John 13:13-33A, 34-35 Love One Another

This is our last week of the Easter season.  We are reminded again what the season is about, just like our Creed professes:  The triumphal resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ after his crucifixion, death and descent into hell, whereupon he rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven. 

Jesus is glorified in all this.  Before he departs upon his journey to the cross (where the story is taken just as Judas departs to fetch the soldiers), he reiterates his new command:  Love one another.

This is not easy.  It involves genuine forgiveness and unconditional love.  It is attainable through practice and sacrifice.  To be his disciples, we are called to do this, to love one another as he has loved us.

Mark 6:7-13 Called to the Journey Through Humility

For today's readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020416.cfm)

In today’s Gospel Jesus sends the disciples out two by two with instructions to take nothing with them except a walking stick and the authority over unclean spirits.  It was a faith walk.  We have all been on them to some degree.  Where they were welcomed, they could stay.  Where they were not welcomed, they should move on and “shake the dirt from their feet” meaning they should leave everything, even ill sentiments behind.  They went and preached repentance, drove out demons, anointed, and cured the sick.

Jesus is the eternal Word of God that came and lived among us.  He is the fullness of God’s Revelation to us.  Our faith is the free affirmative response to God’s calling to us.   Grace is God’s life in us.  God’s love for us, as through the Son, is limitless.  Living our faith, like the disciples do when he calls them on their journey, is saying “yes” to Jesus’s call to bring the reign of God.  This reign of God is His saving love fully manifest in the world.  We this transmitted to those who have faith, to the disciples, to us. Miracles are only one sign of this love, and we hear about them a little today as the disciples share the reign of God through their call for repentance and to receive God’s love.  It is an affirmation too that although God is everywhere, although temporarily limited in His human form, we are likewise called to share in His work.   By professing God, by sharing the teachings of Christ, the disciples were publicly professing their faith.  We are called to do that too.  This is one of the reasons that we state our creed, our beliefs at mass.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Whoever says ‘I believe’ says, “I pledge myself to what we believe.” (CCC 185) 

In the first reading today we meet David and Solomon.  Solomon receives the kingdom to rule and keep.  They are our examples of men of faith.  Both, like us are sinners.  The difference is that David, as many bad things as he did, repented of his sins and asked God forgiveness.  He received the gift of humility.  We do not see that with Solomon.  So which do we use as our example today when we hear the call to follow the Word of God?  Are we ready to go with as little as the disciples, except for our great faith?

Mark 5:1-20 Legion

(for today's reading) http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020116.cfm

Have you ever experienced something in life that just felt like Divine intervention, that God was right there with you?  In today's Gospel reading Jesus and his disciples have left the crowded shores of the sea.  Jesus had been so exhausted that he'd slept through the storm, and then stilled the storm and waters showing his Divinity over even nature.  Now they have just landed in tiny Gerasenes where they meet they meet this man possessed.  To read the description of the possessed man it may invoke images of Grendel, that 'monster' in the 2007 production of Beowulf as he claws around the shore seeking for his cave. 

It is still a man Jesus and the others meet.  It is as if Jesus had them come here for some divine work that he had planned for someone that he has loved since the beginning of time; a man for whom he came to bring salvation from the evils that plagued him.  Jesus does this. With this story comes the hope of salvation for each of us as individuals. 

Mark 2: 23-28 Picking the Grains of Wheat

Have you ever judged anyone before learning about their circumstances?  Sometimes this happens to each of us.  This happens within today's Gospel, and even the first reading (1 Sam16:1-13 where Samuel is seeking for God's anointed one, not the strong and mighty, but the young inconspicuous boy, David.) In today's Gospel the scribe watches Jesus picking the wheat and eating it on the Sabbath.  Based on his strict religious laws, he is judging Jesus and the disciples.  The scribe isn't looking at them with the love, compassion and understanding that they laws could originally have held, especially if he understood how hungry they were carrying nothing for food and wandering for days without shelter overhead.  No, the scribe looks upon them in judgement with the rigidity of the old law. 

Jesus on the other hand reminds the scribe of how David long ago ate what was apportioned to the priests even though it was unlawful because he and his companions were hungry.  Then he makes a further statement, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even over the Sabbath."  The Sabbath is that day set aside for rest and worship.  Yes, what Jesus and the disciples was doing was considered work, but it was necessary so they did not starve.  Jesus' point is that it was necessary for life and thus overruled the law.  The Sabbath was created to remind all of human kind to give thanks to their creator, and that is why the Son of Man, God made manifest is ruler of the Sabbath.

Mark 2:18-22 The Bridegroom Is with You

Yesterday we were invited to the Wedding Feast by the Lord.  Today the scribes are asking why Jesus and his disciples do not fast like John and his disciples do.  Jesus responds, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?"  The answer is no, it would be an affront to not accept the hospitality offered by the bridegroom, almost an act of aggression. 

A class of 11-14 years olds yesterday were talking about Jesus as the bridegroom.  They discussed how the bridegroom throws the party after the wedding and how he provides the wine and other refreshments, making sure that all who are present are welcomed and comfortable.  They decided that yesterday's reading really showed that he was the bridegroom because he took that part and extended the invitation to each of us because we are all followers, his disciples, and he led his disciples to the feast. 

Could you imagine being called to a wedding where there was no welcome from the couple being married or their family, no celebration, no nothing?  It would be non existent and what was before would remain.  The kingdom isn't like that.  Jesus himself indicates that he is the bridegroom.  He has come in person to fulfill the prophesies.  He has come in person bringing with him a new covenant.  This is the meaning behind the old cloth being patched with the new cloth, or the old wine skin being patched with the new skin.  They old won't hold anymore, even with the patches.  God has extended to us a new, richer, deeper relationship with him through Christ Jesus.  We are called to accept that invitation and celebrate with him our communion.

Mark 6:45-52 Walking on Water

There are so many elements of the Gospel that speak to us about the Divinity of Christ Jesus.  The last two lines of today are most striking.  In regard to those who followed Jesus, namely the Apostles and other disciples it says, "They had not understood the incident of the loaves.  On the contrary, their hearts were hardened."  Why were their hearts hardened?  They had witnessed a miracle in the feeding of so many thousand people after being afraid it would cost them too much to feed the people, yet they did with just five loaves and two fish.  Now they witnessed Jesus come down from the mountain and walk across the water to them when they are fearful in turbulent waves and calm them and the waves down.  Again, why were they hardened against him?

Both today's Gospel and its paired reading, (1 John 4:11-18) challenge us to consider the meaning of love and fear.  Love and fear seem to go hand in hand.  John reminds us today, "Beloved, if God so loves us, we also must love one another.  No one has ever seen God.  Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us." Have we considered how vulnerable we must make ourselves to allow ourselves to love and be loved?  In order to reciprocate love shown to us we must make ourselves open to being hurt rejected by the one that we share our intimate selves with whether it is a spouse, a friend, a brother, a sister, or a parent.  Perhaps it is also a fear of losing those we love and so we hide ourselves away from that pain and them so that we don't have to suffer.  It is that intimacy of love that connects us and binds us. 

In the Gospel the disciples are fearful as God approaches. God is love. They also fear love.  It was fear that led Peter to deny Jesus, led the disciples to flee at the crucifixion, and it is that same fear that can make it difficult for us to remain in the love, in God.  John assures, "There is no fear in love, put perfect fear drives out fear."  May we continue to try to love perfectly and so remain in God.