Sunday

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord gazes upon the Rich Young Man with love before he asks something of him that he knew would be difficult. The Second Reading today reminds us how God’s word has the sharpness of a sword, and, we can add, the precision of a scalpel: it finds exactly where the tumor is, knows where to make the necessary incision that makes our delusions fall away, if we let him perform the operation. When the Rich Young Man tries to flatter Our Lord a little Jesus is quick to chide him about his motives for such praise, and direct his thoughts to God.

Our Lord doesn’t see himself offering the Rich Young Man in today’s Gospel pain and sacrifice; he is offering him the path to a deeper love for God in exchange for the love he’s already received and shown. He’s telling him that it doesn’t matter how rich he is, or whether he is good or bad; God’s love for him is constant. If success and moral living don’t help us grow in our love for God, they don’t go far enough; they will not satisfy us. If the Rich Young Man had taken today’s First Reading (which did exist in his time) and replace the expressions “prudence” and “Wisdom” with “the love of God,” everything would have snapped into clarity. The wisdom he was truly seeking from Jesus was an awareness of the love God had for him, in which every other good thing would pale. He may have seen Our Lord as asking a costly sacrifice, but Jesus was asking him to invest the fruits of his success and goodness into something greater and for something greater.

Our Lord looks upon us with love no matter what we do, but he also invites us to follow him, draw closer to him, and love him more. Many times we see that through a filter of losing something, sacrificing something. We too need to contemplate the words of today’s First Reading. The Wisdom of God is what we need; everything else is an investment in that for which we’re truly searching. Let’s respond as the disciples did today and learn from the example of the Rich Young Man.

Readings: Wisdom 7:7–11; Psalm 90:12–17; Hebrews 4:12–13; Mark 10:17–30. See also 8th Week of Ordinary Time, Monday, 8th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday, and 20th Week in Ordinary Time,Tuesday.

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27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord teaches the indissolubility of marriage as something in God’s plan from the beginning. In the Old Testament and the New, when a man and a woman come together in marriage they become “one flesh”: each becomes a part of the other. Eve is fashioned from the side of Adam to teach this profound mystery where a man and a woman come together in a love of total mutual self-giving that reflects the inter-Personal love within the Most Holy Trinity: when Adam sees Eve for the first time he recognizes a part of himself, someone without which he would be incomplete, someone who was missing in his life.

For those called to marriage God has blessed two people with someone out there with whom they can be complete, be whole. He respects their freedom to enter into the marriage covenant with each other, and, for believers, promises to help them with the spiritual graces of the sacrament of matrimony. It is a big step not to be taken light, requiring preparation, but when that step is taken it will be a life-changing blessing for them and for everyone they love. Their parents wish them well as they start their new life together and, God-willing, become parents themselves. The beauty of marital love is why marriages in difficulty are so dramatic and tragic: something that is now “one flesh” is trying to pull itself apart. In the difficult moments it is important to remember not just the emotions of first love, but the fact that God has joined man and woman, and God will help them remain united; they just have to keep striving to seek each other’s good.

Let’s thank God today for the blessing of many happy marriages and families, and also ask him to strengthen and help marriages that are in difficulty.

Readings: Genesis 2:18–24; Psalm 128:1–6; Hebrews 2:9–11; Mark 10:2–16.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord teaches us about the power of charity and the gravity of sin. Just as the Lord poured out his Spirit abundantly on the elders in today’s First Reading, so he wants to pour out a Spirit of charity on all believers. Something as simple as offering a cup of water in acknowledgement of Christ is pleasing and powerful in his eyes. This should re-dimension the power of charity in our lives. It doesn’t mean being minimalist–just sticking with a refreshments table–but being generous, aware of the power of charity on a greater scale to move hardened hearts, jaded cultures, and cynical societies.

Our Lord also warns us about the gravity of sin. St. James in the Second Reading warns those who’ve profited at the expense of others that any gain at the expense of charity is the deepest loss for them. Our Lord also warns those who turn someone else from the path of charity to the path of sin: sin puts a spiritual millstone around our necks that one day will drown us in our bankrupt lifestyle unless we seek his help to to liberate us. When we find ourselves in a situation of spiritual life and death a radical response is necessary to survive: if may feel like we’re hacking away a part of ourselves, but in that moment that piece of us to which we’re attached could cost us our spiritual life because we want to hang onto it at the expense of the rest of us.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help us make a radical response in the face of our sins and return to the path of charity in order to unleash its power for others.

Readings: Numbers 11:25–29; Psalm 19:8, 10, 12–14; James 5:1–6; Mark 9:38–43, 45, 47–48.

 

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord invites the apostles, and us, to revisit what we consider to be the path to greatness. As St. James reminds us in today’s Second Reading, jealously and selfish ambition only lead to discord. If we really want to be at peace with ourselves and with others, the path to greatness is the path of wisdom. It may provoke resentment on the part of those who don’t follow it, as is reflected in the wicked men conspiring in today’s First Reading, but it is the path to lasting peace, where people aren’t at war to get ahead at the expense of another or bitter that someone has achieved something that they haven’t.

Our Lord describes the path to greatness today as one of service, and not just any service. Even an ambitious person can seek to perform some service to achieve his ends. When Our Lord gives the example of serving a child, it’s like a cold bucket of water dumped on the disciples’ selfish ambitions. Babysitting is not high in anyone’s book in terms of a career, nor nanny, and, sadly, even in some circles of society the vocation to be a parent is avoided. But God reveals himself in terms of family relationships, and Our Lord tells us today to serve that child in his name in order to serve not only him, but Our Heavenly Father who sent him. No matter how great we become in the eyes of society we can never neglect even the least members of it, because our only ambition should be to serve. Nor can we forget that if we achieved anything in our life it was thanks to our parents.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help us “get ahead” on the path of humility and service.

Readings: Wisdom 2:12, 17–20; Psalm 54:3–8; James 3:16–4:3; Mark 9:30–37.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s First Reading, part of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant, Our Lord reminds us that sometimes he needs to open our ears, just like he did for Peter in today’s Gospel. Listening and hearing are two different things. Hearing just means something within earshot is buzzing in our ears. Listening means cocking our head, trying to get our ear a little closer, trying to understand what we’re hearing. Hearing is something passive—the noise just pops into your ears. Listening is something active—it requires a decision on our part. We’ve all received our faith as a gift—by revealing himself to us, the Lord has opened our ears to hear and listen to his Word. Sometimes we can take that for granted, and if we don’t put it into action, soon we stop listening to God’s Word in our lives, and instead it is just some more noise in our ears.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord gives the disciples a pop quiz to see how much they’re listening. At first the disciples think he is just asking them about what the crowd thinks about him. But then he turns the tables on them: who do they say that he is? They pass the first part of the quiz: the disciples have taken a step closer to Our Lord, they’ve been active, they’ve been listening. The crowd doesn’t need to do much more than be there; they’ve “heard” things about Jesus, they’re curious, but they haven’t tried to draw closer to him yet. The second part of the quiz doesn’t turn out so well. Peter couldn’t imagine that Jesus could do anything other than become a great military and political ruler. He was hearing, but he still needed to do a little more listening to Our Lord, who was trying to teach them that the Messiah and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah were one and the same. After Our Lord had seen his disciples believe he was the Messiah, he opened his heart to them, and St. Peter spoke a little for all of them and basically said the Messiah shouldn’t act like Jesus said he would. The disciples failed the second part of the quiz. God had opened their ears, like the Suffering Servant in the First Reading, but, unlike the First Reading, they were rebelling about what they were hearing. And Jesus knew that this lesson, the lesson of the cross, was the most important lesson of Christian life.

The disciples learned the lesson eventually, and passed it along to us. Let’s ask Our Lord to help us when that voice whispers in our ears and tells us the cross is not necessary, and cast it out as decisively as he helped St. Peter.

Readings: Isaiah 50:5–9a; Psalm 116:1–6, 8–9; James 2:14–18; Mark 8:27–35.