Third Saturday in Ordinary Time

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Third Week in Ordinary Time

Heb 11:1-2, 8-19/Mk 4:35-41 (Lectionary #322)

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020125.cfm

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It is one thing to trust and keep working when the Kingdom doesn’t seem to be coming very fast. It is another to stay peaceful when everything is falling apart.

In the previous passage Jesus shared his own feelings of concern with his disciples. Now Mark shows us the disciples feeling a concern that Jesus doesn’t appear to share. The boat they are in is sinking, and Jesus is sleeping right through it!

Mark undoubtedly meant us to see in this incident an allegory of the Church’s experience after Jesus ascended into heaven. (An allegory is a literary form “in which the characters and events are to be understood as representing other things and symbolically expressing a deeper, often spiritual… meaning.” Encarta World English Dictionary).

In this case the boat is a symbol of the Church. The storm is a symbol of the opposition the Church was experiencing: so great “that the boat was already being swamped.” (Mark was probably writing for Roman Christians undergoing persecution). Jesus “asleep” represents Jesus apparently absent and inactive, ascended into heaven and seemingly unconcerned about what is happening to his Church. The words the disciples say to Jesus when they wake him up may express exactly what the Christians in Rome were feeling when Mark wrote: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Mark’s point, however, is that whether Jesus appears to be present or absent, awake or asleep, he always has things under control. When Jesus woke up he “rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then “the wind fell off, and everything grew calm.”

But Jesus wasn’t finished. He looked at his disciples and said, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” He is teaching us through them that fear is contrary to faith, and that if we have enough faith we will fear nothing. Note that he is not talking about the emotion of fear, over which we have no control, but about fear we give intellectual assent to. To affirm an ultimate reason to be afraid of anything is to deny that Jesus is Lord of everything.

The disciples were apparently catching on to this. “They were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” Mark’s identification of Jesus is adding up. 

Initiative: Rebuke fear in yourself as Jesus rebuked the storm. That won’t make it go away, but it will keep it from hurting you.

Third Friday in Ordinary Time

Friday, January 31, 2025

Third Week in Ordinary Time

Memorial of Saint John Bosco, Priest

Heb 10:32-39/Mk 4:26-34 (Lectionary #321)

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/013125.cfm

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We can’t say Jesus did not practice what he preached. After hearing him urge others to share what was in their hearts, we see him doing it himself.

When Mark reports the next two parables about the “Kingdom,” he explains that in preaching to the crowd Jesus “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them except in parables. But he explained everything in private to his disciples.” There may have been a reason for this that Mark doesn’t mention.

How could Jesus have preached the Good News as he understood it — fantastic news, a mystery beyond all human comprehension, a life-transforming invitation to the fullness of life, but which “gave all” only to those who were willing to “lose all” — without feeling discouragement? Even preachers today, who don’t have a fraction of the understanding Jesus had, and who are able to proclaim only the mitigated measure of mystery they have absorbed, feel discouraged by the obtuseness and apathy they encounter. Let’s face it: the authentic message of Jesus is not the hottest-selling item on the market. And the “Kingdom of God” does not appear to be approaching at warp speed.

Jesus felt this. And undoubtedly prayed about it. And shared what the Father revealed to him. He told the crowds only what they could understand, but to his disciples he unburdened his heart. What did the Father show him?

“The kingdom of God,” Jesus said (and saw) “is like a man scattering seed…. He goes to bed and gets up day after day…. The seed sprouts and grows without his knowing how it happens.” Little by little the soil produces: “first the stalk, then the head of wheat, finally the full grain in the head.” When the crop is ready, he gathers it in, “for the time is ripe for harvest.”

He said the Kingdom is also “like a mustard seed, which, when sown… is the smallest of all the seeds on earth. Yet once it is sown it grows up to become the largest of all shrubs, with branches big enough for the birds of the sky to build nests in its shade.” That is the future Jesus saw for his Church.

Jesus lived in hope. He didn’t see results. But he trusted in the Father. And he shared his feelings and his thoughts with us so that we could do the same.

The Good News is that, seen or unseen, the seed is alive. We just have to keep waiting and working “in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Initiative: Be joyful, reminding yourself that the Kingdom is being established.

Third Thursday in Ordinary Time

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Third Week in Ordinary Time

Heb 10:19-25/Mk 4:21-25 (Lectionary #320)

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/013025.cfm

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The “inner circle” of Jesus’ disciples may have thought they were privileged. He wanted them to understand that their privilege was preparation: whatever they got from him, it was so they could give it to others. If they were “brought in,” it was in order to be sent out: “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?” He explained things to them in private only because others weren’t ready to hear them yet. “Things are hidden only to be revealed at a later time; nor is anything kept secret, except to be brought to light.”

Having made clear by the commissioning of the Twelve that Christianity is a group endeavor to establish the “reign of God” on earth, Jesus makes it even more clear that an individualistic focus on private self-fulfillment has no place in his Church. Being “saved” and saving others go together. Jesus has no sheep who are not called to be shepherds, and no disciples who are not sent to teach. Love is by nature self-bestowing. We cannot accept love well without becoming loving. Any light not shining is extinguished. If we are not giving life to others we are dead.

All this is simply what it means to be created in the image of God and, beyond that, to be divinized by sharing in the life of God himself. God is by nature creative. God could not be God and not give himself: Father giving to Son, Son to Father, and both to the Holy Spirit, who gives himself in return. Likewise, God gives himself in and through creation. He gives himself in and through grace. He cannot stop giving or hold himself back. He “gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34).

How can we share in the life of God without sharing it with others? Jesus said, “Listen carefully; this is important: in the measure you give you shall receive….” And since God is God, who cannot be outdone in generosity, he adds, “and more besides.”  

A principle is at work here: “To those who have, more will be given.” Any gift gratefully received from God arouses us to open our hearts for more, which impels us to give more to others (2Corinthians 5:14). This is to keep growing in love.

Those who think they “have nothing” to share — no truth, no witness to give, no love, no experience of God, —will be proven right, because what they have will be “taken away” from them — not by God, but by their failure to recognize it. We realize the grace we have when we try to share it with others.

Initiative: Share with someone one thing you know or (better) feel about God.