Mt 5:20-26 I Give You a New Commandment

"Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift."

How many of us come to church with a grievance, anger, or annoyance with someone else?  This is such a hard thing to wrap our minds around.  If we come to the church and we have something on our mind keeping us from fully being present to Christ, we should leave our gift at the altar and go be reconciled?  A friend asked whether this meant that we should leave church, or even not receive communion. 

Perhaps this is simply a reminder that we need to put ourselves in order, as it were, to be prepared to be in full communion with God, and that things that creep into our mind will keep us from doing that.  Should we stop receiving communion until we have seen a priest?  It depends, always best to talk to a priest, however, if we are plagued with venial sins, then the Eucharist acts as something to sustain us until we can absolved of our sins through the sacrament of reconciliation. 

The advice that Jesus gives is pretty important too.  He says that we should go and become reconciled with our brother.  When we do this, there is great love that is shared.  Where there is love, there is God, for God is love, and where to or more are gathered in his name, God is there.  So, in a sense, when we reconcile ourselves with others we are living in the present moment with them and with God, in full communion, which is the point of going to the altar to offer our gift, which in both cases is the gift of ourselves.

John 17:11B-19 Consecrated in Truth

These words that Jesus speaks today remind us of our priests who speak to God the Father upon the altar, and thus are known as Jesus' "high priestly prayer" as he speaks to the Father on our behalf, offering us up with himself, so that we may be in union with him and the Father.  It is what our dear priests do at every mass during when they call down God and lift us and our prayers up during the sacrifice of the mass. 

“Holy Father, keep them in your name" is a line that marks us as a people of God, set aside and anointed.  Jesus asks that we be consecrated in the truth by the Father.  "Your word is truth." he acknowledges.  Through God's word we are made holy.  Through Christ, the Word, we are made holy.  Let us rejoice and be glad! 

Mark 1:40-45 Cleansing of the Leper

In today’s Gospel reading we hear of a leper being healed by Jesus.  There were so many rabbis at that time in Israel.  It they couldn’t cure this man, why could Jesus, he was just another rabbi, right?  Even though he has begun his ministry at Cana, he is still unknown to his disciples.  This man who has leprosy approaches Jesus and says, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”  These words are filled with faith.  They are like the faith filled words that we use during mass, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, say the word and I shall be healed.” 

Jesus heals the leper.  He frees him from the hell in which he has been living.  He frees him from both the physical marks of leprosy that plague his body, but he also heals the man’s spirit.  We can imagine this man filled with abundant joy and it is contagious as he goes to the priests.  He is a witness to the power of Christ.  God himself has touched him, forgiven him, and restored life to him by raising him from the death of sin.  Jesus in a sense is teaching us a lesson about heaven and hell, about mercy, about how to be happy.  We are to come to the Lord and in him with the light of faith we will find happiness.  How did Jesus do this?

St. Hilary of Poitiers reminds us, “For He (Jesus) took upon Him the flesh in which we have sinned that by wearing our flesh He might forgive sins; a flesh which He shares with us by wearing it, not by sinning in it. He blotted out through death the sentence of death, that by a new creation of our race in Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law. He let them nail Him to the cross that He might nail to the curse of the cross and abolish all the curses to which the world is condemned.”