Beyond Belief?

 

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

29-30 June 2024 - St. John Paul II - Harrisburg

Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24

2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15

Mk 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       “She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”

       “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”

       The message of Scripture for this 13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time is a tough one, not because it comes down hard condemning us for our lack of faith and consequently not living up to Christian ideals, but because we miss the point of its teaching. The good news of God’s boundless love for us His children goes right over our heads and leaves us doubting whether Jesus would do the same for us and our loved ones, as He did in the Gospel for the woman with hemorrhages that sapped her life and wouldn’t heal us as He did her. We find it somewhere between hard and impossible to imagine that Jesus, true God and true Man, would intervene on behalf of our loved ones as He did for the couple whose young daughter died before they could bring Jesus to their home to heal her.

My point is that it was not the strong faith of the woman that healed her, nor the parents’ confidence in the power of Jesus to raise their daughter from the dead that worked these miracles. Desperation seems to reign supreme in both cases before Jesus takes charge, bringing healing and life to the woman and to the young girl, confounding the mourners and bringing peace and joy to loving parents. Very simply, here we are confronted by the greatness of God’s unbounded love for us in Christ. On the one hand we are challenged to recognize God’s mercy on us unworthy as we are, and on the other to run to Him without hesitation confident that if we but ask He will take care of the rest.

       How does that translate practically into our life of faith and prayer? What should be our attitude as people of faith when it comes to asking the Lord for His favor, be it for a good harvest, be it for rescuing us from difficulties which place our family at risk, be it for cases of illness effecting family and friends, or maybe even our own life?

       We need to contemplate on the eagerness of the Son of God to come to our aid as readily as He described Himself really in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus is just that way, He is in charge, He wins out over sin, sickness, and death. We are challenged to let go of resignation and despair, to embrace the message of the Gospel, and to trust and put our lives in the hands of the King of the Universe.

       I am not talking about faith healing or something of that sort. There are many preachers of the so-called prosperity gospel out there, who claim that the only thing standing between us and health, wealth, and happiness is the weakness of our faith. They are wrong. They need to go back to today’s passage from Mark’s Gospel and to the constant teaching of the Church and know that our Almighty Lord can make something good out of our terror and even of our desperation, if we but reach out to touch Him as that poor woman did. Faith manifests itself here in humble submission and trust in the God Who made us and saved us in Christ.

       Already before Christ, in prophecy the Old Testament Book of Wisdom stated clearly just who God is and what is His Will for us whom He has favored with life and then in a much fuller way in Christ with the promise of everlasting life with Him in heaven. “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”

       In moments of great sadness and vulnerability, we can stand there more or less helpless before our fate. To cheer or console or lift up someone suffering in this way is no easy task. Our general tendency is not to risk taking on the cost of solidarity, of sharing someone else’s pain or desperation.

       The dynamics of Jesus’ healing the leper Mark 1:41-45 illustrates well how God works in the face of another’s pain.

Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. [NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible: Holy Bible (pp. 2745-2746). Catholic Bible Press. Kindle Edition.]

       Officially, Jesus rendered Himself unclean by touching that leper, but in point of fact He manifest His power as God to save even from incurable illness.

       The two great Commandments are love of God and love of neighbor. If you took the pulse of contemporary society and of most Catholics, you would discover that is where we fall down on the job. Blame your cellphone all you want, but our estrangement from our world for failure to live out the two great Commandments is what has us condemned.

       Take time each day this week to contemplate Jesus there with that little girl on the bed and her parents standing helplessly by! “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. At that they were utterly astounded. He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

       St. Paul challenged his readers to open wide their hearts. We should do so too.

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Don't Play Strange with God!

 

TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

9 June 2024 – St. Joseph Cathedral

Gn 3:9-15

2 Cor 4:13—5:1

Mk 3:20-35

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

I think that many times as a boy (grade school age for sure and maybe even high school), reflecting on the passage we heard in the first reading from the Book of Genesis, about the fall from grace of our first parents, I sometimes thought that Adam and Eve got a raw deal, that they were tricked by the serpent and should have been forgiven straight off and given another chance by God. Back then there seemed to me something unfair about the consequences of original sin being passed on to all of humanity, leaving us outside of the circle of God’s family and friends. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

In a sense, I suppose, my childish analysis of the problem of the Fall, the Original Sin, was precisely the kind of thought process or lack of thought which has gotten us as professed Catholics into trouble in every generation and age of the world. It has kept us from repenting from our personal sins, from renouncing sin and Satan, and turning to God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Estrangement from God always starts on our part and is what gets us into trouble, ultimately leaving us unhappy and alone, not only far from God but far from our neighbor as well. We should recognize that outside the Garden of Eden is our normal condition. It is where we have been from the moment of our conception as a consequence of Adam’s choice to leave God out of his life and go his own way. Banishment from God’s presence, as Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, was ultimately the choice of our first parents. The bad choice, the disobedience to God’s precept was their choice. Genesis explains the Fall and its consequences as no more than God saying, “Well, look at you!” Then (God) asked, “Who told you that you were naked?”

Time for a little family history! All of us Gullickson children were on the shy side, and on various occasions I can remember Dad trying to draw me out of myself. For example, I can remember when walking on the street downtown with him, he catching me putting my head down as some boy and his father passed on the other side of the street, Dad would say, “Who is that?” And at my response, sort of under my breath, that it was a classmate from 8^th grade would snap, “Well then, say hi to him!” There is nothing particularly virtuous about that kind of shyness. It is little more than a refusal of the other and for no good reason. I remember at home, when we were being stubborn or otherwise contrary, Mother would challenge us with the admonition, “Stop playing strange!” I don’t really think the fruit of the tree at the center of the Garden was all that tempting. They had all the fruit in great variety that they could ever want. No, Adam and Eve were stubbornly choosing their own will over God’s will for them. They were playing strange with God.

Driven from the Garden of Eden by an angel with a fiery sword? Only because Adam and Eve had already put themselves out of God’s presence by ignoring Him, by hiding from Him, as if that were really a possibility in succeeding when you are dealing with the all-seeing and all-knowing God!

My intention is not to take anything away from the doctrine of original sin, but rather to look at us as we are in terms of actual sin, in terms of what we personally do wrong or fail to do. Granted, our situation pre-Baptism is one of estrangement from God. Through the lifegiving waters of the font we are born again to new life, we put on Christ, we enter into the circle of His family with Christ. It is our choice then in life whether to keep our place in that circle. “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

These days people put off baptizing babies with all sorts of excuses. They put off going to confession as well. Why? Some people with a rather defensive tone would basically challenge God or put Him in His place kind of like the serpent back in the Garden of Eden, claiming God would never punish or that there would be no consequence to the disobedience of Adam and Eve. I suppose rightly enough preachers of the word should be more energetic about preaching damnation. Somehow, looking at Adam and Eve, I wonder if it would be enough to bring certain people to their senses. With the grace of the Sacrament of Penance we know that dreading the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell is sufficient for the Sacrament to work its miracle of cleansing and reconciliation. Even so we seek to fulfill those other words in the Act of Contrition, “but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love.”

In the Gospel, Jesus is more straightforward in describing wherein lies our justification, namely in intimacy with Him. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Obedience, eagerness to do God’s will seems to be what assures us a place in the Kingdom.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI