October 2018

XXX Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – October 28, 2018

From the Pastor /

Jesus has much on His mind as He is facing confrontation with religious and Roman authorities. The He hears one blind beggar, Bartimaeus, crying out. He recognizes Jesus as no ordinary prophet. Bartimaeus will not be silenced and he asks Jesus to let him see again. He knows that a major change is about to happen in his life and he anticipates it with enthusiasm, joy and hope. He is healed of his blindness. Bartimaeus is a special figure in Mark’s Gospel. Despite his blindness, he sees the royal and divine dimensions of Jesus’ identity, and he discerns that Jesus is compassionate and able to show mercy and to heal. When the crowd rebukes Bartimaeus for calling out, demanding that a blind beggar with no social status must be silent, Bartimaeus yells “all the louder” until Jesus hears him. He clearly expects to regain his sight. The story of Bartimaeus is like a blueprint for the ideal disciple: he believes that Jesus is the Messiah, he is called by Jesus, he has faith in Jesus and he experiences Jesus’ healing power. The story describes 2 energies coming together: the energy of Jesus and the energy of the believer. A blind humanity is searching for God and God is also looking for us.

The story prompts us to re-evaluate our own faith. Jesus stopped to talk to somebody who was regarded as a ”nobody”. Who are nobodies today? In todays narrative, we see how indifferent followers of Jesus were to the cry of a person in distress, but Jesus acknowledged the presence of the blind beggar and healed him. We need do name what blinds us. We are called by God to radical transformation. We need to say “yes” to the divine invitation to see, to live more vibrant and meaningful lives to reach out to people in need. Among other things, this story invites us to consider how faith is manifested, nurtured or stunted within communities.

Mark’s narrative compels us to consider the various roles characters play in this scene, and also the various situations in and around our community life: Bartimaeus with his needs and prophetic insights, Jesus with His compassion and grace, the crowd with its determination to keep Bartimaeus both blind and invisible, and others with the opportunity to guide him to Jesus with the hopeful words, Courage… get up; he is calling you. God wants to save us and we are yearning to be saved.

XXX Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – October 28, 2018 Read More »

XXVII Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – October 7, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Our modern ears can easily interpret the Genesis story as regarding women as subservient. From the perspective of the writer, over 2,500 years ago, the intention was precisely the opposite. Today’s Gospel faces us with a similar issue. We hear it through the prism of our particular questions about church teaching on marriage as a lifelong sacrament, the pain of marriage breakdown and the position of children in society. But to understand what Jesus was saying, we also need to appreciate his context and the questions he was addressing. In Jesus’ time, there were 2 main schools of thought that a man could divorce his wife only for a serious reason, such as adultery. The other school thought that it was a man’s right to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever – even if she burnt the dinner. The Pharisees’ question was a test. They wanted Jesus to take sides, perhaps even to contradict the Law of God. Jesus refuses to buy into their assumption that a man has any right at all to exercise such power over his wife. By ruling out divorce completely, Jesus is saying: a man can’t treat a woman as an object; he can’t get rid of her for any reason, serious or trivial. Woman is a person with equal dignity and should be respected as such. Jesus’ outright ban on divorce is a rejection of male domination of women – He affirms marriage as a covenant of equal partners. When St. Mark recorded this teaching some years later, his Christian community lived in a very different context – Gentile rather than Jewish, in a culture that gave some women the right to divorce their husbands. So Mark applies Jesus’ teaching to his own community’s situation, balancing Jesus’ prohibition on men divorcing their wives with a equal ban on women divorcing their husbands. Jesus rejects the idea that people can be treated as disposable objects. In welcoming and blessing children, Jesus shows His respect for every human being made in the image of God – even those regarded as the least and most powerless.

Jesus’ teaching on marriage – and indeed His whole attitude and behavior towards women and children – only makes sense when seen in the context of His time and culture. It is a teaching about the essential dignity of every human being and about what that means for all relationships, especially marriage. His teaching is simply that we should treat people as human beings, not as objects for our personal gratification or comfort. It means respecting and upholding the dignity of every person. Domination and control have no place in marriage, in the home or in any relationship. Whether we are married or not, Jesus’ words challenge us to examine the quality of our relationships. Do I treat others as means to my ends, or do I respect their dignity and worth as human beings.

XXVII Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – October 7, 2018 Read More »