Pre-Lent

“Hypocrite, remove the woodden beam from your eye …“.  A warning sent to all of us. Because in each of us there is a little, and sometimes even bigger, hypocrite who likes to admonish and rebuke others, often doing not better himself. But Christ wants us to see ourselves differently. First look on myself, then on others. That we would see our beam and really care about it, because it is a real danger for us.  Hypocrisy is like a small worm that bites from the inside and works systematically, destroying what is still healthy. And again we hear the words “a tree is known by its fruit ...”.  And it is worth to remember this Gospel phrase.  Because it allows us to look at others and see the truth in life and be sure that we are doing well ourselves.  Let us also see this hypocrite in us, and not let him dominate too much.

Who enters an evangelical way of living must be prepared to meet enemies, which cannot be softened by adapting to their way of thinking and proceedings. Jesus was constantly surrounded by enemies focused on destroying Him. Neither did He gain them for Himself, nor did they win Him for themselves. Jesus’ disciples should go in the footprints of the Master. A disciple of Jesus should love even enemies. An enemy can use all sources: slander, calumny, gossips, violence, and Jesus’ disciple has only one answer – it is the goodness of heart filled with love. Such an attitude overgrown human opportunities requires a close relationship with Jesus. A Christian cannot destroy anyone, always should be focused to gain his opponent. It is about to win an enemy for God and His matter. Such love is fighting. Her victory consists on filling the heart of an enemy with love. Every day we say: Father, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Let’s ask ourselves, if our hearts are filled with love for our enemies?

Blessings, today’s Gospel speaks about, it is Jesus’ encourage me to: firstly looked at my own misery, hunger, tears and contempt, with which I would come…, and secondly, I would look at the agglomeration of misery around me. With this look at poverty, God becomes the greatest value and treasure with His kingdom and the other man – my neighbor.

We can see how some people do everything to achieve wealth at all costs. They can do harm a neighbor for money in various ways. Just to such Christ says: “Woe”. Material goods should be drawn into the service of the Kingdom of God and the other man living next to me. Who adores these goods and uses them, not watching God and neighbor, this deserves “Woe.” Money is not cursed, but a heart which stuck to the money. Even the poor are not blessed if they think about the bread only, and never about God. The rich people are not cursed because they have everything, but because they don’t need God. We are not allow to use material goods for purposes of goals which are opposite to the love of God and man; you cannot get rich by using an uncertain situation of your neighbor. A Christian – with the spirituality of the poor – always feel in solidarity with the poor and hungry man, with a crying and persecuted … not because of humanitarian reasons, but because faith in the Merciful God, who gave His only Son to redeem all of us. Thus, the heart and a life attitude decide about the blessing and curse, not poverty or wealth.

When Jesus started out on His preaching career in the years before His trial and suffering, He gave people this strange teaching about love for enemies. It stops us in our tracks. Can it possibly be done? In little things we find it easy to forgive one another, to forgive those we love, but to be kind to our enemies seems to be beyond our abilities. Why should we be good to those who hate or hurts us? The answer is because the Lord is asking us to become something very different. We are being asked to become children of the living God. We cannot presume to be God’s children if we do not listen to what the Lord is asking us to do. God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. We are being asked to be like this, to be like God. We are not being asked to give in to others or to their wickedness. Remember Jesus and the man who struck Him in the face.

The Lord seeks for the sinner to repent, and for those who can, to help in the work of rehabilitation, of bringing a person back to life. For loved ones who have been wickedly hurt by the actions of others, the pain of loss can bring on the even worse suffering of unending hatred or deep depression. For example, so many lives are blighted by the loss of loved ones in car crashes. Some of these events are tragic accidents; but others are the result of human carelessness. By ourselves these traumas are too great for us to bear. We need God’s grace to help us cope with the evils that are done under the sun. We are not meant simply to let things go. In the end Jesus was put on a cross and prayed that people be forgiven because they do not understand the terrible things they do. A soldier listening nearby was moved to say, “in truth this man was a son of God.” Compassion is the power that heals. Do we have it?

The prophet Jeremiah helps us to see precisely this. The ones who think that human beings have all the answers to life’s questions will find in the end that what they believe will turn to dust. Everything they trusted to give them life will dry up like a desert stream. On the other hand, those who trust in God, and build their lives on God’s word, will find what looks like a dry and empty space, by human standards, will, in fact, be transformed. The same sort of contrast is made by Jesus in the Gospel. Those who have nothing are the heirs to the Kingdom of God; the hungry shall be satisfied; the sad will be filled with joy and laughter; the persecuted, those unwanted by the society of today, will enjoy the fullness of life in heaven.

In the desert that is our modern world, we need a lighthouse to help us to distinguish just what is true, what is the way God wants us to live. The truth is that all of us are invited to be part of the project of Jesus to bring light into the world. Jesus teaches us how to live by loving God with everything we have and by loving our neighbor as ourselves. The true success of our lives will lie in our becoming the person that God created us to be, and that person is an image of Jesus. At first sight, the desert seems to be dead. There are no signs of life. But when the rain does fall, when wells are dug, when gardens are planted and irrigated, suddenly the desert springs to life. Jesus calls us to be people of faith, people with a vision, people who are prepared to build lighthouses in the desert, from where His light can give a new vision of what humanity is meant to be.

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus was surrounded by disciples and healed many sick people. When He tried to find space on His own, Jesus’ disciples tracked Him down. As today’s passage opens, Jesus is alone, in an unidentified town. Under the law, a leper was forbidden to approach anyone, but this one approaches Jesus. Perhaps he thinks he has nothing to lose: he’s already as good as dead. Hoe comes up to Jesus, drops to his knees and says, “If you want to, cure me.” St. Mark says Jesus felt sorry for him. Many things happen in this story. First, the man to be declared free from leprosy, tells him to go and show himself to the priest, making the offering prescribed by Moses as evidence of his recovery. Jesus tells this man to say nothing about this to anyone, but jest as the visible testimony of his cure was evident so now is his verbal acknowledgment of Jesus’ power testimony of God’s work. Jesus, however, now has to stay outside the town, where there are no others. The one who cleansed the leper takes the place of the one he cleansed.

This miracle is about one person, but it has universal application. Jesus takes on the isolated condition of the former leper who is restored to fuller humanity. On the cross, full role reversal takes place. Jesus pays the penalty for all sin: He exchanges places with us by dying for us. We become more fully human by Jesus’ death because He has destroyed what makes us less human. Here’s the question this story poses for us: if the totally innocent Jesus took on the entire burden of our sin in His outreach to us, can we ever excuse failing to reach out to a brother or sister who is dehumanized by exclusion, persecution, marginalization? We can’t. Who are the equivalent of lepers in our community? How might we reach out to them?

Job, in today’s first reading, doesn’t seem able to pray with hope. He is feeling the misery of the world. He is pessimistic about life. And when we turn to the Gospel we see how the crowds who suffer like Job are drawn out of their despair by the healing touch of Jesus. Our Savior has announced the kingdom of healing sick people and casting out devils from those who are possessed. He has come to preach a message of hope to a suffering world. Much of St. Mark’s Gospel is taken up with Jesus’ miracles of healing because this is what a wounded world demands. But Jesus does not want to be seen just as a wonder-worker. His healing goes deeper. He forgives sin and heals spiritual sickness.

In a society which highly values those who are young, healthy and rich, the acknowledgment of sickness and even death is not always welcome. The Bible tells us that we are mortal and gives us permission to lament our suffering just as Job did. Jesus confronts the misery of the world head-on. He makes the healing of sick people central to His ministry. Optimism is a feeling that things will get better, but Christian hope is rooted in a person who has triumphed over death. In the light of that hope we can pray to God for healing in many ways… And today we are fed with the bread of life in Holy Communion. But we are also healed, by care in our homes through the loving concern of our fellow Christians.

Every human voice makes a different sound, and we often recognize one another by the sound of the voice that we hear, especially on the telephone when we cannot see the person in the flesh. Our voice comes from deep within us and its best is expressive of our inner self.

In the synagogue at Capernaum Jesus begins to speak. He makes His voice heard for the first time as a preacher and teacher and healer. The listening people quickly recognize that this voice is something new. This voice and the man it belongs to are something entirely new. They are deeply impressed. There is a man in the synagogue who is very disturbed and who begins to shout and disrupt proceedings. He recognizes that Jesus is a powerful man, who is able to deal with troubled mind. Jesus by the power of His word, His voice, quietens the demon of torment and brings the grace of calmness and peace to that person. In a world of so many voices raised and often shouting, in a world where human suffering and torment are rampant, here is something new and with authority behind it.

The question put to Jesus by the tormented man, is a question for us today. In our tormented world it is easy for us to hide away in our own little lives, save perhaps from the dramas all around us. His voice is powerful today to enliven our lives, to change our settled ways and to heal our hurting hearts… The tormented man’s cry truly was a cry for help and healing. Cry out today, therefore, and ask the Lord for that same healing power in your life.