known.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 96 (95):1, 6 O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

By universal consent, Thomas Aquinas is the pre-eminent spokesman of the Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation. He is one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honoured with St Thomas Aquinas

the titles Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor. At five he was given to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in his parents’ hopes that he would choose that way of life and eventually became abbot. In 1239 he was sent to Naples to complete his studies. It was here that he was first attracted to Aristotle’s philosophy. By 1243, Thomas abandoned his family’s plans for him and joined the Dominicans, much to his mother’s dismay. On her order, Thomas was captured by his brother and kept at home for over a year. Once free, he went to Paris and then to Cologne, where he finished his studies with Albert the Great. He held two professorships at Paris, lived at the court of Pope Urban IV, directed the Dominican schools at Rome and Viterbo, combatted adversaries of the mendicants, as well as the Averroists, and argued with some Franciscans about Aristotelianism. His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity, harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished. The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274.

“Hence we must say that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act. But he does not need a new light added to his natural light, in order to know the truth in all things, but only in some that surpasses his natural knowledge” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, 109, 1). (AmericanCatholic.org)

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, Let us go over to the other side. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, Teacher, don’t you care if we drown? He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, Quiet! Be still! Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? They were terrified and asked each other, Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him! (Mark 4: 35‑41)

Wisdom So, with the storm raging and his disciples — experienced fishermen — terrified, Christ was in a deep slumber. When did the situation begin to look serious for the boatmen? An hour before? Half an hour? However long it was, the disciples were filled with anxiety and it appears that it reached the point where some of them thought they were going down — that they were doomed. Presumably over the centuries numerous people had been drowned in the Sea of Galilee. The disciples would have known this, and they thought they were to be added to the grim statistic. Why did our Lord permit this hour of terror? Was it not unkind, thoughtless, unwise? Of course, he showed his power and goodness in the event by effortlessly bringing calm to the Lake and calm to the hearts of his disciples. But why did he leave it to the last moment? It is this sort of thing which stokes the clamour against the goodness, the wisdom, the power, and indeed the very existence of God. If there were a God, the world would be much better arranged and run. It would be different from what it is, because the whole notion of a God is of One who is kind, merciful, compassionate, all-powerful. It is of One who would not allow the trouble and bother that constitutes the overwhelming portion of life, at least of the lives of a great number of sufferers. If he is around at all, he would fix things and make them as they should be — and manifestly things never have been as they should be. The picture of Christ in profound slumber while a storm is sending his closest friends out of their wits encapsulates the point. Quite apart from their anxious moments in the boat, there were countless things going on in the world of our Lord’s time that any moral person would think should be absolutely rectified. The Gospels alone allude to some of them. They refer to people born blind. Our Lord met (and cured) a person who had had a paralysis for thirty-eight years — more than the whole of our Lord’s life. Why was this allowed? Our Lord referred to several persons killed by a falling tower, and to many who were slaughtered by Pilate while in a place of worship. Our Lord did not prevent the execution of John the Baptist. Nor did he prevent the death of Lazarus his friend, and the anguish this caused some.

As a matter of fact, our Lord in his miracles hardly altered the course of this seemingly faulty world at all, if we look at it in cosmic terms. He himself was overtaken by it because he ended his short public career nailed to a cross. Notably, though, his own end was what he positively willed as the divinely-decreed means of atoning for the sin of the world. Let that be one key to the problem of a difficult world which its Creator does not fix up. Manifestly, it was not the plan of God to send his Son to straighten out the world to suffering man’s satisfaction, and to a point which would appease all future philosophers. Nor was his primary purpose to ensure that never again would there be a shortage of bread. All this is to say that the very deeds of Jesus Christ suggest that the divine wisdom is very different from the wisdom of man. What man strongly judges as being best is shown by the Person and actions of Jesus Christ to be far from what God judges as being best. Our incident of the boat at Sea illustrates this. Christ did not choose to stay awake and put an end to the natural disturbance as soon as it began. He fell asleep, doubtless through an overwhelming human exhaustion far exceeding the fatigue of his disciples. So, in the midst of this great human difficulty, the incarnate God, the Word made flesh, was asleep. He was humanly inactive. Humanly, he did not see what was going on. Humanly, he did not do a thing to stop the trouble. In the wisdom of God, this was the course he chose. In the event when he stood up to change the entire scene, the reason for his inactivity became manifest. The disciples were taught in a new way the importance of faith in the One before them, whatever be the difficulties of living in a fallen world — a world affected by man’s sin. Before too long, Jesus would instruct his disciples in something that “had” to happen. The Son of Man had to suffer, be rejected and put to death, and on the third day to rise. Only then would he enter his glory. This was inexplicable to his disciples, and Simon Peter took him to task for it. But Christ thereupon addressed him as “Satan,” for he was thinking as man thinks, and not as God. The Gospels, the New Testament, and the entire Scriptures reveal the wisdom of God — which is our salvation.

The aim of life is to think as God thinks and to do what God wants. That is to say, we must govern our lives not by human wisdom — though this will have a place — but by divine wisdom. This is revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ and we live according to it by entering into union with Jesus Christ and by receiving his divine Spirit. Practically speaking, this means accepting the revelation of Jesus Christ as it comes to us in the teaching of the Church his body, and living according to it for love of him. By this means we live in an intimate friendship with Christ, sharing his divine life, and shaping the course of our life accordingly. Thus will the wisdom of God save us from all that will truly harm us, and take us to our heavenly home.

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them. (2 Samuel 12:1-7.10-17)

Sin and pardon In yesterday’s reading from the Second Book of Samuel (2 Samuel 11:1-10.13-17) we were presented with the account of a terrible crime perpetrated by David. He committed adultery on the one hand and then proceeded to orchestrate in secret the murder of Uriah, the woman’s husband. He then married the woman. It brought down on him the condemnation of Nathan the prophet, and the punishment of God (2 Sam. 12:1-7.10-17). There was no excuse. It was an heinous crime, though done in secret. Let us remember that God sees all, and even if in the eyes of the world a person’s serious sins are unknown, God’s judgment and punishment will come. That, perhaps, is the immediate lesson to be drawn from the incident the inspired text describes. But there is another extremely important detail. Let us put it in a different context. We remember how when Samuel confronted Saul for disobeying the directive of God, Saul initially denied he had disobeyed God. He evaded the acknowledgment of his sin, and one gets the impression that Saul was very slow to repent, if he ever truly repented at all. But in David’s case, we see an immediate and full repentance on being accused of sin by Nathan the prophet: “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’” That it was a genuine and heartfelt repentance, even if immediate, is indicated by Nathan’s answer, speaking on behalf of God: “The Lord, for his part, forgives your sin; you are not to die. ...Yet ... the child that is born to you is to die” (2 Samuel 12:1-7.10-17). It is this immediate readiness humbly to acknowledge his sin and to repent, that deserves our attention and emulation. It is one of David’s distinguishing characteristics, and it is one of the distinguishing deficiencies of our age. It has often been pointed out that the sin of our age is the lack of a sense of sin. Characteristically, we moderns find it hard to acknowledge in God’s presence our sins.

The words of Nathan reveal God’s hatred of sin, but they also reveal God’s readiness to forgive if we repent. Let us resolve then to cultivate the virtue of repentance by a regular and humble recognition of our sins, acknowledging them sincerely in the presence of God, and seeking his pardon in prayerful acts of Contrition and in sacramental Confession.

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Freely, according to your own interests and talents, you have to take an active, effective part in the wholesome public or private associations of your country, in a way that is full of the Christian spirit. Such organizations never fail to make some difference to people’s temporal or eternal good.

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.

"Would to God, my brothers, I had a whole forest of such Junipers," said Francis of this holy friar. We don’t know much about Juniper before he joined the friars in 1210. Francis sent him to establish "places" for the friars in Gualdo Tadino and Viterbo. When St. Clare was dying, Juniper consoled her. He was devoted to the passion of Jesus and was known for his simplicity. Several stories about Juniper in the Little Flowers of St. Francis illustrate his exasperating generosity. Once Juniper was taking care of a sick man who had a craving to eat pig’s feet. This helpful friar went to a nearby field, captured a pig and cut off one foot, and then served this meal to the sick man. The owner of the pig was furious and immediately went to Juniper’s superior. When Juniper saw his mistake, he apologized profusely. He also ended up talking this angry man into donating the rest of the pig to the friars! Another time Juniper had been commanded to quit giving part of his clothing to the half-naked people he met on the road. Desiring to obey his superior, Juniper once told a man in need that he couldn’t give the man his tunic, but he wouldn’t prevent the man from taking it either. In time, the friars learned not to leave anything lying around, for Juniper would probably give it away. He died in 1258 and is buried at Ara Coeli Church in Rome.

It is said that St. Francis once described the perfect friar by citing "the patience of Brother Juniper, who attained the state of perfect patience because he kept the truth of his low estate constantly in mind, whose supreme desire was to follow Christ on the way of the cross" (Mirror of Perfection, #85). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Deuteronomy 18:15‑20; Psalm 95:1‑-2, 6-9; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God! Be quiet! said Jesus sternly. Come out of him! The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, What is this? A new teaching— and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him. News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. (Mark 1:21-28)

Heaven It is often observed that when we look ahead, time seems to move slowly. The end point is distant. But when we look back, time seems to have passed quickly. The beginning point seems not far back. Each day can seem to be similar, for often when we look back on the day, it seems to have passed quickly. Fr. Ted Tyler

It can be the same with the past week, the past month, the past year. When we come to the end of our lives, the whole of our life will seem to have passed quickly and we shall wonder what we have done with it. An account will be rendered. Life is short, and we had better understand this because eternity is very long. During life we often think of the future so as to prepare for it. Parents choose a school for their children in view of their future. Students study with a view to their future exams and their future careers. A young couple prepares for their future marriage and their future family. A man embarks on a career path in view of a future he hopes will be his. People save and contribute to superannuation in view of their future retirement. And yet a great many people do not think of their future just a little beyond this, which is to say beyond death. That future stage is the real future which will never end. Everything depends on what our future will be then. Then our present state will seem a brief flash of time, and yet we will recognise clearly how all-important it was. Everything, our entire eternity, depends on how we live this moment of time which we call our life. What is it that awaits the person after death? What awaits him will pivot on whether he has been faithful to the dictates of his conscience and the commandments of God as Christ and the Church teach them. Immediately after death there is the judgment of God, following which the soul is either saved forever or lost forever. If a person is saved, there would normally be a purification in Purgatory from all the effects of sin before being admitted in an entirely holy state into the presence of God forever. On admission into the definitive presence of God the bliss of heaven begins, the bliss of being face to face with the God who is infinite love, goodness and beauty. It will mean being engulfed in total happiness forever. The one alternative to this is a horrifying thought.

Our life will have been a success if it results in gaining heaven. It will have been a catastrophic failure if it results in the loss of heaven. In respect to heaven, our place therein will depend on the degree to which we have loved and obeyed God here on earth, and the degree to which we have led others to God and to heaven. In view of this, we have an awesome responsibility to save our own souls and the souls of others. In heaven our souls will be with God and with the saints and angels, till the end of time when we receive our glorified bodies back again. During that period between our death and the end of time those in heaven enjoy the sight and company of God and of all in heaven, and with the angels and saints they pray fervently to God for those still on earth. Then, at the end of time, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, and of his kingdom there will then be no end. Heaven and Hell will be made the final abode for those who deserve the one or the other. Then there will be a new heaven and a new earth, yes, a new earth, transformed and glorified as our final home ,just as our bodies will have been transformed and glorified in some mysterious and wonderful sense. All will be utter happiness and love. We will live forever in a new heaven and a new earth in which every tear will have been wiped away. We find it almost impossible to imagine a place and a state of utter happiness because it is completely beyond our experience. Here on earth our times and moments of happiness are limited and mixed with unhappiness. But there in heaven every trace of sorrow will be gone, transformed and purified of all that is not the joy and goodness of God. It will last forever and forever, such that however far in the future we will be with God in this heavenly joy, there will still be an eternity of it ahead. Let us think of our final home a lot. How can we get there? In our Gospel we read of Christ in conflict with Satan (Mark 1:21-28). We gain heaven as a result of right choices. We must make a choice between Christ and Satan, between the love of God and love of self and sin. We gain heaven by choosing to follow our Lord very closely, by trying to put on the mind and heart of Christ. Now not I, St Paul writes, but Christ lives in me.

Christ is in you, St Paul writes, your hope of glory. So then, let us so live that Christ lives in us now, in order to live in us forever where there will be the new heaven and the new earth, world without end. I once watched a television interview with Father Patrick Peyton in his old age. He had led the great family prayer and Rosary crusades of the middle of the twentieth century and had produced numerous popular biblical film shows with the aid of accomplished Hollywood actors. He said in the interview that he looked forward to death because it would involve meeting God. Heaven is our hope. Christ is in the faithful Christian, and is his hope of glory.

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Struggle to make sure that those human institutions and structures in which you work and move with the full rights of a citizen, are in accordance with the principles which govern a Christian view of life. In this way you can be sure that you are giving people the means to live according to their real worth; and you will enable many souls, with the grace of God, to respond personally to their Christian vocation.

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.

Hyacintha accepted God’s standards somewhat late in life. Born of a noble family near Viterbo, she entered a local convent of sisters who followed the Third Order Rule. However, she supplied herself with enough food, clothing and other goods to live a very comfortable life amid these sisters pledged to mortification. A serious illness required that Hyacintha’s confessor bring Holy Communion to her room. Scandalized on seeing how soft a life she had provided for herself, the confessor advised her to live more humbly. Hyacintha disposed of her fine clothes and special foods. She eventually became very penitential in food and clothing; she was ready to do the most humble work in the convent. She developed a special devotion to the sufferings of Christ and by her penances became an inspiration to the sisters in her convent. She was canonized in 1807.

How differently might Hyacintha’s life have ended if her confessor had been afraid to question her pursuit of a soft life! Or what if she had refused to accept any challenge to her comfortable pattern of life? Francis of Assisi expected give and take in fraternal correction among his followers. Humility is required both of the one giving it and of the one receiving the correction; their roles could easily be reversed in the future. Such correction is really an act of charity and should be viewed that way by all concerned. Francis told his friars: "Blessed is the servant who would accept correction, accusation, and blame from another as patiently as he would from himself. Blessed is the servant who when he is rebuked quietly agrees, respectfully submits, humbly admits his fault, and willingly makes amends" (Admonition XXII). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus and his disciples crossed the sea to the country of the Gerasenes. As he stepped out of the boat, immediately there came to him from tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He had been dwelling in the tombs and no one could now restrain him, not even with chains. Having been often bound with fetters and chains he had burst the chains and broken the fetters in pieces. No one could tame him. He was always day and night among the tombs in the mountains crying and cutting himself with stones. Seeing Jesus afar off he ran and reverenced him. Crying out with a loud voice he said, “What have I to do with you, Jesus the Son of the most high God? I adjure you by God that you not torment me.” For he said to him, “Go out of the man, you unclean spirit.” And he asked him, “What is your name?” He said to him, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” He besought him repeatedly that he would not drive him away out of the country. There was there near the mountain a great herd of swine, feeding. The spirits besought him saying, “Send us into the swine that we may enter them.” Jesus immediately gave them leave. The unclean spirits going out entered the swine, and the two thousand or so herd with great violence was swept headlong into the sea and there were drowned. Those who looked after them fled and told everything in the city and in the fields. The inhabitants went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus and saw the one who had been possessed sitting, clothed, and mentally recovered, they were afraid. Those who had witnessed everything recounted it to all, explaining what had happened to the possessed man and to the swine. At that, they began asking him to leave their district. When he went into the boat, the one who had been possessed began to implore Jesus that he might remain with him. But Jesus would not permit it, and told him, “Go to your house and to your friends, and tell them how great have been the things the Lord has done for you and his mercy towards you.” He went his way and began to broadcast in the Decapolis the great things Jesus had done for him. Everyone marvelled. (Mark 5:1-20)

The Lord The region of the Gerasenes was probably in the Decapolis area. The Decapolis ("Ten Cities": Greek: deka, ten; polis, city) was a series of ten cities, nine being on the eastern side of the Jordan river (east and south of the Sea of Galilee), and one (Scythopolis — Beth Shean), lying slightly west of the Jordan river and south-east of Nazareth. The “Ten Cities” were Greek in their founding and were centres of Greek and Roman culture in a region that was otherwise Semitic. As a matter of fact, the “Ten Cities” may have included as many as eighteen or nineteen Greco-Roman cities. Broadly, they were located in modern-day Jordan, and each city had a certain degree of autonomy and self-rule. While they were cities in which the culture of the Greek colonists and the indigenous Semitic culture interacted and contended, they did serve to diffuse Greek culture. Some local deities began to be called by the name Zeus, and in some cities Greeks began worshipping these local "Zeus" deities alongside their own Olympios. There is evidence that the colonists adopted the worship of other Semitic gods, including Phoenician deities and the chief Nabatean god, Dushara. The worship of these Semitic gods is attested to in coins and inscriptions from the cities. I myself have visited the Decapolis region and viewed some of the extensive and impressive archaeological ruins. The Roman general Pompey conquered the area in 63 BC, and was welcomed by the Ten Cities. Thereafter the Roman government encouraged the flourishing of these cities as locales of Roman culture, and a network of impressive Roman roads was gradually established. While our Lord stated to the Syro-Phoenician woman that he had been sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, he did have a passing involvement in heavily Gentile neighbouring areas. One of these, as our Gospel today shows, was the Decapolis region on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. Of course, being a Galilean our Lord had had many contacts with partly and fully Gentile influences and persons. His own village of Nazareth was within walking distance of the city of Zephoris which was a booming and cosmopolitan centre. It may be presumed that he and his holy foster-father Joseph often worked there at their trade. The Roman and Greek presence was obvious to a Galilean.

Our Lord, humanly speaking, was very familiar indeed with the Gentile world — Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Syrian, Decapolis — and our passage today describes one of his visits to the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, within entry of the Decapolis. It was an area in which, being largely pagan, there was nothing formidable to stop the demons from having a field-day. We are given one instance of their activity in the person of our unfortunate demoniac. He was driven out of his wits by “Legion,” the name the demonic element admitted answering to. There were many of them, and they controlled him with a vengeance. We read that “When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” We are not told that the man’s subjection to the demons was his own fault. I doubt that it was, because once he was delivered of them he was entirely submissive to our Lord. It suggests that this was more or less his disposition when he was his own true self. Be that as it may, we are certainly shown by this scene how great was the need of the world for a Redeemer, and we are shown how great a Redeemer it was who arrived. The demons, triumphant in their lonely arena, immediately were helpless before the One who had unexpectedly appeared. We read that “When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!’ For Jesus had said to him, ‘Come out of this man, you evil spirit!’” (Mark 5:1-20). The demons knew their Man, and they understood instantly that their game was up. All they could do was to plead for special treatment. What we see encapsulated here is that Jesus Christ is Master and Lord not only of God’s own people — though not accepted as such — but was Master and Lord of the entire Gentile world. Christ effortlessly sent the demons packing and won an ardent follower.

While our Lord is Lord of lords, his lordship is to be freely accepted. He did not advance on Gerasa and into the Decapolis as would the likes of Pompey. He departed at the request of the inhabitants, but sent on ahead of him our liberated demoniac who traversed his home region telling “how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.” He was one of the earliest Decapolis followers of Jesus Christ (despite his limited knowledge) and one of the first to prepare the Decapolis for the Christian religion. Later, some cities proved receptive. Pella was a base for some of the earliest church leaders (Eusebius reports that the apostles fled there to escape the Jewish Revolt). Our incident today manifests Christ’s lordship, and our mission to love and serve him by bringing his Person and teaching to the world around us.

Christ and Satan Today we have a long and beautiful Gospel passage to contemplate, a passage describing Our Lord’s visit to the country of the Gerasenes. One gets the impression of a region in which Satan had been fairly undisturbed till this point, for at Christ’s encounter with the possessed man the unclean spirits beg him “not to send them out of the district.” The implication is that they have made their home there. Our text presents us with a man possessed by many devils – ‘My name is Legion, for there are many of us,’ answered he unclean spirit who was “Legion’s” spokesman. This possession placed the man beyond all human restraint or help. Night and day among the tombs and the mountains he was beside himself in constant suffering, howling and gashing himself with stones (Mark 5:1-20). The prospects changed with the arrival of Jesus, and the unclean sprits knew it. The spirits immediately acknowledged the power and the holiness of Jesus, and appealed to Jesus to let them be. What does all this reveal? It surely reveals what was happening on a broader and even cosmic scale. The world, broken and held in thrall by Satan and his devils was witnessing the arrival and the redeeming activity of the all-powerful and all-holy One. The Messiah had arrived on the scene and Satan knew his stay and hold on the world was ultimately coming to an end. So, on the one hand we have the beautiful figure of Jesus who displays his powerful love for the possessed man. On the other hand we have Satan and his “unclean” evil spirits. Christ frees the man from the power of the demons who possess him. We notice too how even our Lord’s treatment of the devils is somewhat gentle, acceding to their desperate request that they be allowed to go into the herd of pigs and make their home there. Their stay in the pigs did not last long, for the pigs were driven out of their wits and to their death as a result. Then when our Lord is asked to leave by the local inhabitants, he allows that request too. Our Lord in all his power is, we might say, the divine and very human gentleman.

Let us contemplate the humility, the love and the meekness of Jesus who is at the same time all-powerful. Let us make our choice for Jesus, rejecting all that pertains to Satan. Pope Benedict XVI’s first Encyclical was on the revelation that God is Love. It is a truth written all across the pages of the Gospel and shining forth in the face of Jesus. Let us learn from Jesus, and let his Spirit inform all we do in the life of the Church and in the life of Society.

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It is a Christian’s duty, and a citizen’s duty, to defend and promote, out of piety and general culture, those monuments that are found along streets and highways — the wayside crosses, the images of Our Lady, and the like. We should restore those which vandalism or the weather have damaged or destroyed.

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.

John Bosco’s theory of education could well be used in today’s schools. It was a preventive system, rejecting corporal punishment and placing students in surroundings removed from the likelihood of committing sin. He advocated frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. He combined catechetical training and fatherly guidance, seeking to unite the spiritual St John Bosco

life with one’s work, study and play. Encouraged during his youth to become a priest so he could work with young boys, John was ordained in 1841. His service to young people started when he met a poor orphan and instructed him in preparation for receiving Holy Communion. He then gathered young apprentices and taught them catechism. After serving as chaplain in a hospice for working girls, John opened the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales for boys. Several wealthy and powerful patrons contributed money, enabling him to provide two workshops for the boys, shoemaking and tailoring. By 1856, the institution had grown to 150 boys and had added a printing press for publication of religious and catechetical pamphlets. His interest in vocational education and publishing justify him as patron of young apprentices and Catholic publishers. John’s preaching fame spread and by 1850 he had trained his own helpers because of difficulties in retaining young priests. In 1854 he and his followers informally banded together under Francis de Sales. With Pope Pius IX’s encouragement, John gathered 17 men and founded the Salesians in 1859. Their activity concentrated on education and mission work. Later, he organized a group of Salesian Sisters to assist girls.

“Every education teaches a philosophy; if not by dogma then by suggestion, by implication, by atmosphere. Every part of that education has a connection with every other part. If it does not all combine to convey some general view of life, it is not education at all” (G.K. Chesterton, The Common Man). (AmericanCatholic.org)

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered round him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. Your daughter is dead, they said. Why bother the teacher any more? Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, Don’t be afraid; just believe. He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep. But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, Talitha koum! (which means, Little girl, I say to you, get up!). Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat. (Mark 5:21-43)

Christ’s wisdom One of the many distinguishing things about Jesus Christ was his wisdom, his knowledge, his sureness of choice and action. This became apparent in his very boyhood. We read in the Gospel of St Luke (2:41-42) that “when he was twelve years old,” he and his parents went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. Fr. Ted Tyler

He stayed behind in Jerusalem after the Feast, his parents not realizing it. Incidentally, there is no suggestion that the Boy tricked or eluded his parents after the Feast. Perhaps it occurred this way. He and his parents were among their fellow-travellers — It may have been the group’s final visit to the Temple itself. The Boy, among them, was perhaps absorbed in prayer or even listening to one of the doctors, and his company left the extensive precincts — assuming that he was among them. He was left behind, and so he just stayed there in the Temple itself. We read in the same Gospel of Luke that years before, Anna the prophetess “did not depart from the Temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2:37). Perhaps our Lord simply stayed in the Temple over the three days. That his absence from the group was not noticed suggests how completely our Lord fitted in among his fellow villagers and relatives. They all assumed he was with someone else. There are other indications in the Gospels of how fully our Lord was part of his family and village scene. In any case, after three days of intense worry, Mary and Joseph found him in the Temple among the doctors. What was the striking thing about this incident? It was our Lord’s union with his heavenly Father and the manifestation of his wisdom. It was his wisdom that struck the learned circle around him. He was “sitting among the doctors, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). After three days in the Temple, the Boy Jesus may have attracted the attention of a good number of the teachers of the Law. There he was, a child-prodigy the like of which they had never known, commanding their fascinated attention with his penetrating questions and his remarkable observations. St Luke informs us that “all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (2:47). Back in Nazareth, he “increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52).

There is no doubt about it, wisdom was one of the superlative marks of Jesus Christ. Christ went through unparalleled suffering as a constitutive component of his mission. By his obedient suffering he atoned for the sin of the world — but mistakes and lack of clarity and wisdom as to his course were never part of this suffering. Humanly he “increased in wisdom,” Luke explains. Nevertheless, he never did anything unwise or lacking in wisdom. It is obvious from ordinary experience that people vary in wisdom, and one person is wiser than another. Christ outstripped all in his wisdom. He was literally the wisest and most clear-sighted of human beings. In all his confrontations with his opponents, they could never get the better of him for his wisdom. We read that he silenced the Sadducees, and that at length his enemies did not venture to ask him any more questions — questions, that is, that were designed to put him to the test and to trap him. That did not lessen their intention to do away with him — it just meant that they would not face him further in religious debate. From the first in his public ministry, he manifested an absolute sureness in what he knew to be his course. His Passion and Death were central to his mission — this he knew. He knew that his mission was universal. All this brings us to our Gospel today, in which once again our Lord shows a sovereign assurance as to what to do and as to what would be the outcome of his actions. Jairus, the Synagogue official, came to him for the healing of his dying daughter. Christ knew what he would do — he went with him. When the moment came in the room where the deceased girl lay, Christ knew the outcome of what he would do. There was no hesitation, no mistakes. He raised the girl to life at a word. This knowledge and wisdom did not preclude a growth in knowledge as man. He had a human mind, heart, and soul — while divine in Person. He was God made man. On the way to the house he had turned in the midst of the crowd to ask who had touched him — even though he had just healed the woman who had touched his garment. He looked around to learn who had been healed by him. He overflowed with wisdom, but was man nevertheless. The point being stressed here, though, is his bountiful wisdom.

Christ showed that he is the Wisdom of God incarnate. St Paul tells us that Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). St Paul writes that in him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). The writings of Justin, Cyprian, Origen, the great heretic Arius, Athanasius and others display the extent to which the doctrine of Christ as the Wisdom of God permeated the early church. Let us contemplate the wisdom of Jesus Christ as it is manifested in the pages of the Gospels. His is the wisdom which is offered by the Holy Spirit and his grace. Let us seek to share in this wisdom, to live by it, and to bring it to the world around us.

Faith In our Gospel today we are presented with a succession of events that depended for their success on something absolutely fundamental for the following of Christ: faith – faith in his Person and word. Jairus the synagogue official came to Jesus, pleading with him to come and cure his desperately ill daughter, who in the event died. Fr. Ted Tyler

Then, while they were on the way there, a sick woman in the crowd secretly reached out and touched our Lord’s cloak, convinced that if she did so she would be healed. She was instantly cured of her complaint and our Lord told her why she had been healed: her faith had saved her (Mark 5:21-43). Then when they arrived at the house and discovered that the girl had died, Jesus assured the official, “Do not be afraid, only have faith.” He then raised her to life. The passage teaches us in dramatic and concrete fashion that, in the plan of God, our benefiting from the blessings that come to us through the Person and work of his Son normally depends on faith — faith in his Person and in his word. When our Lord was about to ascend into heaven, he charged his disciples to go throughout the world and make disciples of all the nations – believers, that is. They were to bring the world to belief in him, to faith. The fact is that we can sometimes take this priceless possession, our own faith in Jesus, very much for granted. We ought always remember that we have received it as a gift. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit received at our baptism and, since then, strengthened by numerous supernatural aids. It actually inclines us to believe in Jesus, bestowing on us a disposition to accept his word. Due to God’s gift we tend to faith. But were it not for this divine help, our fallen condition would incline us to depend simply on our own resources and (fallen) intellect. This in turn would tend to take us in the direction of religious scepticism. Let us remember too, that our faith can easily remain at a mediocre level, largely neglected and unexercised, and in danger of a serious decline. On the other hand it can be fanned into the flame God intends it to be and thus be the foundation for real holiness.

Let us then learn from our Gospel today how fundamental our faith is for our entire relationship with God. Your faith has saved you, our Lord told the woman. Our prospects of an eternity with Jesus depend on this faith that we have been given as a gift. Let us then resolutely cultivate it and in our daily life strive to share it with others.

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We have to stand out boldly against those “damning freedoms” — those daughters of license, granddaughters of evil passions, great granddaughters of original sin — which come down, as you can see, in a direct line from the devil.

Liturgical Season	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Second Week of Ordinary Time B-2		16	17	18	19	20	21
Third Week of Ordinary Time B-2	22	23	24	25 Conversion of St. Paul	26 The National Day	27	28
Fourth Week of Ordinary Time B-2	29	30	31