Seventh Wednesday in Ordinary Time

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Seventh week of the Year

Mark 9:38-40; Sirach 4:11-19; Psalm 119:165-175 (Lectionary 342)

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022625.cfm

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Probably most fights start over issues of property, power and prestige. But there is also something in us that makes us want to see anyone who is different as a threat. A sociologist once asked his class to make two columns listing “Them” and “Us.” In the “Us” column, no one included “the human race.” Jesus would have.

John, whom Jesus nick-named “Son of Thunder (3:17), said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” John didn’t look at what the man was doing — the fact he was “casting out demons” — but just at who he was. Because he didn’t officially group with the disciples, John wanted to stop him from giving people the impression that he had any relationship with Jesus.

Jesus said not to stop him. Then he taught another fundamental principle that Christians, with most other people in the world, have yet to accept: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus sees an ally in everyone not identified as an enemy.

Christians take sides against other Christians: Catholics vs Protestants, “conservatives” vs “liberals,” Latin-Massers vs those who want contemporary liturgy, strict rule-keepers vs those who feel free to adapt. When is this a legitimate, or even necessary, defense of truth? When divisive?

Jesus did not focus on error but on opposition. Opposition is hostility; argument is inquiry. There is nothing wrong about arguing, so long as we accept each other and do not go to war against sincerity. The Pharisees who questioned Jesus did not wait for answers or respond when he gave them. They were just against him.

Jesus told us to weigh results. “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns?” (Matthew 7:16). If people are “casting out demons,” they are not people we want to cast out, even if they are partially in error. Not, at least, if they are “for us” in what we are basically trying to do. 

Jesus said God will reward anyone who “gives you a cup of water because you bear the name of Christ” (9:41). Why should we not be grateful for all who accept us as believers and accept them in return?

One thing we can always do is pray together. And share our experiences of God. We can just not focus on doctrinal differences until we know we are united in heart. This lets the Spirit act.

Initiative: Pray before you argue. You may find you don’t need to argue.

Seventh Tuesday in Ordinary Time

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Seventh week of the Year

Mark 9:30-37; Sirach 2:1-11; Psalm 37: 3-40 (Lectionary 342)

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022525.cfm

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As they walked back toward Galilee, Jesus was concerned about his disciples’ lack of faith. Not just ordinary faith: they had enough faith to believe in him as an impressive teacher and miracle-worker. But not enough to accept him as a Messiah who would let his enemies kill him rather than use power against them, human or divine, to save his life. Or theirs! The prayer of the father they had just left was still echoing in his ears: “I do have faith. Help my lack of faith.”

Jesus knew his disciples in the Church would not have power to cast out the real demons of society, of any human culture, unless they accepted the root principle of Christianity: the “doctrine of the cross.” They had to accept Baptism as a dying, with and in Christ, to everything this world offers, and a rising to live only as his risen, saving body on earth. They had to accept every Eucharist as a renewal of the covenant, joining themselves consciously to Jesus on the cross, saying with him to every member of the human race, “This is my body, given up for you.”

Without that, the demons accepted as the unquestioned rulers (ruling principles) of every human society would still keep casting one nation after another “into fire and water, to destroy it.” So Jesus repeated, with emphasis: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed. His enemies will kill him. And after three days, he will rise again.”

But they “did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” They didn’t want to hear it. So he shook another fundamental principle of cultural values. He told them they were to consider, not only power, but prestige as dangers to their faith. He forbade them to attach prestige to any function in the Church: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Another radical principle. In every area of life — business, politics, the military — those with more authority are given greater signs of importance and respect. Through titles, dress, rules of protocol. But in the Church that must not be.

We ignore this teaching. Jesus knew we would. So he “took a little child in his arms,” and said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” The essential dignity of all Christians is identification with Jesus in grace. To pretend that office or position increases that dignity is to deny it. But to accept this mystery, we have to become like little children ourselves, looking at life with new and open eyes (Matthew 18:1-4).

Initiative: Rethink power and prestige. Start with Jesus and go from there.

Seventh Monday in Ordinary Time

Monday, February 24, 2025

Seventh week of the Year

Mark 9:14-29. Year I: Sirach 1:1-10; Psalm 93:1-5 (Lectionary 341)

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022425.cfm

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When they came down the mountain after the Transfiguration, the disciples got a shock. A man ran up and said, “Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a demon. I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.”

Jesus had given the disciples power to heal and cast out demons (3:15). But they had failed! This put a strain on the disciples’ faith. The magic wasn’t working any more! Then Jesus “lost it”: “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me!”

The father did, saying, “If you if you can do anything… help us.” Jesus didn’t like that. “What do you mean, ‘If you can…?’ Everything is possible for anyone who has faith.” The father answered for us all: “I do have faith; help my lack of faith.” And Jesus cast out the demon.

Now that Jesus is preaching a tougher Gospel, Mark is showing us a tougher kind of demon. To believe in accepting the cross instead of taking up the sword requires more than ordinary faith. Its absence through most centuries of Christianity explains why Jesus’ disciples in the Church have not been able to exorcise society of the demons of violence and war, with all that precedes and follows them. We do have faith. But the world is still suffering from our lack of faith.

We do, in fact, choose to save our lives in this world rather than lose them. We will kill others — even and especially if we think they are so evil we might be sending them to hell — rather than let them send us to heaven. We are not willing to respond to evil with love. We will defend our “American way of life” to the death (doing our best, of course, to assure it will be others’ death rather than our own), rather than accept the yoke (that is, the cross) of domination by another nation or ideology. Don’t most Christians take this for granted?

And parents keep coming to the Church, saying, “I brought my children to Mass, to religious instruction, and asked you to protect them from the demons of our culture — from loss of faith, and from the peer pressure that often ‘casts them into fire and water’ — and you could not.”

True. A Church of mediocre disciples, whether clergy or laity — or of parents — who compromise with the culture, cannot save people from the demons of the culture itself. For this there is no remedy but to turn to God for help, acknowledging our weakness: “This kind can only be driven out by prayer.” And metanoia.

Initiative: Go to the roots. Re-examine the basic mystery of Baptism and Mass.