Ordinary Time

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (2)

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Today’s readings remind us that the source if good and evil is the heart, not external things. The heart is our inner sanctum where we can be pure or defiled, and both conditions try to go beyond their confines to influence the lives of others.

In today’s First Reading we’re reminded that that the purpose of the Law is to enable us to grow closer to God and to show our intelligence and wisdom. In Jesus’ time the Pharisees had derived over six hundred rules and regulations from the Law, all derived from the Law spelled out in the Old Testament books (Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, etc.). However, they had lost sight of the fundamentals: love for God and neighbor, not just ritual cleanliness. Moses reminds them today that the Law is to be followed so that they not only have intelligence and wisdom, but show it. Intelligence is something that shines from within. It’s not just the information we receive that counts, but how we process it and use it. Wisdom influences how we perceive the world. It makes us see causes, connections, and consequences, and our actions show or disprove that we are wise.

In today’s Second Reading St. James reminds us that in order to please God we should strive “to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” The “world” today believes that if something feels good, you should do it, but the world is also witness to how much destructive behavior comes from following that principle. We are wounded by original sin and our own sins; not everything as a result feels good that is good–addicts destroy themselves by trying to feel good. Lots of behavior turns into compulsive behavior that we can’t control: this is a stained heart that Our Lord wants to make clean again through love and mercy.

The Pharisees in Our Lord’s earthly time were focused on externals and had lost sight of the bigger picture. Our Lord reminds us in today’s Gospel that defilement comes from hearts and endangers other hearts, and we should strive to maintain purity of heart, not just ritual cleanliness. In today’s Gospel, using the example of dietary laws, Our Lord is teaching us that the “Devil made me do it” as an argument has no merit. The problem of evil has plagued man and philosophy almost since Creation, and a trend has always tried to blame God or other things as the cause of sin when all man needed to do was look in the mirror. The Lord created everything good and for the good, but his creatures freely chose to do evil instead: the fallen angels, starting with the Devil, and humanity, starting with Adam and Eve. If the world is a mess it is because we, sinners, made it so.

The dietary laws in Jesus’ time believed certain foods brought ritual contamination and, therefore, defiled a man, Mark makes a point of saying in his account that Jesus is teaching that there are no ritually impure foods. It’s a teaching that even the first disciples would struggle with as they realized that Christianity was meant to go beyond the Jewish world and culture. The Original Sin of Adam and Eve robbed us of something we, their descendants, couldn’t do without, and it is only thanks to the Redemption that their sin didn’t condemn us all to spiritual death. However, Adam and Eve aren’t to blame for all of it: we too have sinned and continue to sin. This sobering reality is not meant to discourage us; rather, it makes us realize that not only do we need Savior, but have one: Our Lord.

Our Lord gives a long list of things that come from defiled hearts and endanger other hearts, and they can all be traced back to someone going overboard in trying to feel “good” and dragging others into their behavior, even through their bad example. James in the Second Reading may have spoken of charity toward widows and orphans, but acting in this disordered way is also a lack of charity toward others, since it can lead them to spiritually ruin themselves. Let’s ask Our Lord to practice charity with all our heart, not only caring for others, but treating them with purity of heart and encouraging them to do the same. In that way we’ll please God and remain close to him.

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1–2, 6–8; Psalm 15:2–5; James 1:17–18, 21b–22, 27; Mark 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23. See also 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (2)

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In today’s Gospel we see the culmination and the aftermath of Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse. Jesus has presented his teaching on the Eucharist, and the disciples are struggling with believing in it because they don’t understand it. It is the moment of decision.

Today’s First Reading, taken from the Book of Joshua, recalls a decisive moment for the people of God. The Exodus and forty years in the desert are over. They’ve not only entered the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership and with the Lord’s help; they’ve conquered it. With a long journey behind them where the Lord not only accompanied and guided them, but also worked great signs and wonders, they now had to decide whether they would still serve him or turn back to the gods they’d left behind.

Joshua tells them they can do whatever they want, but he’s already made his decision: he and his household will serve the Lord. Everything the Lord has offered is freely given, just as it is freely accepted. They’re free to simply decide to go back to their old way of life, even though they’d be foolish to do so. The Israelites in the face of all the Lord has done for them acknowledge they’d be crazy to turn away from him now. However, as the Book of Judges reminds us, they soon did turn away from the Lord after Joshua passed away.

In today’s Second Reading St. Paul reminds us that service implies being subordinate to another, and subordination is not always a bad thing. That last statement may rankle us, who pride ourselves on our independence and self-reliance, but Our Lord teaches this by example. When Paul used the example of the husband being the head of the household, he points to the relationship between Our Lord and the Church to show how this should be lived. To use a more contemporary expression, there’s no daylight between Christ and His Church, just as there should not be between husband and wife. Everyone should see them as one thing, no longer two, inseparable. Being subordinate to someone bears a greater responsibility on the part of the person to whom you’re being subordinate. Our Lord laid down his life for our wellbeing. He may call the shots, but he cherishes us, just as a husband should cherish his wife.

In today’s Gospel we see the culmination and the aftermath of Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse. His teaching about the Eucharist presents the moment of decision for those who follow him, because it requires faith, not just understanding. As a result, “many” disciples of Jesus return to their former way of life. Our Lord even poses the question to the Twelve, and Peter’s response holds a lesson we should all consider in our own life of faith: belief is supported by grace, and it is through belief that we understand some of the deepest mysteries of God.

If we try to start with reasons, as we’ve seen over the last few Sundays, some truths of God will remain out of reach for us and we’ll fall back on the certainties we know, as many of the disciples did in today’s Gospel. We shouldn’t be shy about asking Our Lord to help us in our unbelief. As Peter describes it in his response to Our Lord, believing leads to conviction. We can live a life of faith without understanding it completely and, somehow, it all fits together. The Twelve, except Judas, are building on an experience of God and his mystery that they’ve had ever since they started following Jesus, which, in turn, was built on their understanding of God before Jesus’ coming that had been lived and passed along throughout salvation history.

Today’s readings provide a great way to take spiritual inventory of how we our living our lives when faced with adversity and difficulty in matters of faith. The teaching on the Eucharist was too much, and many disciples abandoned the life Jesus had taught them. Their faith when challenged was anemic, and Our Lord already knew who had welcomed grace into their hearts and who hadn’t. Those who did persevere in faith and in living as Christ taught were blessed in abundance. Today’s individualism often tempts us to try and work out spiritual matters on our own, a la carte, on our terms, and without anyone else’s “interference,” but the Church has been established and sanctified by Our Lord so that believers can help believers. Let’s examine our life today and see whether we’ve drifted from what Our Lord has taught, or doubted that his teaching now continues through his Church. Often this results from a teaching difficult to accept. Like Peter in today’s Gospel, let’s believe first, in order to then be convinced through grace that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

Readings: Joshua 24:1–2a, 15–17, 18b; Psalm 34:2–3, 16–21; Ephesians 5:21–32; John 6:60–69. See also 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (2)

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Today the table is ready and Wisdom, symbolized in today’s First Reading as a woman, but also experienced in our lives as the Word made flesh, invites us to a more profound banquet. Our Lord invites the Jews in today’s Gospel, and each one of us, to go beyond the limits of our reason, our human knowledge and earthly understanding, so that we approach the Lord’s table and eat and drink him, true food and true drink.

Wisdom invites us in today’s First Reading to come to her banquet and experience wisdom through the path of understanding. Experience is what helps us not only experience something, but Someone. Experience influences out decisions, actions, and attitudes. It either leads us down the path of kindness or the path of wickedness. If we take the wrong path we’ll understand nothing and, little by little, our intelligence and will start to wane, like the drunk to which St. Paul alludes in today’s Second Reading. Life soon gets out of hand. Wisdom, the path of understanding, helps us stay on course, always moving toward the true banquet to which we are invited: the Lord’s banquet.

Today’s Second Reading aptly summarizes the discourse we’ve been considering over the last few Sundays regarding the Eucharist. Instead of seeking the fleeting pleasure of wine and remaining in ignorance, Our Lord is inviting his listeners to be filled with the Spirit and to partake of the banquet of his Body and his Blood and to grow in knowledge through faith in him. The path of wisdom and understanding is not just taken through experience, but also under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in faith. Wisdom ultimately is not just something, but Someone: Our Lord.

In today’s Gospel the Lord reminds the Jews of the long path tread by their forefathers. The Lord has guided us on this path toward the true banquet for a long time, step by step, through a series of individual and collective experiences, always with the goal of eternal life. The path from here to eternity is very long. Our Lord reminds the Jews how their forefathers were sustained by manna in the desert before entering the Promised Land, as recalled by the Old Testament. However, those forty years in the desert, and the centuries that followed in the history of Israel and humanity, were just steps toward the definitive goal: eternal life.

Like Wisdom personified as a woman in the First Reading the Lord prepared everything for the banquet, everything to give those dear to him an understanding and experience of his life in the Eucharist. That understanding and experience go beyond our human reasonings, knowledge, and earthly understanding, without denying their validity. The Jews in today’s Gospel are arguing and trying to understand the Eucharist just with human reasonings, and they’re unable. They’re not capable of seeing the spiritual order of things with faith, and it is faith that would enable them to take the next step forward: a step into the spiritual order of things through faith in Our Lord as sent by God. Through faith in Our Lord they’ll be led, step by step, to the eternal banquet, the Eucharist, which in this life appears under the signs of bread and wine, but in the future, in eternity, will be with the Lord, face to face.

Our Lord not only teaches; he reveals. Accepting revelation is about trusting and believing the revealer. In today’s Gospel the Lord reveals something, but they want to understand it before they believe it. A believer starts with believing, and then works it out. The Eucharist is a perfect example of something you have to believe before you can try to start understanding it. Has the Lord revealed something in your life that you’re trying to understand before believing? A Church teaching? A lifestyle? Take the step of faith and you’ll understand.

Readings: Proverbs 9:1–6; Psalm 34:2–7; Ephesians 5:15–20; John 6:51–58. See also 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (2)

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In today’s Gospel God himself, the Son, has come to encourage the faithful, and today he tries to teach them that he is the Bread of Life who will sustain them in their pilgrimage toward eternal life. It’s difficult for the crowds to understand this teaching: they know Jesus, where he is from, who he parents are, so it’s hard for them to believe he has come down from Heaven. Their earthly knowledge and reasoning are not enough: it’s time for faith.

In today’s First Reading Elijah is dejected and ready to give up when it seems his mission has failed and his life is in danger. Forty days and nights before reaching Horeb Elijah had worked a powerful sign showing the Lord was God, had overthrown a veritable army of false prophets, and witnessed the end of a long punitive drought that was imposed on the unfaithful Israelites. Despite this, his life was in danger and it seemed the evil and infidelity in Israel was as strong and powerful as ever, spearheaded by Jezebel, who pledged to kill him after he’d humiliated her prophets and pagan religion.

The Lord takes the initiative and encourages him, sending him food and drink, persisting when Elijah was not ready to get up and continue on to Mount Horeb to consult the Lord. That nourishment and encouragement sustained him for a long journey, just as Our Lord, through the Eucharist, nourishes us and encourages us in the journey of life. Elijah needed encouragement to keep believing, and sometimes we need it too.

In today’s Second Reading Paul reminds us that faith in Our Lord and all the benefits that come from it is not a question of a moment, but, rather, a process. In today’s Gospel Our Lord tells the incredulous crowd that the Father called and prepared them even before he was sent so that they would believe that he truly is the Bread of Life. It’s that faith that begins a process in the believer of leaving aside bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling, and malice so that he or she can live a life of kindness as a child of God, imitating Our Lord in his service toward others, even when it is costly.  This process of faith, conversion, and purification is then “sealed” by the Holy Spirit to help us never consider turning back to our fallen past and way of life.

In today’s Gospel God himself, the Son, has come to encourage the faithful, and today he tries to teach them that he is the Bread of Life who will sustain them in their pilgrimage toward eternal life, just as Elijah needed help in today’s First Reading. It’s difficult for the crowds to understand this teaching: they know Jesus, where he is from, who his parents are, so it’s hard for them to believe he has come down from Heaven.

Their earthly knowledge and reasoning are not enough: it’s time for faith. It’s not just a faith born in a vacuum: they’re receiving grace to help them believe and be open to the Heavenly Father’s messenger. If they open their hearts to the Father, the Father leads them to take the next step. They must believe in his Son, not just as a sure guide in their pilgrimage to eternal life, but as their nourishment to be able to undertake the journey and as their “sponsor:” his self-offering makes the journey possible at all.

A lot of people stick with the minimum necessary: Mass every Sunday. If the Bread of Life is so helpful on life’s journey, why not “stock up” once in a while? Consider going to Mass on a weekday or two or participating in Eucharistic adoration at your parish.

Readings: 1 Kings 19:4–8; Psalm 34:2–9; Ephesians 4:30–5:2; John 6:41–51. See also 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B and 3rd Week of Easter, Thursday.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (2)

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In today’s Second Reading Paul reminds us that when we become believers in Christ we can no longer live in the same way. In today’s Gospel we see Jesus extending that invitation to the crowds for whom he had just multiplied the loaves and fishes, yet they were still seeking a sign like the one recalled in today’s First Reading. It was time to leave the First Reading attitude behind and believe in him.

In today’s First Reading the Israelites wanted their bellies filled, and complained, and were even willing to return to slavery just to have a full stomach.  They’re still far from today’s Gospel, a people who need signs just to keep going at all.  The Israelites today had a weak faith that could only be nurtured by signs, but signs don’t last forever, nor are they meant to. The Lord always planned to go beyond simply providing subsistence to a desperate, sometimes disgruntled people.

The people who sought Jesus in today’s Gospel still want nothing more than a full stomach, but Our Lord is trying to help them see that what they really crave is what that full stomach normally gives them: life, not just for a few decades, but for eternity.  As Jesus reminds them, full stomachs didn’t enable those Israelites under Moses to live forever, even though the Lord provided them with manna to eat.

Our Lord wasn’t just speaking metaphorically when he said he was the bread of life: every time we receive the Eucharist we know that he is the Bread of Life, and we know that one day that we’ll never need to fear dying of hunger or anything else ever again. Like the Israelites in the First Reading the people were still seeking signs, but now the moment had come for faith, a faith that lead to no longer living as the Gentiles did, just focused on immediate needs and concerns of this life and not seeing the bigger picture where this life is a pilgrimage toward eternal life.

The Israelites who grumbled in the desert in the First Reading didn’t live to see the Promised Land due to their lack of trust in God; the people in today’s Gospel are being extended an opportunity to one day enter into the true Promised Land, but they have to trust the new Moses–Jesus–to lead them.

Whenever we receive Communion we hear “the Body of Christ” and respond “Amen” without thinking much about how incredible it is that we are receiving God into our hearts under the appearance of bread. Whenever we genuflect in front of a tabernacle and that little red lamp is glowing nearby we acknowledge our faith that Our Lord is sacramentally present in the Eucharist.

Imagine the crowds hearing the teaching of the Eucharist for the first time and trying to understand it before believing in it. In today’s Gospel Jesus is trying to move them from thinking of ordinary bread in their stomachs to thinking of the bread of life. Our Lord today is asking them to go from what they understand of bread and the thought of endless bread to what they are really looking for: eternal life, not just as living forever, but as living contentedly forever.

When we consider our needs and our expectations for God to help fulfill them we can never lose sight of our ultimate need, God, and the means God has given us to fulfill it: believing in his son and receiving him as the Bread of Life. Let’s try believing today even when understanding something God teaches us is challenging, knowing he is always trying to provide for our eternal needs, not just our short term ones.

Readings: Exodus 16:2–4, 12–15; Psalm 78:3–4, 23–25, 54; Ephesians 4:17, 20–24; John 6:24–35.See also 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time,Cycle B, 3rd Week of Easter, Monday and 3rd Week of Easter, Tuesday.