Fourth
Sunday in Ordinary Time
30-31
January – St. Mary’s in Salem
Dt. 18: 15-20
1Cor. 7:32-35
Mk
1:21-28
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
As we just heard in today’s Gospel of
Mark:
“What is this? A new teaching with
authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
Jesus is
acting with sovereignty. He is calling the enemy (Satan) to step down. He is
vanquishing the power of evil in the lives of real people. One of the great
challenges of life as a Catholic today is identifying the players in the
struggle for Christ and His Church, understanding how the sides line up and
what are the key battles for the salvation of the life of the world which are
being fought.
It is odd that the people listening to Jesus there in the
synagogue were so unfamiliar with the longstanding role of the prophet’s
teaching for the guidance of God’s Chosen People. The prophet by the divine
will has always had to prove his credentials, but if he did, then by God’s will
he was the authority for Israel. This is the state of affairs in Israel and in
the Church from the time of Moses in the desert all the way to the coming of
Jesus, the promised Messiah. The notion of the role of the prophet in Israel,
as we just heard in the first reading, goes way back in history to the time of
Moses and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. You wonder if those people who
were scandalized by Jesus had ever read that passage from the Book of
Deuteronomy. You wonder too if they knew the history of their own people forged
as the Chosen People of God through Moses, during 40 years of wandering in the
desert. You wonder if those people who heard Jesus in the synagogue, who witnessed
him casting out demons, you wonder if they had any faith in God’s power to act then
and now in the midst of His people.
Back at the time of the Exodus, God in the desert had spoken
not only through Moses but directly to His People. With His thundering and
majestic appearance on Mount Sinai, God had scared the living daylights out of them.
They begged the God of Hosts for a prophet instead, a man like them, to
communicate God’s word and the Lord Almighty agreed to their request. He agreed
to go easy on them. We see God’s promise fulfilled in the sending of His only
begotten Son, Jesus, truly God and yet a man like us in all things but sin.
Prophecy, authoritative teaching,
teaching with power is what has always securely guided God’s People. God has
never abandoned His people; we have always been able to know just what we are
about. After Moses and Joshua, the military leader, who were the judges if not
a mix between heroes in battle and prophets who spoke with authority to the
people on God’s behalf? As great as Israel’s kings were, they were all flanked
and corrected by prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. Priests certainly
had their role to play among God’s people, but authoritative power amongst
God’s people was always shouldered by the prophets, people of true sanctity,
who spoke in the name of the Lord.
If I had a bone to pick with people in
the Church today, it would be that just like those folk back in the synagogue,
who witnessed the authoritative teaching of Jesus, so these people do not seem
to get it. They feign being scandalized when the Church points out to them the
straight and narrow way which they are to follow. Too
often they do not understand where true authority in the Church lies. They deny
that it is the prophet, not the priest or the king, not the democratically
elected official, the university professor or the so-called “self-made man”, no,
it is the one who teaches with authority in God’s name, that is the prophet,
who commands obedience. The same is true in both the Old Testament and the New,
God never leaves His people without witnesses who teach in His name. Some of
these prophets, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta or Padre Pio, were quite popular
and were approved as authorities already during their lifetime. Some, like
Edith Stein or Maximillian Kolbe, were accredited as true prophets by their
martyrdom for their faith in the Lord Jesus, in whose name they taught.
“What is this? A new teaching with
authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
Prophecy: teaching with authority! That
is what Jesus did and that is what His Mystical Body the Church is called to do.
To command! And yet, how common is it for us to experience people claiming to
be Catholic and yet questioning at every turn the Church who speaks in God’s
name.
Can we give people, especially
authorities, a break when they are skeptical about prophets, when they dismiss
the Church’s teaching, let us say on moral questions, like the right to life of
the unborn? No! Such behavior is unacceptable; it cannot be justified. God
reigns supreme and no one can be exempted from His command. To profess belief
in God cannot be separated from an unconditional submission to His Son, Jesus
Christ. The Crucified One, the Risen and Glorious Christ continues to speak to
us, to direct us through His Church.
Granted, we have people in positions of
authority in the Church, who would pass themselves off as prophets, but who do
not have the credentials. They are to a greater or lesser degree possessed by
unclean spirits. By their fruits you will know them. It is the Lord Jesus
Himself and those speaking prophecy in union with Him who require our
allegiance. No one gets off the hook or is excused. Everyone is called to
submit to Christ.
Certainly, there are people who did not have the benefit of a
good Catholic upbringing, but even they cannot be justified in their denial of
Christ’s authority over them. Charity (God’s love for all of us, every one of
us, His children) urges us to seek to draw all to the fullness of truth, of life
and of grace in Christ. Not even the tragedies of a lifetime can be the excuse
which could put us off from Christ. The Lord will not abandon us. My challenge
is to reform my life such that Christ shines in me for the sake of the life of
the world.
Let your challenge this week be one of seeking to repent of
sin and to identify more closely with the prophetic teaching of Christ in His
Church. We need to move to the right side in this fight, for our own sake and
for the sake of all whom we love.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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