NOVEMBER 1,  ALL SAINTS DAY 

One-page synopsis: The feast and its objectives: All baptized Christians who have died and are now with God in glory are considered saints. All Saints Day is intended to honor the memory of countless unknown and uncanonized saints who have no feast days. Today we thank God for giving ordinary men and women a share in His holiness and Heavenly glory as a reward for their Faith. This feast is observed to teach us to honor the saints, both by imitating their lives and by seeking their intercession for us before Christ, the only mediator between God and man (I Tim. 2:5). The Church reminds us today that God's call for holiness is universal, that all of us are called to live in His love and to make His love real in the lives of those around us. Holiness is related to the word wholesomeness. We grow in holiness when we live wholesome lives of integrity truth, justice, charity, mercy and compassion, sharing our blessings with others.

Reasons why we honor the saints: 1- The saints put their trust in Christ and lived heroic lives of Faith. St. Paul asks us to serve and honor such noble souls. In his Epistles to the Corinthians, to Philip and to Timothy, he advises Christians to welcome, serve and honor those who have put their trust in Jesus. The saints enjoy Heavenly bliss as a reward for their Faith in Jesus. Hence, they deserve our veneration of them. 2- The saints are our role models. They teach us by their lives that Christ’s holy life of love, mercy and unconditional forgiveness can be lived by ordinary people from all walks of life and at all times.

• Oscar Romero film in YouTube: Story of a modern martyr

1. Pekapoo puppy: William Hinson recalls the time when his children were younger and one child's pet died. Dr. Hinson says that he practiced "replacement therapy." When one pet died it was replaced by another pet. One time his youngest daughter Cathy's cat died. Together they went to find another pet. Cathy selected a tiny peekapoo puppy. When they got home Dr. Hinson agreed to build a doghouse for the new pet to live in. "The only kind of dog I knew very much about was a really big bird dog," he recalls, "so when I built the doghouse, I built a very large house." In fact the house was too large for the small dog. The size of the doghouse scared the little peekapoo puppy. No matter what they did the little dog would not go near the doghouse. In disgust, Dr. Hinson went inside, and sat down in the den while his daughter, Cathy, stood outside crying over her dad's impatience and the refusal of her puppy to cooperate. After a while, Cathy got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the doghouse herself. When she crawled into it something wonderful happened. That little puppy trotted right in beside her and stretched out on the doghouse floor. Before too long the dog was taking a nap. All the shadows now stood still for him, and all the fear was taken out of the darkness, because the one whom he loved and trusted had preceded him into that dark and frightening place. It no longer caused him fear. [William H. Hinson. Triumphant Living in Turbulent Times (Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 1993), pp. 119-120.] There's a lesson here for us. We can surrender our wills to God's will, knowing that God loves us. Wherever He leads us, He will be with us. We don't have to enter dark doghouses alone. Saints trust in God and God alone. Saints submit their will to God's will.

7) Julius Caesar and St Ignatius Loyola: Julius Caesar, the founder of the Roman Empire, history's most expansive and longest-lasting Empire, was a selfish, dissipated, mediocre government bureaucrat until he was 40 years-old. At that time he was stationed in Spain. One day he was walking across the city center to his offices and he noticed a statue of Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian who had single-handedly conquered and ruled the entire Near East, from Greece to Turkey to Palestine to Egypt to Arabia to Afghanistan, all the way to India, before he was 33-years-old. For some reason, seeing the noble statue of that amazing man on that particular day made Julius Caesar think about what little he had done with his own life. And it was the beginning of his incomparable military and political career, one that helped forge the civilization we still enjoy. He needed an ideal to strive for, and he found it in Alexander that Great. As human beings, we all need an ideal to strive for; otherwise our lives stay mediocre. As Christians, following Christ is our ideal, and the saints are the ones who show us how to follow Christ. St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, began his remarkably fruitful spiritual journey while he was stuck in bed recovering from a second surgery following a cannonball wound. He had nothing to do but read, and the only books in the house were a biography of Christ and the Lives of the Saints. As he read, the thought came to him: "If St. Francis and St. Dominic did it, why can't I?" And thus was born one of the most influential saints who ever walked the earth. He discovered God's plan for him by studying the lives of the saints. We can do the same. (E- Priest).

• "Begin any kind of activity with a prayer to Jesus through Mary: a meal, a task of work, an exam, an athletic event, a doctor's appointment, a difficult meeting, and each time you leave the house or return.
• "Set time aside to listen to songs, chants, or classical compositions written about Mary. Try chanting yourself.
• "Create your own Mary mantra, a Mary prayer composed of only a few words, such as 'Mary, Mother of us all, give me strength' (or wisdom, patience, generosity — whatever spiritual gift you need in the moment.) Also, 'Mary, be with my friend (add name). Or simply, 'I love you,' or 'Thank you.' The possibilities are endless.
• "Honor Mary as the Mother of God by meditating on her words, virtues, and actions; and by contemplating what is great about her.
• "Perform acts of love for her without expectations of praise or a reward."

SYNOPSIS OF OT II SUNDAY [B] Homily Jn 1:35-42 (L/18)

Introduction: The main theme of today’s Scripture readings is Divine vocation – that everyone is called by God to be a witness for Christ by doing something for others with his or her life, using his or her unique gifts and blessings. Hence, today’s readings remind us of our personal and corporate call to become witnesses for Jesus, the Lamb of God, by leading lives of holiness and purity.

Scripture lessons summasrized:  The first reading describes how Yahweh called Nike Air Zoom Structure 18 Vs 20 Samuel to His service and how the boy Samuel responded to Him, saying, “Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening.” Hence, God blessed him in the mission entrusted to him, and Samuel became an illustrious figure, ranking with Moses and David as a man of God.  In the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 40), the psalmist sings, “Behold, I come to do Your will,”  indicating   that his vocation is to obey, to do what God commands him to do. In the second reading, St. Paul explains to the Corinthians that their Divine call is a call to holiness.  Hence, they need to keep their bodies pure and souls holy because by Baptism they have become parts of Christ’s Body and the temples of the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospel, John the Baptist claims that his vocation is to introduce Jesus to two of his disciples as the “Lamb of God,” suggesting Jesus’vocation to become a sacrificial lamb to atone for our sins. The disciples followed Jesus to his residence, accepting his invitation to “come and see.”  They stayed with him that day.  Then Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus, introducing Jesus to him as the Messiah.  Thus, today’s Gospel also describes the call or vocation of the first apostles and challenges us to invite others to Christ by our Christian witnessing.

Life messages: 1) Our Christian vocation is to live and die like the Lamb of God.  (A) We live like the Lamb of God: 1) by leading pure, innocent, humble, selfless lives, obeying Christ’s commandment of love; 2) by appreciating the loving providence and protecting care of the Good Shepherd in his Church;  3) by partaking of the Body and Blood of the Good Shepherd in the Holy Eucharist and deriving spiritual strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and the Sacraments.  (B) We are called to die like the Lamb of God: a) by sharing sacrificially our blessings of health, wealth and talents with others in the family, parish and community; b) by bearing witness to Christ in our illness, pain and suffering through our graceful acceptance of all of it; c) by offering our sufferings for God’s glory, as penance for our sins and for the conversion of sinners.

2) Our call is to bear witness to the Lamb of God.  Doing this requires a personal experience of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We get this personal of experience of Jesus in our daily lives through the meditative reading and study of the Bible, through personal and family prayers and through our active participation in the Eucharistic celebration. Once we have experienced the personal presence of Jesus in our daily lives, we will start sharing with others the Good News of love, peace, justice, tolerance, mercy and forgiveness preached and lived by Jesus.

OT II [B] : I Sam 3:3b-10, 19; I Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20; Jn 1:35-42

Anecdote: 1: “Eureka, Eureka.”  According to legend, the ruler Hieros II asked the Greek philosopher Archimedes to find a method for determining whether a crown was made of pure gold or of gold mixed with silver.  One day when Archimedes stepped into his bath and noticed that the water rose as he sat down, he ran out of the house naked shouting, "Eureka! Eureka!" (= "I have found it!")  The method to determine whether or not a crown was pure gold, discovered by Archimedes in his bathtub, was to compare its weight to its volume.  If one had one pound of gold and one pound of silver and submerged them in water, the silver would make the water rise higher than the gold, because it is less dense than gold, and therefore larger in volume, displacing more water.  Archimedes compared the volume of water displaced by the suspect crown with that displaced by a pure gold crown of equal weight.  Archimedes did not "find" this truth by searching after it -- although he might have spent days thinking about a solution to the problem.  His "find" came as an unexpected surprise.  He had probably noticed the water in the bathtub rising hundreds of times before, but its significance didn't "click" in his brain until that "eureka" moment.  Today’s Gospel describes how John discovered Jesus as the Lamb of God and how Andrew, Simon, and Nathaniel discovered him as the “Promised Messiah” quite unexpectedly.  Jesus was their "Eureka."

# 2: A lamb on the roof: In the city of Werden, Germany, there stands a Catholic Church with a lamb carved out of stone and placed on its roof. It was said that when the Church was being built, a stone-carving mason fell from a high scaffold. His co-workers rushed down, expecting to find him dead. But to their surprise and joy, he was alive and only slightly injured. How did he survive? A flock of sheep was passing beneath the tower at that time, and he landed on top of a lamb. The lamb broke his fall and was crushed to death, but the man was saved. To commemorate that miraculous escape, he carved a lamb in stone and placed it on the tower, in gratitude for the lamb that saved his life. Today we are here at this Liturgy to remember and salute another Lamb who died a cruel death to save mankind. In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist introduces Jesus as the  “Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.”

3) “I asked 300,000 to support me, but only 140 to affirm Jesus.” Former President Jimmy Carter is not shy about sharing the Faith. He and wife Rosalynn have been on numerous faith-sharing missions in America and overseas. In his book Living Faith, Jimmy Carter recounts a humbling experience. He says that when he was preparing to run for governor a second time, he was invited to speak to a Christian men's group about his activities as a Christian witness. In preparation for that talk, he took account of the witnessing he had done. He added up the times when he had shared the faith with other people, one-on-one, and they had made commitments to Christ. The total number came to 140. But then, said Carter, "The Lord must have been looking over my shoulder because immediately I remembered my 1966 political campaign when Rosalynn and I had traveled the state and had shaken hands with 300,000 Georgians, extolling my good points, and asking them to vote for me. I had asked 300,000 to support me, but only 140 to affirm Jesus. The terrible difference in those numbers brought me to my knees."

Introduction: Today’s theme is Divine vocation.  Everyone is called by God to be something, to do something for others with his life and with his unique gifts. Hence, today’s readings remind us of our personal and corporate call to become witnesses for the Lamb of God and to lead lives of holiness and purity.  We are told that each of us, as a Christian, is personally called to discipleship, which demands an ongoing response of commitment.  The first reading describes how Yahweh called Samuel to His service. The boy Samuel responded to God promptly, as instructed by his master and mentor, Eli, saying, “Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening.” Hence, God blessed him in the mission entrusted to him, and Samuel became an illustrious figure, ranking with Moses and David as a man of God.  In the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 40), the psalmist sings, “Behold, I come to do Your will,” voicing his recognition that his vocation has called him to obey God’s command, that is, to do His will. In the second reading, we listen to St. Paul speaking to us, too, as he reminds his readers that they have a Divine call, a call to holiness.  He argues that Christians need to keep their bodies pure and their souls holy because in Baptism they have become parts of Christ’s Body and the temples of the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospel, John the Baptist introduces Jesus to two of his disciples as the,“Lamb of God.”  They follow Jesus to His residence, accepting his call to “come and see,”going with Him and staying with Him that day. Then Andrew brings his brother, Simon, to Jesus, introducing Jesus to him as the Messiah.  Thus, today’s Gospel describes the call of the first apostles.

The first reading explained, : The book of Samuel begins with a long narrative of what we might call ancient Israel's middle history.  Moses, Aaron, and Joshua were gone from the scene.  The period of rule by Judges had begun (at about 1000 BC).  The first chapter describes how Samuel was born to a long-barren couple by Divine intervention.  They dedicated him in his early childhood to God's service in the Temple at Shiloh, as an apprentice to the priest Eli.  The boy's duties included attendance during the night near "the Ark of God," a most sacred cult object and a place of unique Divine presence among the people.  God called Samuel one night and Samuel thought it was his master Eli. Twice God called, twice Samuel went to Eli and twice Eli told him to go back to sleep.  The third time God called and Samuel went to Eli, the old priest realized what was going on, and told Samuel, "Next time, say, 'Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening.’”  The threefold repetition of God's call Golden Goose Deluxe Brand Sale indicates genuine experience rather than hallucination.  Eli knew the proper response for all God's followers: "Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening."  Only those willing to carry out the Lord's wishes will be able to hear God calling -- even in the middle of the night.  Though Eli had served God faithfully, it was Samuel whom God called.  Samuel became an illustrious figure, ranking with Moses and David as a man of God.  The lesson for us is that God often calls ordinary people, including the young, to serve within the community.  Consequently, we all need guidance in discerning and responding to His will.  Our lives as God's followers revolve around seeking, finding and responding to God’s calls.  Listening to the call of God is to hear, understand, and accept it in word and action.  Is God calling me today for a special mission?  What is He saying to me?  Am I really listening?

The second reading erxplaioned, :  The letter is addressed to all members of the Church at Corinth.  Corinth was a bawdy seaport in cosmopolitan Greece and the center of intellectual ferment.  The vices of every seaport, plus the philosophical ferment of ancient Greece, were all  part of these peoples' lives, and gave rise, in part, to the need for this letter.  One of the greatest besetting sins of the pagan port-town of Corinth was prostitution.  A few Christians even tried to justify prostitution as part of the Christian liberty which Paul had preached to them.  Corinth was a difficult place to preach a new doctrine and a new morality, but Paul had dared to preach both, provoking intense controversy. The pagan Corinthians believed that the soul of man was the important part and the body a mere piece of matter.  They looked on the body as a   matter of instincts to be fulfilled, including the sex instinct.  Therefore, they argued, one ought to let the desires of the body have their way. Some of the Christian Corinthians had apparently picked up these pagan ideas. So Paul reminded them that they were "sanctified and called to be holy" like all who call on the name of Jesus.  Just as God called Samuel and Jesus called his apostles, the Corinthian Christians were called to lead a life of holiness.  Paul’s argument runs like this:  since God's Spirit dwells in us, we have become temples of God and consequently our bodies are sacred.  In addition, Christ gave his life in order that man might be redeemed, body and soul.  Hence, a man's body is not his own to do with as he likes; it is Christ's, and a man must use it, not for the satisfaction of his lusts, but for the glory of Christ.

Gospel Exegesis: John the Baptizer’s selfless witnessing: John's Gospel presents John the Baptist as a self-effacing figure whose role is preeminently one of witnessing.  Instead of building up his own following, John selflessly directed his disciples to Jesus.  John the Baptist gave testimony to Jesus by pointing Him out as the Lamb of God (vv 29, 36); Andrew called him the Messiah (v 41), and Nathaniel called Jesus Rabbi, Son of God, and King of Israel (v 49).  Jesus completed the epiphany, declaring Himself the Son of Man (v 51).  In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus called the disciples away from their fishing boats to follow him (Matt 4:18-22, et al.).  But in the Fourth Gospel, they went to Him at John's direction rather than in response to Jesus' call.  Instead of leaving their boats, they left John. On the second day of Jesus’ public ministry, John the Baptist introduced Jesus to the Jews as the “Lamb of God.” (Jn 1:29). He repeated the name on the third day in introducing Jesus to two of his own disciples as described in today’s Gospel.

The Lamb of God: This is the most meaningful title given to Jesus in the Bible.  It is used 29 times in the book of Revelation.  It sums up the love, the sacrifice and the triumph of Christ.  John’s introduction might have brought five pictures of the “lamb” to the minds of his Jewish listeners.  1) The Lamb of Atonement (Lv 16:20-22).  A lamb was brought to the Temple on the Day of Atonement (“Yom Kippur”).  Placing his hands over its head, the high priest transferred all the sins of his people to the lamb.  It was then sent into the wilderness (as the lamb who takes away the sins of the Jews) to be killed by some wild animal.  2) The Lamb of Daily Atonement (Ex 29:38-42; Nm 28:1-8).  This was the lamb sacrificed on the “Black Altar” of the Temple every morning and evening to atone for the sins of the Jews.  3) The Paschal Lamb (Ex 12:11ss.).  The Paschal Lamb’s blood saved the firstborn of the Jewish families in Egypt from the “Angel of destruction.” The event was memorialized yearly in the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb at Passover. 4) The Lamb of the Prophets, an image portraying one who, by his sacrifice, would redeem his people: “The gentle lamb led to the slaughterhouse” (Jer 11:19), “like a lamb to the slaughter” (Is 53:7).  Both, as we know, refer to the sufferings and sacrificial death of Christ.  5) The Lamb of the Conquerors.  The picture of a horned lamb on the Jewish flag at the time of the Maccabaean Liberation War was used as a sign of conquering majesty and power.  The great Jewish conquerors like Samuel, David and Solomon were described by the ancient Jewish historians as “horned lambs.”

Christ as Lamb of God is a title familiar to us.  In the Eucharist, at "the    breaking of the bread," we proclaim what the Baptist said, in word or song.  Our traditional   “fractional anthem” is the Agnus Dei – “Lamb of God, who take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us/grant us peace.”  In this prayer, we give expression to our deepest understanding of the identity and purpose of Jesus Christ as our Lamb and Lord.  Because of his life of love and sacrifice, we believe and affirm that he is the one who came and continues to come into a broken world to take our sins upon himself.

Stages in God’s call: In the opening verses of today’s Gospel, John points out to his disciples that the One who is passing by is the “Lamb of God.”  Two of John’s disciples follow Jesus who turns and asks them what they are seeking.  Somewhat confused, they ask Jesus where he is staying.  Jesus does not tell them. Instead, he invites them to “come and see.”  For each of us, belief in Jesus develops in stages, which John appears to be describing.  First, we respond to testimony given by others.  Then, having "seen" where Jesus dwells - within believers, as individuals and as community - we move to commitment based on our own experience of the risen Lord.  Finally, our conversion is completed when we become witnesses for Jesus.  In Andrew's case, his conversion reveals his belief in Jesus as the Messiah.  He then brings his brother Peter to Christ.  Jesus looks at Simon and says, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called 'Cephas' or 'Peter.'” Cephas is the Aramaic word for "rock” while the Greek word for rock is "Petros."  This kind of name-change has precedents in the Old Testament (Gn 17:5, 32:28).  Such name-changes indicate the beginning of a new life—a new purpose—a new relationship with God. Simon's new life in Christ is symbolized by his new name, "Peter," conferred by the Master.  The evangelist sets out a challenging pattern for evangelization.  The first people to be evangelized preached Jesus in their turn to relatives, friends, and even to strangers.  We, too, must find and grow in Faith through our grace-assisted lifelong seeking of God's will, as we come to God through Jesus, whom we find in the local Christian community.

Life Messages: 1) Our Christian call is to live and die like the Lamb of God.  (A) We live like a lamb: 1) by leading pure, innocent, humble, selfless lives, obeying Christ’s commandment of love; 2) by appreciating the loving providence and protecting care of the Good Shepherd in his Church; 3) by partaking of the Body and Blood of the Good Shepherd in the Holy Eucharist and deriving spiritual strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and the Sacraments.  (B) We die like a sacrificial lamb: 1) by sharing our blessings of health, wealth and talents with others in the family, parish and community; 2) by bearing witness to Christ in our illness, pain and suffering; 3) by offering our suffering for the salvation of souls and as reparation for our sins and those of others.

2) Our call is to rebuild broken lives. Like the missionary call of Samuel and the apostles, we too are called.  Our call is to rebuild broken lives, reconciling them to God's love and justice through Christ Jesus, our Lamb and Lord. A. Through Baptism into the Body of Christ, we are empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit to free the oppressed. B. Through the love of the Lamb of God, we are called to better the lot and improve the broken spirit of all who have been exiled from the possibility of hope, exiled from God's righteousness or burdened by the yoke of spiritual, social, economic, and political dislocation. C. In other words, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the glorified Lamb, we are called to empower the human spirit with a sense of identity and purpose.

3) Our call is to bear witness to the Lamb of God.  Today's Gospel reminds us that being a disciple of Jesus means that we are to grow in faith and become witnesses for him. A. Bearing witness to Christ is an active rather than a passive enterprise.  Knowing Jesus is a matter of experience.  One could know the Wales Kits 2014 Catechism of the Catholic Church, all 700 pages of it, by heart, and still not know Jesus. B. Bearing witness to Christ, then, demands that we should have personal and first-hand experience of Jesus.  1. We get this personal of experience of Jesus in our daily lives – through the meditative reading and study of the Bible, through personal and family prayers and through the Sacraments, especially by participation in the Eucharistic celebration. 2. Once we have experienced the personal presence of Jesus in our daily lives, we will start sharing with others the Good News of love, peace, justice, tolerance, mercy and forgiveness preached and lived by Jesus.  C. The essence of our witness-bearing is to state what we have seen, heard, experienced and believed, and then to invite others to "come and see."  Other people will see Jesus in our lives when we love, forgive and spend time doing good. D. A dynamic and living experience of Jesus will also enable us to invite and encourage people to come and participate in our Church activities.

JOKES OF THE WEEK

1)  A little boy was listening to a long and excessively boring sermon in Church on vocation to priesthood and religious life. Suddenly the red sanctuary lamp caught his eye. Tugging his father's sleeve, he said, "Daddy, when the light turns green can we go home?"

2) A Catholic boy and a Jewish boy were talking and the Catholic boy said, "My priest knows more than your rabbi." The Jewish boy said, "Of course he does! That is because you tell him everything in confession."

3)  The son-in-law’s testimony: A rich Jewish business man named Raymond went to meet Ben, his new son-in-law to be.  He said to Ben, "So, tell me, Ben, my boy, what you do?" "I study the Theology," Ben replied. "But Ben, you are going to marry my daughter! How are you going to feed and house her?" “No problem," says Ben, "I study Theology, and it says God will provide." "But you will have children; how will you educate them?" asked Raymond. "No problem," says Ben, "I study Theology, and it says God will provide." When Raymond returned home, his wife anxiously asked him what Ben was like. "Well," said Raymond, "he's a lovely boy. I only just met him, and he already thinks I'm God." (Source:Jewish Jokes)

4)  Worse pastors: At morning Mass, the pastor announced to the congregation that the bishop had just appointed him to another parish.  After the Mass, a woman came up to him and expressed her dismay at his leaving.  "Oh, I'm sure the bishop will send you someone who's far better than I am."  The pastor tried to console her. "No," the woman replied, "that won't happen, and that can't happen." "Why not?" asked the priest, unable to resist the temptation to hear a compliment in the superlative about himself. "Because,” the woman said, “I’ve seen five pastors now in this parish, and each new pastor was worse than the last."

SYNOPSIS OF O.T. III SUNDAY HOMILY :  MK 1:14-20

Introduction:   The three readings today underline the absolute necessity for us of repentance and a prompt response to God’s call.

Scripture lessons: The first reading tells us how God had to deal with the disobedient, fleeing prophet Jonah to turn him around (convert him), so that, repenting, he would go to Nineveh to preach repentance there.  The wicked people of Nineveh, however, accepted Jonah as God’s prophet at once, and promptly Golden Goose Ball Star Sneakers responded to God’s call for repentance as Jonah preached it.  In the second reading, Paul urges the Christian community in Corinth to lose no time in accepting the message of the Gospel and in renewing their lives with repentance because Jesus’ second coming may occur at any moment.  Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus came to Galilee and began preaching, challenging people to “repent andbelieve in the Gospel.” Just as John did, Jesus also called for repentance, meaning a change in one's mind or in the direction of one’s life, setting new priorities. Repentance also means hating sin, not just being sorry for the consequences of one’s sins. Believing in the Gospel demands from the hearers a resolution to take Jesus’ words seriously, to translate them into action and to put trust in Jesus’ authority. Jesus preached the Gospel, or Good News, that God is a loving, forgiving, caring and merciful Father Who wants to liberate us and save us from our sins through His son Jesus.  By describing the call of Jesus' first disciples, Andrew, Peter, James and John, today’s Gospel also emphasizes how we, sinners, are to respond to God’s call with total commitment by abandoning our accustomed style of sinful life. Jesus started his public ministry immediately after John the Baptist was arrested. According to Mark, Jesus selected four fishermen, Andrew and his brother Peter with James and his brother John, right from their fishing boats. Jesus wanted these ordinary, hard-working people as assistants for his ministry because they would be very responsive and generous instruments in the hands of God.

Life messages: 1) We need to appreciate our call to become Christ’s disciples: Every one of us is called by God, both individually, and collectively as a parish community, to continue Jesus’ mission of preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom and healing the sick. 2) We are called individually to a way of life or vocation: – a religious commitment (priest, deacon, missionary, religious Sister or Brother, marriage partner or single person), plus a particular occupation rising from our talents (medicine, law, teaching, healing, writing, art, music, building and carpentry, home-making, child-rearing ….).  Our own unique vocation should enable us to become what God wants us to be.  As St. Francis Sales puts it, we are expected to bloom where we are planted. 3) Our call, of course, begins with our Baptism and the other Sacraments of Initiation. It is strengthened through the years with the Eucharist and Reconciliation, healed and consoled by Anointing and, for those so called, made manifest in the sacraments of Matrimony or Holy Orders. The amazing truth is that God is relentless in calling us back to Himself even when we stray away from Him. 4) Let us be thankful to God for His Divine grace of calling us to be members of the true Church. Let us remember that it is our vocation in life as Christians to transmit Christ’s Light through our living, radiating Jesus’ unconditional love, mercy, forgiveness and humble service to all in our society.

OT III [B]  Jon 3:1-5, 10; I Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1: 14-20

Anecdote: # 1: The management forgives you: J. Edwin Orr, a professor of Church history has described the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the Protestant Welsh Revivals of the nineteenth century, which resulted in realmetanoia.  As people sought to be filled with the Spirit, they did all they could to confess their wrongdoings and to make restitution.  But this created serious problems for the shipyards along the coast of Wales.  Over the years workers had stolen all kinds of things, from wheelbarrows to hammers.  However, as people sought to be right with God, they started to return what they had taken, with the result that soon the shipyards of Wales were overwhelmed with returned property.  There were such huge piles of returned tools that several of the yards put up signs that read, "If you have been led by God to return what you have stolen, please know that the management forgives you and wishes you to keep what you have taken."  In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges each one of us to revive our lives with a true spirit of repentance.

# 2: Bigotry and the Church’s universal mission:  Bigotry creates the gaping chasm between God’s universal vision and the often myopic and selective insight of believers. Bigotry decides that certain people are better than others and Chile Kits Pes 2013 worthier of attention, while it Nike Free Flyknit 4.0 writes off others as valueless and not worth the effort. Bigotry went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Jesse Owens, a black American track and field athlete won four gold medals, but the leader of the host country refused to acknowledge him. Until 1954, bigotry relegated immigrants to this country to places like Ellis Island. Many remained there for months; many were unsympathetically deported. Bigotry has gone to the voting polls several times since 1954 to further limit the rights and freedoms of immigrants. Bigotry organized and executed the systematic annihilation of six million Europeans whose beliefs and traditions were considered a threat to racial purity. Bigotry rounded up and forcibly detained Asian-American citizens during World War II. Bigotry denied women in the U.S. the right to vote until 1921. Bigotry walked the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 when advocates of civil rights were clubbed and tear-gassed by police and stoned and beaten with bottles by opponents of integration. Despite these instances of its presence (and there are countless others), bigotry is such an ugly word, that, while we readily recognize it in others, few of us are willing to consider it as a possible, personal flaw. Perhaps if we were to ask ourselves a few pointed questions. . . Do I consider anyone or any group as a lost cause and therefore beyond the scope of my ministry as a Christian? Are there people of a certain race or ethnic group I’d rather not have as neighbors? In-laws? Bosses? When ethic jokes are told, do I laugh as loudly as anyone else? What if the experience of Jonah were to be contemporized... If a call went out for a modern-day Jonah to be dispatched to [any of “countries [currently] ranked in the top 10 for extreme persecution of Christians … North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Iraq [Ancient Assyria], Iran, Yemen, Eritrea …” where “nearly 215 million Christians face high persecution…” (Open Doors USA), and  where, “between the years 2005-2015, an estimated 900,000 Christians were martyred – an average of 90,000 Christians each year” (The Center for the Study of Global Christianity)]   with the duty of preaching repentance and conversion to Islamic extremists there, would I volunteer for the job? Would I think it a worthwhile endeavor? Would I put off my trip, or would I labor with the sense of urgency which Paul describes in today’s second reading? Would I rejoice if my mission were successful? Do I truly believe the reign of God and the Good News of salvation are for all without exception? Are there discrepancies between God’s concerns and my own? Jonah, Paul and Mark challenge this gathered assembly to consider these questions today and to deal with any discrepancies we may discover. (Patricia Datchuck Sánchez; relevant 2017 material appears in [ ] above; M. L. Park).

# 3: Deep-sea fishing: How many of you have ever been deep-sea fishing? I was shocked to learn that more than 2.4 million people participated in this sport last year, resulting in retail sales of almost $2.4 billion dollars and a total economic impact of almost $4.5 billion dollars. Deep-sea fishing provides jobs for nearly 55,000 people. You may be asking what deep-sea fishing has to do with the Church. You are going to see over the next four weeks that deep-sea fishing is a picture of the deep-soul fishing we are to be about as Church. "As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, 'Follow Me, and, I will make you fishers of men.'" (Mark 1:16-17). That one statement tells us what our primary business is as Church, both corporately and as followers of Jesus individually. If you are a follower of Jesus, I want you to understand that every day Jesus Christ wants fishermen-disciples to launch out into the sea of humanity and go deep-soul fishing, because the Church's primary business, and so the Christian's primary business, is the fishing business, and no matter what else we do or how well we do it, if we ever get out of the fishing business, we are out of business. Your neighborhood is a lake full of fish. Your office is a lake full of fish. Your school is a lake full of fish. When Jesus said, "I will make you fishers of men,” He was saying, “I will take you, with your personality, your background, your testimony, your influence and I will use you to catch men and women and boys and girls and bring them into my family.”

Introduction:  God’s call to discipleship, with the response of repentance, conversion and renewal of life expected from us, is the main theme of today’s readings.  No matter to what life, work or ministry God calls us, He first calls us to conversion, to reform, to repentance -- to continually becoming new people.  Those who are constantly being reformed by the Spirit will be able to follow, as true disciples, wherever God leads.  All three readings today underline the absolute necessity of such repentance and ready response to God’s call.  The first reading tells us how the prophet Jonah’s response when God called him and told him to go to Nineveh was to take ship immediately for the furthest point he could get to in the opposite direction from Nineveh!  Why? We don’t know. Perhaps he was scared. Or perhaps it was because he hated the Gentile people of Nineveh and thought that they were not worthy of God's gracious mercy. In any case, Jonah ran away. God had to halt Jonah in his flight and give him three days’ “down time” in the belly of that great fish before the prophet was ready to accept the Lord God’s “second chance” and go to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh.  Far from being hostile, however, the people and the King of Nineveh, promptly responded to God’s word as preached by His prophet, repenting in sackcloth with a fast  -- just on the chance that the Lord God “might” spare them.  In the second reading, Paul urged the community in Corinth, and us, to lose no time accepting the message of the Gospel because Jesus’second coming could occur at any time.  Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus entered Galilee and began preaching. Like John, Jesus also called for repentance.  But Jesus added the Good News that the Kingdom of God was at hand. It still is, for where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom of God. Then Jesus called on his listeners to believe in the Gospel or the Good News of God’s love, mercy and salvation. When Jesus invited Simon and Andrew and James and John to join him and help in his preaching and healing ministry, they promptly accepted his call, for discipleship is the only complete response a believer can make to that proclamation and invitation. The two greatest aspects of discipleship in Mark are being with Jesus andsharing in his mission. Disciples are invited to be with Jesus on a great spiritual journey and to share in Jesus’ mission of proclaiming God’s Kingdom in word and deed. In describing the call of Jesus' first disciples, today's Gospel also emphasizes how we, sinners, are to respond to Him with total commitment, abandoning our accustomed attitudes and styles of life to follow Him in thought, word and deed.

First reading explained, : The first reading shows us that we should respond promptly to God’s call for repentance.  The Book of Jonah was written in Palestine around the 5^th century BC, after the Babylonian exile. Some of the Jews were quite nationalistic, filled with a smug sense of their superiority over all other nations. Like Jonah, they wished God would destroy the nations they perceived as His enemies.  For Jonah, the Ninevites were terrible people doing terrible things.  The story of Jonah was intended to rebuke the Palestinians’ smallness of vision, and to teach them that God had care for other peoples besides themselves.  The first two chapters describe how God responded to Jonah’s flight from His call and the mission He had assigned the prophet: He allowed him to experience a deadly storm followed by an excruciating experience in the belly of a whale.  At God’s second call to preach repentance in Nineveh, Jonah obeyed – and he was disappointed to see the ready response of that evil city to God’s message of repentance and a change of life! Jonah had not even finished the first day of his preaching journey before the people had totally turned around – doing visible penance while asking and hoping for God’s love, reconciliation and forgiveness.  Contrary to Jonah’s expectations, the pagan peoples of the city "believed in God" and "renounced their evil behavior".  But perhaps the greater change, the more radical turnabout, happened in Jonah himself.  Jonah had been an arrogant, bigoted, narrow-minded prophet.  But he finally realized that God’s love is not limited – God’s forgiveness is not to be contained – God’s offer of salvation is for all –and we’d best not thwart it.

(Lessons taught by Jonah story: Not an historic account, but a didactic fiction, i.e. a story told in order to educate, the Jonah narrative had a double lessonfor the inhabitants of Judah. First, in sending the main character of the story to foreign, pagan, Nineveh, the universality of God’s saving purpose was underscored. Second, in the bigoted persona of Jonah, the parochial and nationalistic Judahites were to recognize a caricature of themselves and to accept the challenge to broaden their concerns in order to bring them into line with those of God. Moreover, the value and quality of spirit attributed to the Ninevites was intended to awaken in the people of Judah an attitude of respect for and acceptance of others, who were often regarded as sub-human or as animals (dogs, swine). Notice that when Jonah preached his short message, the Ninevites believed God (v. 5). Conversion in Nineveh was effected, not by prophetic eloquence (“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed!?!”) but by God’s power. ) .

Second Reading explained, : The second reading also urges us to be converted and to accept the“Good News’ preached by Jesus. Thinking that the end was near and the second coming of Jesus would happen soon, Paul preferred that no one get married and that slaves not try to gain their freedom (1 Cor 7:8, 17-24). But the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World makes clear that it is precisely through engagement with the concerns of the world that Jesus’ followers are to exercise their discipleship. Saint Paul had to be strict and detailed in his moral teaching to the Christians in Corinth because Corinth was a bawdy seaport with a typical seaport's set of ethics and some very bizarre philosophical ideas.  Hence, Paul spent  on marriage and sexual morality.  He told the Corinthians to live in total freedom and detachment because nothing they had, whether things or personal attachments, was permanent, and everything could disappear at a moment's notice.  Whether life is very good or very bad, nothing lasts except the fundamental values of truth and love, of freedom and justice. In the end, it is who and Whose we are, not what we have that counts.  Hence, let us ask to have the freedom to follow the call of God and to be ready to go wherever Jesus is asking us to go.

Gospel Exegesis: Invitation to repentance: It is highly likely that Jesus and the four followers he summoned here were not strangers.  Even if they had not personally met each other before this time, they were aware of each other's aspirations and objectives.  Jesus used exactly the same words John the Baptist had used:  “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”  The Greek word used “metanoeo” means to change one's mind or direction.  Repentance means that we make a complete change of direction in our lives.  This involves a radical conversion (metanoia), a change of direction and priorities in our lives.  For Jesus, repentance is not merely saying, "I'm sorry," but also promising, “I will change my life." Real repentance means that a man has come, not only to be sorry for the consequences of his sin, but to hate sin itself.  We often think of repentance as feeling guilty, but it is really a change of mind or direction -- seeing things from a different perspective.  Once we begin to see things rightly, it might follow that we will feel bad about having seen them wrongly for so long.  But repentance starts with the new vision rather than the guilt feelings.  By true repentance we are giving up control of our lives and throwing our sinful lives on the mercy of God.  We are inviting God to do what we can't do ourselves -- namely to raise the dead -- to change and recreate us.  "Repent" is used in the Golden Goose Deluxe Brand Portugal present tense -- "Keep on repenting!"  "Continually be repentant!"  This means that repentance must be the ongoing life of the people in the Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is the theme of Jesus’ preaching. This Kingdom is any society where God’s will is done as it is done in Heaven. Hence, a person who does the will of God perfectly is already in the Kingdom of God.  Matthew, as a devout Jew, consistently uses the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" while Mark, a Gentile convert, uses the phrase "Kingdom of God," without any scruples about using God's name.  We probably shouldn't interpret the "Kingdom of God" as Heaven where God rules.   In telling us that the Kingdom has come near, Jesus is telling us that we can dwell in this Kingdom now, provided we repent or turn away from the idols that crowd our lives and do the will of God as it is done in Heaven, thus allowing God to reign in our lives.

Believe in the “Gospel” or “Good News.”  It was preeminently “Good News” that Jesus came to bring to men.  The Good News is that God is our loving and forgiving Father and not a punishing judge, and that He wants to save us through His son Jesus.  So St. Paul calls it the Good News of truth (Gal 2:5; Col 1:5), Good News of hope (Col 1:23), , Good News of God's promise of salvation (Eph 1:13, 3:6), Good News of peace with God and man (Eph 6:15) and Good News of immortality (2Tim 1:10).  To believe in the Good News simply means to take Jesus at his word, to believe that God is the kind of God that Jesus has told us about, to believe that God so loves the world that He will make any sacrifice to bring us back to Himself.  To believe in the “Good News” involves a total commitment – the investing of one's whole self in God without any guarantees or preconditions.

The call of the apostles: “The evangelists were not precise chroniclers of Jesus’ words and works. Adidas Hoodie

OT III [B] Sunday: 

Introduction: The three readings today underline our absolute need of repentance and our immediate need for a prompt response to God’s call.  

Scripture lessons: The first reading tells us how God had to deal with the disobedient, fleeing prophet Jonah to turn him around (convert him), so that, repenting, he would go to Nineveh to preach repentance there.  The wicked people of Nineveh, however, accepted Jonah as God’s prophet at once, and promptly responded to God’s call for repentance as Jonah preached it.  In the second reading, Paul urges the Christian community in Corinth to lose no time in accepting the message of the Gospel and in renewing their lives with repentance because Jesus’ second coming may occur at any moment.  Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus came to Galilee and began preaching, challenging people to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” Just as John did, Jesus also called for repentance, meaning a change in one's mind or in the direction of one’s life and setting new priorities. Repentance also means hating sin itself, not just being sorry for the consequences of one’s sins. Believing in the Gospel demands from the hearers a resolution to take Jesus’ words seriously, to translate them into action, and to put trust in Jesus’ authority. Jesus preached the Gospel, or Good News, that God is a loving, forgiving, caring and merciful Father Who wants to liberate us and save us from our sins through His son Jesus.  By describing the call of Jesus' first disciples, Andrew, Peter, James, and John, today’s Gospel also emphasizes how we, sinners, are to respond to God’s call with total commitment by abandoning our accustomed style of sinful life. Jesus started his public ministry immediately after John the Baptist was arrested. According to Mark, Jesus selected four fishermen, Andrew and his brother Peter with James and his brother John, right from their fishing boats. Jesus wanted these ordinary, hard-working people as assistants for his ministry because they would be very responsive and generous instruments in the hands of God.

 Life messages: 1) We need to appreciate our call to become Christ’s disciples: Every one of us is called by God, both individually, and collectively as a parish community, to continue Jesus’ mission of preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom and healing the sick. 2) We are called individually to a way of life or vocation: – a religious commitment (priest, deacon, missionary, religious Sister or Brother, marriage partner, or single person), plus a particular occupation rising from our talents (medicine, law, teaching, healing, writing, art, music, building and carpentry, homemaking, child-rearing ….).  Our own unique vocation should enable us to become what God wants us to be.  As St. Francis Sales puts it, we are expected to bloom where we are planted. 3) Our call, of course, begins with our Baptism and the other Sacraments of Initiation. It is strengthened through the years with the Eucharist and Reconciliation, healed and consoled by Anointing and, for those so called, made manifest in the sacraments of Matrimony or Holy Orders. The amazing truth is that God is relentless in calling us back to Himself even when we stray away from Him. 4) Let us be thankful to God for His Divine grace of calling us to be members of the true Church. Let us remember that it is our vocation in life as Christians to transmit Christ’s Light through our living, radiating Jesus’ unconditional love, mercy, forgiveness, and humble service to all in our society.

OT III [B] (Jan 24, 2021) Jon 3:1-5, 10; I Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1: 14-20 

Homily starter anecdotes: # 1: The management forgives you: J. Edwin Orr, a professor of Church history has described the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the Protestant Welsh Revivals of the nineteenth century, which resulted for many in real metanoia.  As people sought to be filled with the Spirit, they did all they could to confess their wrongdoings and to make restitution.  But this created serious problems for the shipyards along the coast of Wales.  Over the years, workers had “appropriated,” or “borrowed,”  all kinds of things, from wheelbarrows to hammers.  However, as people sought to be right with God, they understood that they had actually stolen all these things from their shipyards, so they started to return all they had taken, with the result that soon the shipyards of Wales were overwhelmed with returned property.  There were such huge piles of returned tools that several of the yards put up signs that read, "If you have been led by God to return what you have stolen, please know that the management forgives you and wishes you to keep what you have taken." -- In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges each one of us to revive our life with a true spirit of repentance.  

# 2: Bigotry and the Church’s universal mission:  Bigotry creates the gaping chasm between God’s universal vision and the often myopic and selective insight of believers. Bigotry decides that certain people are better than others and worthier of attention, while it writes off others as valueless and not worth the effort. Bigotry went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Jesse Owens, a black American track and field athlete won four gold medals, but the leader of the host country refused to acknowledge him. Until 1954, bigotry relegated immigrants to the United States of America to places like Ellis Island. Many remained there for months; many were unsympathetically deported. Bigotry has gone to the voting polls several times since 1954 to further limit the rights and freedoms of immigrants. Bigotry organized and executed the systematic annihilation of six million Europeans whose beliefs and traditions were considered a threat to racial purity. Bigotry rounded up and forcibly detained Asian-American citizens during World War II. Bigotry denied women in the U.S. the right to vote until 1921. Bigotry walked the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 when advocates of civil rights were clubbed and tear-gassed by police and stoned and beaten with bottles by opponents of integration. Despite these instances of its presence (and there are countless others), bigotry is such an ugly word, that, while we readily recognize it in others, few of us are willing to consider it as a possible, personal flaw. Perhaps if we were to ask ourselves a few pointed questions. . . Do I consider anyone or any group as a lost cause and therefore beyond the scope of my ministry as a Christian? Are there people of a certain race or ethnic group I’d rather not have as neighbors? In-laws? Bosses? When ethic jokes are told, do I laugh as loudly as anyone else? What if the experience of Jonah were to be contemporized... If a call went out for a modern-day Jonah to be dispatched to [any of “countries [currently] ranked in the top 10 for extreme persecution of Christians … North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Iraq [Ancient Assyria], Iran, Yemen, Eritrea …” where “nearly 215 million Christians face high persecution…” (Open Doors USA), and  where, “between the years 2005-2015, an estimated 900,000 Christians were martyred – an average of 90,000 Christians each year” (The Center for the Study of Global Christianity)]   with the duty of preaching repentance and conversion to Islamic extremists there, would I volunteer for the job? Would I think it a worthwhile endeavor? Would I put off my trip, or would I labor with the sense of urgency which Paul describes in today’s second reading? Would I rejoice if my mission were successful? Do I truly believe the reign of God and the Good News of salvation are for all, without exception? Are there discrepancies between God’s concerns and my own? Jonah, Paul, and Mark challenge each of us gathered in this assembly to consider these questions today and to deal with any discrepancies we may discover. (Sanchez Files)

# 3: Deep-sea fishing: How many of you have ever been deep-sea fishing? I was shocked to learn that more than 2.4 million people participated in this sport last year, resulting in retail sales of almost $2.4 billion dollars and a total economic impact of almost $4.5 billion dollars. Deep-sea fishing provides jobs for nearly 55,000 people. You may be asking what deep-sea fishing has to do with the Church. You are going to see over the next four weeks that deep-sea fishing is a picture of the deep-soul fishing we are to be about as Church. "As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, 'Follow Me, and, I will make you fishers of men.'" (Mark 1:16-17). That one statement tells us what our primary business is as Church, both corporately and as followers of Jesus individually. If you are a follower of Jesus, I want you to understand that every day Jesus Christ wants fishermen-disciples to launch out into the sea of humanity and go deep-soul fishing, because the Church's primary business, and so the Christian's primary business, is the fishing business. No matter what else we do or how well we do it, if we ever get out of the fishing business, we are out of business. Your neighborhood is a lake full of fish. Your office is a lake full of fish. Your school is a lake full of fish. When Jesus said, "I will make you fishers of men,” He was saying, “I will take you, with your personality, your background, your testimony, your influence, and I will use you to catch men, women, boys, and  girls and bring them into My family.”

Introduction:  God’s call to discipleship, with the response of repentance, conversion, and renewal of life expected from each of us, is the main theme of today’s readings.  No matter to what life, work, or ministry God calls us, He first calls us to conversion, to reform, to repentance – to the process of continually becoming new people.  Those who are constantly being reformed by the Spirit will be able to follow, as true disciples, wherever God leads.  All three readings today underline the absolute necessity of such repentance and ready response to God’s call.  

Scripture readings summarized: The first reading tells us  about the prophet Jonah, whose response when God first called him and told him to go to Nineveh was to take ship immediately for the furthest point he could get to in the opposite direction!  Why? We don’t know. Perhaps he was scared. Or perhaps it was because he hated the Gentile people of Nineveh and thought that they were not worthy of God's gracious mercy. In any case, Jonah ran away. God had to halt Jonah in his flight, then give him a three-day “time-out” in the belly of that great fish, before the prophet was ready to accept the Lord God’s “second chance” to obey Him and go to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh.  Far from being hostile, however, the people and the King of Nineveh, promptly responded to God’s word as preached by His prophet, repenting in sackcloth with a fast  -- just on the outside chance that the Lord God ”might” spare them! In the second reading, Paul urges the community in Corinth, and us, to lose no time accepting the message of the Gospel because Jesus’ second coming may  occur at any time.  Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus entered Galilee and began preaching. Like John, Jesus also called for repentance.  But Jesus added the Good News that the Kingdom of God was at hand. It still is, for where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom of God. Then Jesus called on his listeners to believe in the Gospel or the Good News of God’s love, mercy and salvation. When Jesus invited Simon, Andrew, James, and John to join him and help in his preaching and healing ministry, they promptly accepted his call, for discipleship is the only complete response a believer can make to that proclamation and invitation. The two greatest aspects of discipleship in Mark are being with Jesus and sharing in his mission. Disciples are invited to be with Jesus on a great spiritual journey and to share in Jesus’ mission of proclaiming God’s Kingdom in word and deed. In describing the call of Jesus' first disciples, today's Gospel also emphasizes how we, sinners, are to respond to Him with total commitment, abandoning our accustomed attitudes and styles of life to follow Him in thought, word, and deed.  

First reading, Jonah 3:1-5 explained: The first reading shows us that we should respond promptly to God’s call for repentance.  Our passage comes from the beginning of the second part (Jonah 3-4), where Jonah finally obeyed the Lord God by preaching of repentance to the Ninevites. The call to repentance delivered by Jonah to the people of Nineveh demanded they make a radical change in their manner of living. Jesus makes the same demand of us in today’s Gospel: “Repent and believe  in the Gospel.” The Book of Jonah was written in Palestine around the 5th century BC, after the Babylonian exile. Some of the Jews were strongly nationalistic, filled with a smug sense of their superiority over all other nations. Like Jonah, they wished God would destroy the nations they perceived as His enemies.  For Jonah, the Ninevites were terrible people doing terrible things.  The city was notorious for its lack of morals and the idolatrous, decadent life-style of its inhabitants. The story of Jonah was intended to rebuke the Palestinians’ smallness of vision, and to teach them that God had care for other peoples besides themselves.  Reading (Jonah 3:1-5, 10) we have a condensed version of the “Jonah story,” which helps us keep our focus on the workings of the Lord. The Lord “calls” and “sends” Jonah to warn the Ninevites about their need to repent and reform their lives before it is too late. The Ninevites believed the Lord’s message and responded immediately in penitential fashion, thus softening their hearts to receive God’s mercy. The first two chapters describe how God responded to Jonah’s flight from His call and the mission He had assigned the prophet: He allowed him to experience a deadly storm followed by an excruciating experience in the belly of a whale.  At God’s second call to preach repentance in Nineveh, Jonah obeyed – but he was disappointed to see the ready response of that evil city to God’s message of repentance and a change of life! Jonah had not even finished the first day of his preaching journey before the people had totally turned around – doing visible penance while asking and hoping for God’s love, reconciliation and forgiveness.  Contrary to Jonah’s expectations, the pagan peoples of the city "believed in God" and "renounced their evil behavior".  But perhaps the greater change, the more radical turnabout, happened in Jonah himself.  Jonah had been an arrogant, bigoted, narrow-minded prophet.  But he finally realized that God’s love is not limited – God’s forgiveness is not to be contained – God’s offer of salvation is for all – and we’d best not thwart it.

[Lessons taught by Jonah story: Not an historic account, but a didactic fiction, i.e., a story told in order to educate, the Jonah narrative had a double lesson for the inhabitants of Judah. First, in sending the main character of the story to foreign, pagan, Nineveh, the universality of God’s saving purpose was underscored. Second, in the bigoted persona of Jonah, the parochial and nationalistic Judahites were to recognize a caricature of themselves and to accept the challenge to broaden their concerns in order to bring them into line with God’s Will. Moreover, the value and quality of spirit attributed to the Ninevites was intended to awaken in the people of Judah an attitude of respect for and acceptance of others, who were often regarded as sub-human or as animals (dogs, swine). We notice that, when Jonah preached his short message, the Ninevites believed God (v. 5). Conversion in Nineveh was effected, not by prophetic eloquence (“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed!?!”) but by God’s power. http://www.ncrpub.org)] .

Second Reading, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 explained: The second reading also urges us to be converted and to accept the “Good News’ preached by Jesus. Thinking that the end was near and the second coming of Jesus would happen soon, Paul preferred that no one get married and that slaves not try to gain their freedom (1 Cor 7:8, 17-24). But the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World makes clear that it is precisely through engagement with the concerns of the world that Jesus’ followers are to exercise their discipleship. Saint Paul had to be strict and detailed in his moral teaching to the Christians in Corinth because Corinth was a bawdy seaport with a typical seaport's set of ethics and some very bizarre philosophical ideas.  Hence, Paul spent all of chapter 7 on marriage and sexual morality.  He told the Corinthians to live in total freedom and detachment because nothing they had, whether things or personal attachments, was permanent, and everything could disappear at a moment's notice.  Whether life is very good or very bad, nothing lasts except the fundamental values of truth and love, of freedom and justice. In the end, it is who and Whose we are, not what we have that counts.  Hence, let us ask to have the freedom to follow the call of God and to be ready to go at once wherever Jesus is asking us to go.  

Gospel exegesis:  "The time is fulfilled.” The meaning of this verse hinges on the Greek word used for ‘time’: “The time is fulfilled…” There are two different words in Greek for ‘time’, and they carry very different meanings. Mark does not use the word ‘chronos’ for ‘time’ here; ‘chronos’ indicates a moment in historical time, a date on the calendar, an hour in the day…Instead, he uses the word ‘kairos’, which still means ‘time’ but is more to do with the eternal quality inherent in any given moment. So Jesus does not announce the historical moment in time when the kingdom of God came to earth. Instead, he is alerting us to the possibility of encountering the kingdom of God at any given moment in historical time, if we repent and believe.

Invitation to repentance: Some Bible scholars believe that after his baptism, Jesus became a disciple of John, preaching his message of repentance and baptizing others (see Jn 3:22). Over the course of time, Jesus began to discover a new ministry for himself. According to Mark, Jesus embarked upon it after John was arrested (Mk 1:14).It is highly likely that Jesus and the four followers he summoned here were not strangers.  Even if they had not personally met each other before this time, they were aware of each other's aspirations and objectives.  Jesus used exactly the same words John the Baptist had used:  “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”  The Greek word used “metanoeo” means to change one's mind or direction.  But Jesus must have used the Hebrew shûbh, or its Aramaic equivalent, which means to turn around 180 degrees, to reorient one’s whole attitude toward Yhwh in the face of his coming kingdom. It therefore includes within it the demand for faith. Thus, repentance means that we make a complete change of direction in our lives.  This involves a radical conversion (metanoia), a change of direction and priorities in our lives. The mark of genuine repentance is not a sense of guilt, but a sense of sorrow, of regret for having taken a wrong turn.  For Jesus, repentance is not merely saying, "I'm sorry," but also promising, “I will change my life." Real repentance means that a man has come, not only to be sorry for the consequences of his sin, but to hate sin itself.  We often think of repentance as feeling guilty, but it is really a change of mind or direction -- seeing things from a different perspective.  Once we begin to see things rightly, it might follow that we will feel bad about having seen them wrongly for so long.  But repentance starts with the new vision rather than the guilt feelings.  By true repentance we are giving up control of our lives and throwing our sinful lives on the mercy of God.  We are inviting God to do what we can't do ourselves -- namely to raise the dead -- to change and recreate us.  "Repent" is used in the present tense -- "Keep on repenting!"  "Continually be repentant!"  This means that repentance must be the ongoing life of the people in the Kingdom. 

The Kingdom of God is the theme of Jesus’ preaching. This Kingdom is any society where God’s will is done as it is done in Heaven. Hence, a person who does the will of God perfectly is already in the Kingdom of God. Being in the Kingdom offers us a new healing and freeing access to God, already to be tasted in Jesus’ own ministry. Matthew, as a devout Jew, consistently uses the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven," while Mark, writing for Gentile converts, uses the phrase "Kingdom of God," without any scruples about using God's name.  We probably shouldn't interpret the "Kingdom of God" as Heaven where God rules.   In telling us that the Kingdom has come near, Jesus is telling us that we can dwell in this Kingdom now, provided we repent or turn away from the idols that crowd our lives and do the will of God as it is done in Heaven, thus allowing God to reign in our lives.  

Believe in the “Gospel” or “Good News.”  It was preeminently “Good News” that Jesus came to bring to men.  The Good News is that God is our loving and forgiving Father and not a punishing judge, and that He wants to save us through His son Jesus.  So St. Paul calls it the Good News of truth (Gal 2:5; Col 1:5), Good News of hope (Col 1:23), , Good News of God's promise of salvation (Eph 1:13, 3:6), Good News of peace with God and man (Eph 6:1), and Good News of immortality (2Tim 1:10).  To believe in the Good News simply means to take Jesus at his word, to believe that God is the kind of God that Jesus has told us about,  and to believe that God so loves the world that He will make any sacrifice to bring us back to Himself.  To believe in the “Good News” involves a total commitment – the investing of one's whole self in God without any guarantees or preconditions. 

The call of the apostles: “The evangelists were not precise chroniclers of Jesus’ words and works. Rather each inspired writer, with his own personal talents and sources, has taken the oral tradition preserved within his community and has shaped a Gospel according to his own Christological and soteriological insights, and in keeping with the pastoral situation and concerns of his readers. For this reason, the same events, e.g., Jesus’ calling of his disciples, have been presented somewhat differently by each of the evangelists.” (http://www.ncrpub.org). Just like Matthew’s, Mark’s account of this call is very brief.  Jesus calls two pairs of brothers – Andrew and Peter, James and John – inviting them to become his disciples.  The men respond immediately, leaving their nets, their boats, and their father “in the boat along with the hired men, (1:20),” to follow Jesus. These fishermen immediately accept Jesus’ invitation to use their skills to “fish for people.” Abandoning their nets is a way of speaking of what must be left behind when one embraces radical discipleship.  Usually rabbinical students sought out their teachers and attached themselves to them.  However, Jesus, as rabbi, takes the initiative and calls some probably less-than-ideal candidates to be his students.  The disciples were simple fishermen with no great background.  In Cicero's ranking of occupations (De Off 1.150-51), owners of cultivated land appear first and fishermen last.  What Jesus needs are ordinary folk who will give Him themselves.  What Christ needs is not our ability, but our availability.  What Jesus teaches His disciples is not a course of study, but a way of life to follow.  Hence, Jesus offers these men the opportunity to observe him at close range on a daily basis.  Perhaps Peter, Andrew, James, and John fundamentally misunderstood the call and believed it to be the way out of their poverty and powerlessness. Here was a call to a new life in which they would have power and authority and would be respected by everyone as a result.  

Call to make fishers of men:     There is a similar passage in Jeremiah 16:16 – “I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them”.  In the ancient world fishing was a metaphor for two distinct activities: judgment and teaching.  “Fishing for people” meant bringing them to justice by dragging them out of their hiding places and setting them before the judge.  And “fishing” was also used of teaching people, of the process of leading them from ignorance to wisdom.  Both cases involve a radical change of environment, a break with a former way of life and entrance upon a new way of life.  We are the fish, and what God promises us, who are dragged out of the water in the nets to die, is a Resurrection, a new life, a new family, a new future, all under God's control, all within the Kingdom of Heaven, which has come near in Jesus.  We have very little control over our own lives, but as fish caught in the net of God's love, we can trust that we are under God's control.  We have to believe that being captured by God's love, that responding to the command to repent and die to self, that being raised to a new life by God, is not only right for us, but is a message we need to share with the entire world.  The disciples will be trained to do precisely what Jesus is doing right now:  proclaiming the Kingdom, recruiting people for it, and drawing them into a community that experiences God's reign. 

Life messages: 1) Let us appreciate our call to be Christ’s disciples: Every one of us is called by God, both individually and collectively.  The mission of preaching, teaching, and healing which Jesus began in Galilee is now the responsibility of the Church.  Our own unique vocation and our relationship with the risen Lord are the same as that of the universal Church.  Be we religious, priests, married or single people, we are all called, and in this call we become what God wants us to be.  The call, of course, begins with our Baptism and the other Sacraments of Initiation,  is strengthened throughout the years with the Eucharist and Reconciliation, healed and consoled by Anointing, and (for those so called), made manifest in Matrimony, or Holy Orders.  God is relentless in calling us back to Himself, even when we stray away from Him. Perhaps, God is asking us to see His hand in unexpected changes, reminding us that we are a pilgrim people who cannot be settled down into comfortable routine! Even when the changes are, apparently, not for the better, how we deal with them is what matters.

2) Let us be thankful to God for His Divine grace of calling us to be members of the true Church. Let us make personal efforts to see in her the Light of Christ and to grow in holiness, learning the truths that are revealed through the Church and receiving her Sacraments.  Let us be shining lights in the world as Christ was and make a personal effort to bring others to the truth and the light, so that they may rejoice with us in the Mystical Body of Christ, the invisible Kingdom of God. 

3) God is constantly calling each one of us to repent, to confess our sins, to do penance, and to amend our lives. I cannot receive communion if I have sinned mortally, without first confessing my sins and receiving absolution in the Sacrament of Penance (Confession) (CCC #1415). If I do receive communion while not in the state of grace, I have committed a sin of irreligion called a sacrilege which is a very serious offense against the 1st Commandment (CCC #2120). Is God calling me right now to respond to His call to repent by seeking out a priest and making a good confession?

JOKE OF THE WEEK: 1) Good News and Bad News: An old man visits his doctor and after thorough examination the doctor tells him: "I have good news and bad news; what would you like to hear first?” Patient: "Well, let me have the bad news first." Doctor: "You have cancer.  I estimate that you have about two years left."  Patient: "Oh no!  That's just awful!  In two years my life will be over!  What kind of good news could you probably tell me, after this?"  Doctor: "You also have Alzheimer's.  In about three months you are going to forget everything I told you."

2) Jonah and the whale: There was this Christian lady that had to do a lot of traveling for her business, so she did a lot of flying. But flying made her nervous so she always took her Bible along with her to read, and it helped relax her. One time she was sitting next to a man. When he saw her pull out her Bible he gave a little chuckle and went back to what he was doing.
After a while he turned to her and asked, "You don't really believe all that stuff in there do you?"
The lady replied "Of course I do! It is the Bible."
He said, "Well what about that guy that was swallowed by that whale?"
She replied "Oh, Jonah. Yes, I believe that; it is in the Bible. The Bible says Jonah was swallowed by a whale, and I believe it. And if it had said that Jonah had swallowed the whale, I would believe that too!"
He asked "Well, how do you suppose he survived all that time inside the whale?"
The lady said "Well I don't really know. I guess when I get to Heaven I will ask him." "What if he isn't in Heaven?" the man asked sarcastically.
"Then you can ask him when you reach the Hell," replied the lady. 

3) The best prayer I ever heard was: "Lord, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am." 4) A young boy wanted to go down to the lake to fish, and his mother asked him to take his little sister with him. He said, "Mom, don't make me take her with me. The last time she came with me, I didn't catch a single fish." The mother said, "I'll talk to her, and I promise this time she won't make any noise." The boy said, "Mom, it wasn't the noise. She ate all my bait!"

(Prepared by: Fr. Anthony Kadavil, Chaplain, Sacred Heart Residence (L. S. P.), 1655 McGill Ave, Mobile, AL 36604, USA)

Synopsis of  OT IV Sunday Homily on Mark 1:21-28

introduction: The common theme of today’s readings is Divine authority as exercised in this world by the prophets of the Old Testament in their messages, by the apostles (including St. Paul), in their writings and teaching in the New Testament, and by Jesus in his teaching and healing ministry.

Scripture lessons: Today’s first reading tells us that a true prophet speaks with authority because it is God Who speaks through him.  After the Babylonian exile, the Jewish priests began to interpret the words of Moses given in the first reading, namely, "a prophet like me," as referring to one individual, the expected Messiah.    This passage is chosen for today’s first reading because it refers to Jesus, the "preacher with authority," mentioned in today's Gospel. In the second reading, St. Paul exercises his God-given authority as the Apostle to the Gentiles to teach people in Corinth that marriage is a holy state ordained by God and that it is a life-long partnership according to the teaching of the Lord. In today’s Gospel, Mark describes one sample Sabbath day of Jesus’ public life.  Jesus joins in public worship in the synagogue as a practicing Jew, heals the sick, drives out evil spirits and prays privately.  People immediately noticed that Jesus spoke with authority and healed with Divine power. Jesus explained the Scriptures with complete confidence, and when questioned by people, he answered with authority.  Jesus used his real (authentic) Divine authority to teach, empower, liberate, and heal others. The evil spirit mentioned in today’s Gospel recognized Jesus as the Messiah and acknowledged him as such.  Jesus commanded the evil spirit harshly, using strong words and tones: "Be quiet! Come out of him!"  This was another reason Jesus developed a reputation for Saucony Grid 9000 Premium 3 Dots speaking with authority.

Life Messages: 1) We need to approach Jesus for liberation:  Jesus did not use his authority and Divine power to rule and control people. He came to make people free.  Hence, let us approach Jesus with trusting Faith so that he may free us from the evil spirits that keep us from praying and that prevent us from loving others and sharing our blessings with others.  Jesus also frees us from all the “evil spirits” of fear, jealousy, envy, addictions, compulsions, selfishness, anger, resentment and hostility.  May he free us from all those spirits which make us deaf, dumb, blind, lame and paralyzed, physically and spiritually.

2) We need to use our God-given authority to build up lives.  So many people with authority have made a lasting impression on our lives either for good or bad.  Perhaps it was a grandparent, an uncle, or a parent, who loved us and cared for us.  Perhaps it was a Sunday school teacher who encouraged us in our Faith and exerted a positive impact on our lives.  Perhaps we remember the kindness as well as the firm discipline that a schoolteacher gave us.  Teachers are powerful because they change and mold lives. Hence, let us all become good teachers like Jesus and use our authority to form young lives in the right way.

OT IV [B]  Dt 18:15-20; I Cor 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28

Anecdote: # 1: God sends His prophets all the time: For example, when Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, proclaimed the freedom of all the slaves in the United States, his was the voice of a prophet. When Lincoln’s contemporary, Susan B. Anthony pioneered the suffrage movement that eventually led to the passage of the 19^th Amendment (1920) and gave women the right to vote, hers was the voice of a prophet. When Pope Leo XIII delivered his encyclical entitled On the Condition of the Working Man and called upon Christians to attend to unjust labor laws and practices, his was the voice of a prophet. Similarly, when Cardinal Leo-Josef Suenens of Belgium stood up at the end of the first session of Vatican II and urged the council to examine not only the mystery of the Church in itself but also the Church’s relationship to and responsibility for the world at large, his was the voice of a prophet. Rachel Carson’s book entitled Silent Spring (1962) was prophetic in that it summoned the world to an awareness of the dangers of environmental pollution. When Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu drew the world’s attention to the dangers and injustices of apartheid, his was the voice of a prophet as were so many others in this century alone, e.g., Dorothy Day, St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa), Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Teilhard de Chardin, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino and the Latin Kd Trey 5 Iii Red American Bishops who raised their voices first at Medellin, Colombia (1968) and then at Puebla, Mexico (1979) to affirm the Church as “an instrument of liberation, an agent of social justice and a defender of the poor and the oppressed.” These prophets tried to bring the reality of the sacred into every sphere of the human experience.  In today’s liturgical readings, we are called upon to allow the prophetic messages of Moses, Paul, Mark and Jesus to penetrate our consciences and claim them for God. Moreover, we are challenged to continue to listen to the prophets among us, and to exercise the ministry of prophecy for our contemporaries in our words, works and manner of living. (Patricia Datchuck Sánchez).

# 2: Who would deny that our century is possessed of an evil spirit? Jesus' world was a demon-haunted world. Men and women in the ancient world believed in demons. Demons for them were intensely real. The first century world was one of pain and suffering. There was no relief from pain. It was a world of natural disasters that took a heavy toll on life. Disease, even the slightest illness, could be fatal. There was a high rate of infant mortality. Life expectancy was in the middle forties. Because they had no idea of the causes of natural disaster, calamity, or disease, the people associated them with demons. It is difficult for our modern world to realize the power and influence that demons had upon first century human life. But when it comes to evil and demons, is there that much difference between the first and twenty-first centuries? We cannot dismiss evil as a first century phenomenon. It operates as an active force in our world as well as in our souls. In one lifetime we have witnessed the Holocaust of World War II, the Jewish holocaust, genocide in Cambodia and in Jonestown, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, child abuse in America, Branch Davidians, the bombings at New York's Twin Towers and Oklahoma City. Boko Haram and ISIS atrocities. Who would deny that our century is possessed of an evil spirit?

# 3: Jesus taught and acted with authority: Kenneth L. Woodward, writing in Newsweek magazine, gives us a glimpse of what Christ's coming meant to the world. He Parajumpers Desert Jacket writes, "Whether we like it or not, Christ's life radically changed human culture throughout the world . . . Before Jesus came, the world was ruled by the 'might makes right' theory. But Jesus' teaching about humility and turning the other cheek redefined our views of human character, of war, of masculinity. Jesus' commitment to the poor, to women and children opened the way for civil rights and equality for women. Marriages became more equitable. Also, it was a common practice in Roman families to kill female babies. Sociologist Rodney Stark notes that evidence exists that among at least 600 ancient Roman families, less than a dozen had more than one daughter. But Christians valued the life of all people, whether male or female, and prohibited the killing of any children." (“2000 Years of Jesus," March 29, 1999, p. 55.). But the revolution is not complete. We still live in a pre-Christian world. There is still too much hatred, too much violence, too much debasement of human dignity. If you are comfortable in Jesus' presence, you simply do not see him as he really is.

#4: “Show him yer papers!” "There is an old story about some linemen who were busy putting up telephone poles through a farmer's fields. The farmer ordered them off his land, whereupon they showed him a paper giving them the right to plant poles wherever they pleased. Not long afterward a big and vicious bull charged the linemen. The old farmer sat on a nearby fence and yelled: 'Show him yer papers, darn ye, show him yer papers!'" To many Christians, Jesus' authority is only a paper authority. His word is something we study for inspiration, but we really don't believe that what Jesus teaches applies to our situation. For many of us, Jesus' authority doesn't extend to putting a marriage or a family back together. It doesn't mean curing an addiction or healing a character flaw. Maybe 2,000 years ago he had authority, but not today.

Introduction: The common theme of today’s readings is Divine authority exercised by the prophets of the Old Testament in their messages, by the apostles (including St. Paul), in their writings and teaching in the New Testament, and by Jesus in his teaching and healing ministry.

Scripture lessons summarized: Today’s first reading tells us that a true prophet speaks with authority because it is God Who speaks through him.  After the Babylonian exile, the Jewish priests began to interpret the words of Moses given in the first reading, namely, "a prophet like me," as referring to one individual, the expected Messiah.    This passage is chosen for today’s first reading because it refers to Jesus, the "preacher with authority," mentioned in today's Gospel. In the second reading, St. Paul exercises his God-given authority as the Apostle to the Gentiles to teach people in Corinth that marriage is a holy state ordained by God and that it is a life-long partnership according to the teaching of the Lord. In today’s Gospel, Mark describes one sample Sabbath day of Jesus’ public life.  Jesus joins in public worship in the synagogue as a practicing Jew, heals the sick, drives out evil spirits and prays privately.  People immediately noticed that Jesus spoke with authority and healed with Divine power. Jesus explained the Scriptures with complete confidence, and when questioned by people, he answered with authority.  Jesus used his real (authentic) Divine authority to teach, empower, liberate, and heal others. The evil spirit mentioned in today’s Gospel recognized Jesus as the Messiah and acknowledged him as such.  Jesus commanded the evil spirit harshly, using strong words and tones: "Be quiet! Come out of him!"  This was another reason Jesus developed a reputation for speaking with authority.

First reading: Deuteronomy 18:15-20, explained. Moses was about to die.  The Chosen People were terrified because they were about to lose the person who had been successfully leading them through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.  They were also going to lose a prophet who had been keeping them informed of Yahweh's will. When he died, how would they find out what God wanted of them? God answered the question by promising Moses that He would heed the people’s request and “raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and … put My words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him.” Jesus is the prophet foretold by Moses in today’s First Reading (Acts 3:22). He has authority over Heaven and earth (Daniel 7:14, 27; Revelation 12:10).  Moses had set up a theocratic society for the Israelites as he had been instructed to do by God.  This society had various officers to regulate the civil and religious life of the people, e.g., judges, kings, priests and prophets.  Today’s reading tells us that a true prophet would speak with authority because it would be God Who spoke through him.  The text was first seen as promising that there would be a line of prophets to interpret previous revelations by God and to add some new ones for each generation.  After the return from the Babylonian exile (c. 538 B. C.), the Jewish priests began to interpret this text of Deuteronomy as referring to one individual, namely the Messiah who was to come.  The New Testament followed this interpretation and saw these words of dying Moses, "a prophet like me," verified in Christ (Acts 3:22; 7:37).  These verses therefore, have been chosen for today's first reading because they refer to Jesus, the "preacher with authority," mentioned in today's Gospel.

Second reading: 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, explained.  St. Paul and most of the early Christians believed, or strongly hoped, that the end of this world and the second coming of Christ were imminent.  For this reason, many Christians in Corinth thought they should not enter into marriage, lest marriage should interfere with their whole-hearted service of God in preparation for the second coming of Jesus.  As a good Jew, Paul presumed a different set of circumstances always demanded a different prophet with a different word.  Hence, St. Paul exercised his God-given authority as the Apostle to the Gentiles to teach people that marriage is a holy state ordained by God and that it is a life-long partnership according to the teaching of the Lord (see Mt. 5:32; 19:3-9).  Further, Paul recommended a life of virginity to the non-married only if they felt they could live such a life.  The advantage of celibacy, as Paul explained, was that   celibates would have the freedom to serve God fully with the fewest earthly cares and worries.

The authority of Jesus:  Today’s Gospel passage begins and ends with comments about Jesus’ authority as a teacher (1:21-22 and 1:27-28).  He spoke like Moses, telling people directly what God had to say. In between is an exorcism (1:23-26), pointing out a connection between Jesus' teachings and his supernatural authority.  Moreover, this is the first miracle in Jesus’ ministry as Mark recounts it. The episode appears immediately following the call of the disciples.  Jesus' authority is also the main theme in the collection of stories (2:1–-3:6), which support the authority of Jesus when he teaches people about God's compassion in forgiving their sins. In his Gospel, Mark repeatedly returns to the theme that Jesus’ teaching with authority brought him followers, and Jesus’ healing with Divine power liberated people from illness and demonic possession. The Catholic and Apostolic Church derives her teaching authority from her founder Jesus.

Teaching with authority:  There was a local synagogue in every Jewish settlement of more than ten families.  The synagogue was a place of instruction and Sabbath prayers.  The synagogue service consisted of three parts –  prayer, the reading of God's word, and the exposition of it made by anyone who wished to do so. In this chapter Mark tells us that in the local synagogue Jesus taught with authority.  This means that Jesus explained the Scriptures with complete confidence, and when questioned by people he answered with authority.  Jesus spoke relying on no one beyond himself; he cited no supporting human authorities or experts.  Mark also records the impact Jesus had on those who heard him.  We are told how amazed people were at the authority with which he preached.  Jesus also showed his power and authority by curing the sick and granting forgiveness to people.

Life Messages: 1) Let us approach Jesus for liberation:  Jesus did not use his authority and Divine power to rule and control people. He came to set people free.  Hence, let us approach Jesus with trusting Faith so that he may free us from the evil spirits that keep us from praying and prevent us from loving and sharing our blessings with others, as well as from all the “evil spirits” of fear, compulsions, selfishness, anger, resentment and hostility.  "I have come that they may have life, life in abundance" (Jn 10:10). So Jesus should be a source of liberation for us.  May Jesus free us from all those spirits which make us deaf, dumb, blind, lame and paralyzed, physically and spiritually. Through Word and Sacrament, Jesus brings that power to us and says the same words to the demons in our life, "Be gone!"  -- not just once but as often as we need to hear them, until finally, we are free from these demons entirely. Christ has power over any demon, so whether those demons be addictions, heartaches, secret sins --whatever our chains may be-- Christ can set us free and longs to do so.

2) We need to use our God-given authority to build up lives.  No doubt we can think back to people who have made a lasting impression on our lives – either for good or bad.  Perhaps it was a grandparent, an uncle, or a parent, who loved us and cared for us.  Perhaps it was a Sunday school teacher who encouraged us in our faith and exerted a positive impact on our lives.  Perhaps we remember the kindness as well as the firm discipline that a schoolteacher gave us.  On the other hand, there may be people in our past whom we remember with pain and discomfort.   Are children learning something from us as parents that will stand them in good stead for the future? We want our children to grow into strong, wise, confident, capable, mature adults.  But we want more than that.  We want them to grow in their Faith, to accept Jesus as their Lord and personal Savior.  We want children to see in us the love of Jesus and how our Christian Faith affects our lives.  A good question for parents, teachers and all of us is:  "In what way am I helping the children I know grow in wonder at Jesus and his love for them?” When God's Word and God's ways are taught and spoken about with authority – with conviction – our children (and others) will see with amazement God's love for them in His Son Jesus.

3) We need teachers who know how to use their authority properly: Teachers are powerful because they change lives. They have within their grasp the power over young lives to hurt them terribly or heal them wonderfully. Most of us are deeply and forever indebted to some caring teacher in our past. Some people never get over the damage done to them by some cruel or uncaring teacher. So today, when we hear that Jesus entered the synagogue at Capernaum and began to teach, we need to take note: Jesus was a teacher. They never called him “Reverend,” or “Father,” or “Priest.” They called him “Rabbi,” which means “teacher.” Let us all become good teachers and use our authority to form young lives in the right way.

JOKES OF THE WEEK: 1) Authority to forgive sins: A dirty and drunken wino who was passing a Catholic Church one day, noticed a sign on the door that said:  "Confessions Being Heard."    Since he had not been to confession for a long time, he staggered into the church, knelt down in the confessional and began to confess his sins.  Unfortunately, his breath was so foul that the priest who was hearing confessions couldn't stand it and decided to cut things short.  "Look," he said to the wino.  "Have you murdered anybody lately?" "Nope," the wino replied. "O.K. then," the priest told him.  "I am going to say the prayer of absolution.”  Slightly puzzled, the wino staggered out of the confessional and as he was walking down the steps of the church steps, saw a fellow wino who was going into the church.  "You going to confession?"  The first wino asked. "Yep," said the second wino. "Don't waste your time," the first wino said.  "He ain't hearing nothing today except murder cases."

2) Whose authority? Jesus’ or your denomination’s? I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.  So I ran over and said, "Stop!  Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for." "Like what?" "Well, are you religious?" "Yes." "Me too!  Are you Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist?" "Christian." "Me, too!  Are you Catholic or Protestant?" "Protestant." "Me, too!  Are you Episcopalian or Baptist? ”Baptist." "Wow, me, too!  Are you Church of God or Church of the Christ?" "Church of God!" "Me, too!  Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" "Me, too!  Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic," and pushed him off.

3) You may have heard about the preacher who asked one elderly lady how it was with her soul. "Oh," she replied, "the old devil has been giving me a rough time." Immediately her husband protested. "Now hold on," he said, "she's not too easy to live with herself."

4) The new nurse asked the psychiatric doctor, "Is that man really sick?" "He surely is," answered the doctor gravely. "I don't know of a more serious set of complications. For forty years he has suffered agonies from imaginitis, scarecoma, apprehendicitis, and general fearosis of living!"

SYNOPSIS: OT XIX [B] (AUGUST 9) HOMILY ON JOHN 6:41-51 (L/15)

Introduction: We are living in a world where people of all races and creeds hunger more for spiritual sustenance than for physical food. In response to the spiritual hunger of people in his own day, Jesus proclaims himself to be “the Bread of Life that came down from Heaven." Scripture lessons: The first reading describes the physical and spiritual hungers experienced by the prophet Elijah. The Bread of Life Jesus speaks about is prefigured in this reading by the miraculous food with which the angel nourished the Prophet Elijah in the desert while he was fleeing from the soldiers of Queen Jezebel. After being nourished by the Lord, Elijah was strengthened for the long journey of forty days to Mount Horeb where God instructed him to continue his prophetic work.

The second reading presents Christ Jesus, the “Bread of Life,” as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that, instead of seeking satisfaction in anger, slander, bitterness and malice, they are to nourish one another with compassion, kindness and mutual forgiveness.

Today’s Gospel describes Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum on his return there after his miraculous feeding of the five thousand. During the discourse, Jesus reveals himself as the true “Bread of Life that came down from Heaven,” to give life to the world. Jesus proclaims himself as the new and perfect manna, the Incarnate Son of God literally "come down from Heaven." This means that the Holy Eucharist actually gives us a share of eternal life while we are still on earth. But some of Jesus' followers turned away when he explained the source of his mysterious power and his Heavenly origin.

Life messages: 1) Let us accept the challenge to become bread and drink for others: "You are what you eat?" Let us recognize that Jesus whom we consume in the Holy Eucharist is actually God Who assimilates us into His being. Then, from Sunday to Saturday we will grow into Jesus, as Jesus grows in us, our lives will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we will become more like Jesus. Thus, we shall share in the joyous and challenging life of being the Body of Christ for the world – Bread for a hungry world, and Drink for those who thirst for justice, peace, fullness of life, and even eternal life. In other words, the Eucharist challenges us to sacrifice ourselves for others, as Christ has done for all of us. # 2: Let us appreciate Christ’s presence in the Holy Eucharist: Since the Holy Eucharist is "the Body and Blood, together with the soul and Divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” the Sacrament a) increases our intimate union with Christ; b) preserves, increases, and renews the Sanctifying Grace we received at Baptism; c) cleanses us of past sin and preserves us from future sins; d) strengthens the theological virtue of Charity in us, thus enabling us to be separated from our disordered attachments and to be rooted in Christ; and e) unites us more deeply with the mystery of the Church. OT XIX [B] (August 2) I Kings 19:4-8, Ephesians 4:30--5:2, Jn 6:41-51 Anecdotes: # 1: Marching caterpillars: You may know the famous story of Jean Henri Fabre, the French naturalist, and his processional caterpillars. He encountered some of these interesting creatures one day while walking in the woods. They were marching in a long unbroken line front to back, front to back. What would happen if he made a complete ring with these worms? Would they break their circle or not? So, Fabre captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot. He linked them nose to posterior and started them walking in the closed circle. For days they turned like a perpetual merry-go-round. Although food was near at hand and accessible, the caterpillars starved to death on an endless march to nowhere. That seems to be the story of many people today. They are on a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for a moment, and sit down in the presence of Jesus and receive him as the Bread of our spiritual life. # 2: Starving to death in the midst of plenty of food: During the winter of 1610, the population of British immigrants to Jamestown, in the U.S. (the Pilgrims) went from about 500 people to about 60. While disease and American-Indians took some lives, most of the settlers simply starved. There were plentiful supplies of fish, oysters, frogs, fowl, and deer all around them. But these settlers from the city were not accustomed to obtaining food from the land. Hence, they starved! [Cullen, Joseph P. "James' Towne," American History Illustrated (October, 1972).] We sometimes act the same way. God comes to us continually in the Person of the Holy Spirit to guide us. As a loving Father, God awaits the opportunity to meet our needs, but we are not accustomed to receiving things from His loving hand. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises to give us spiritual food. It is up to us to receive the Heavenly Bread. # 3: He died arguing with them that the canisters were empty. John Krakauer wrote a book entitled Into Thin Air, the story of an expedition to Mount Everest during the spring of 1996 which resulted in a great loss of life. One of the most unfortunate stories was about a young man named Andy Harris, who was one of the expedition leaders. He had stayed at the peak past the deadline that the leaders themselves had set, and as he was coming down, he was in dire need of oxygen. He radioed his problem to the base camp telling them what he needed and told them that he had come upon a cache of oxygen canisters left by some of the other climbers, but they were all empty. The problem was they were not empty - they were absolutely full, but because his brain was already so starved for oxygen and he wasn't thinking clearly, he died arguing with them that the canisters were empty when in reality they were full. The problem was that the lack of what he needed so disoriented his thinking that, even though he was literally surrounded by what he needed, he never took advantage of it. The very life that he needed he held in his hand. He just didn't take it. What oxygen is to the body the Bread of Life is to the soul. Without that Bread, we will never satisfy our real spiritual hunger which is why every day we need to feed on the Bread of the word of God. Introduction: We are living in a world where people of all races and creeds hunger more for spiritual sustenance than for physical food. In response to the spiritual hunger of people in his own day, Jesus, in today’s Gospel passage from John 6, proclaims himself to be “the Bread of Life that came down from heaven.” It is through Jesus, the bread of life, that we have access to the Divine life during our earthly pilgrimage to God. The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John which contains Jesus' teaching on the Eucharist begins with Jesus’ miraculous feeding of his five thousand hungry listeners in a deserted place to satisfy their bodily hunger. Today’s Gospel describes Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum on his return there after his miraculous feeding of the five thousand. During the discourse, Jesus reveals himself as the true “Bread of Life that came down from Heaven,” to give life to the world. "Manna" was God’s gift rained down "from Heaven" upon the Israelites to prolong their earthly life. Jesus proclaims himself as the new and perfect manna, as the Incarnate Son of God, literally "come down from Heaven." This means that the Bread we consume in the Eucharist is more than just a guarantee that one day we'll have eternal life. It actually gives us a share of that eternal life while we are still on earth. But some of those who had just witnessed Jesus’ ability to supply them with earthly food turned away when he explained the source of his mysterious power and his Heavenly origin. The first reading describes the physical and spiritual hungers experienced by the prophet Elijah. In this reading, the Bread of Life Jesus speaks about is prefigured by the miraculous food with which the angel nourished the Prophet Elijah in the desert while he was fleeing from the soldiers of Queen Jezebel. After being nourished by the Lord, Elijah was strengthened for the long journey of forty days to Mount Horeb where God had given Moses the Ten Commandments. The second reading presents Christ Jesus, the “Bread of Life,” as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that, instead of seeking satisfaction in anger, slander, bitterness and malice, they are to nourish one another with compassion, kindness and mutual forgiveness. It is Faith that strengthens us to live in this way, doing the right thing in our relationships with others, in a world filled with terror and violence and in a Church marked by betrayal and disillusionment. First reading, 1 Kings 19:4-8: King Ahab of Israel married a pagan queen, Jezebel, who imported pagan worship into Israel. The prophet Elijah challenged 450 of the pagan god Baal’s prophets, defeated them in a public sacrifice-contest and killed all of them. The furious Queen Jezebel sent soldiers to kill the prophet. Today’s first reading expresses Elijah’s discouragement and frustration as he fled for his life. Collapsed in the only available shade, Elijah fell into a sleep of exhaustion while awaiting release through a speedy death. God heard His prophet’s prayer and sent an angel to feed him and strengthen him in his flight. The miraculous food provided by God sustained him through a 40-day pilgrimage to Horeb (Mount Sinai), where Elijah would be commissioned again as God’s prophet to carry on the struggle and to anoint his successor. Like Elijah, all of us learn to recognize our weakness and frailty, and are able to experience God’s empowering grace which is capable of transforming our powerlessness and discouragement. The lectionary compares God’s strengthening of his prophet by the miraculously-provided food with His strengthening of us in our pilgrimage to Heaven by the Bread from Heaven, namely, the Holy Eucharist.

Second Reading, Ephesians 4:30-5:2: The second reading contains St. Paul’s practical advice for peaceful, communal Christian living among former enemies, namely, the now-converted Jews and the converted Gentiles. Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that their discipleship must be guided by the virtues of compassion and forgiveness, avoiding “bitterness, fury, shouting and reviling which would grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” That is how they should offer their lives as sacrifices pleasing to God, just as Jesus, “the Bread from Heaven,” offered himself as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” It is Faith that strengthens us to live this way, doing the right thing in our relationships with others, in a world filled with terror and violence and in a Church marked by betrayal and disillusionment. Exegesis: Jesus’ unique claims: Jesus makes a series of unique claims in today’s gospel passage: 1) “I am the Living Bread that came down from Heaven.” 2)”I am the Bread of Life.” 3) “The Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.” 4)“No one can come to me unless the Father Who sent me draw him.” 5)“I will raise him on the last day.” 6) “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God.” In short, Christ Jesus reveals himself as God and as the “Bread of Life from Heaven,” sent by the Father for our salvation.

Jesus’ claims challenged: Jesus’ Jewish listeners could hardly contain themselves when Jesus claimed to be the "Bread of Life" (v. 35) who "came down from Heaven" (v. 38). They thought they knew his father and mother (v. 42), and saw him as just another hometown boy – a carpenter by profession without any formal training in Mosaic Laws and Jewish Scriptures. They could remember when he had moved from Nazareth to Capernaum with a band of unknown disciples, mostly fishermen. Hence, they came to the natural conclusion: “either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse" (C. S. Lewis).

The complaint launched: In today's portion of the lengthy Bread of Life discourse (49 of Chapter Six's 71 verses), John re-emphasizes the similarities and contrasts between the old "manna in the wilderness" experience and this new notion of a “Bread of Life” that is directly tied to Jesus. In verse 41, John’s noting of the Jewish identity of the "complaining" crowd recalls for us their own unique history. Those listening to Jesus began to "murmur" against Jesus and his gifts of Heavenly Bread even as the ancient Israelites began to "murmur" or "complain" against Moses -- first out of hunger (Exodus 16:2,7,12), then against the monotony of the manna diet (Numbers 11:4-6). Like the Israelites, we, too, complain when God fails to meet our expectations.

Jesus’ response: Jesus knew that the Jews were upset about his explanation that the multiplication of bread and fish signified that he himself was the Heavenly Bread that gives eternal Life. Jesus challenged the Jews to take a journey of Faith by seeing him, not as the son of Joseph, but as the one who came down from Heaven. Saying, "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me ..." Jesus told his listeners, and tells us, that everyone who has become his follower has done so because God the Father has called him or her to Jesus. It is an act of God that has brought us to follow the way of Jesus. Faith is a gift. To follow Jesus is to live by Faith; to believe means to make those necessary changes to one's lifestyle that being a believer demands. Then Jesus offered the ultimate reassurance to every one of us who believes: "I will raise him up on the last day" (cf. vv.39, 40, 44, 54). This persistent theme serves to remind the reader/listener that only Jesus, the true Bread of Life, can impart the gift of eternal Life to the faithful. Faith in practice: "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me." Here Jesus clarifies that listening to God, and learning from God are key factors in our seeking Jesus and in our growing into strong believers and faithful servants of Jesus. The Good News is that God is willing to be present in our midst and to teach us. Jesus asserts this point quoting Scripture, "And they shall be taught by God." The Holy Eucharist foreshadowed: Jesus’ dialogue with the Jews no longer deals with manna, but with his very person: the revealer who brings us God's salvation. Although John’s Chapter 6 has no direct reference to the Holy Eucharist, Jesus’ words remind us of the centrality of the Eucharist as the primary source of our spiritual nourishment. Jesus knows quite well that we need both spiritual and physical food for life’s journey. He offers both to us. Thus, the meal that we share at the Eucharistic table provides the food for this journey (“viaticum”). Furthermore, He tells us that this Bread from Heaven is His Flesh, given for the life of the world. The Jews, as well as Jesus’ disciples, understood that he was speaking literally when he said that His Body was food. This statement appeared to some as outrageous and impossible. Jesus, however, insisted that His words must be accepted literally, and that His Father would draw men to accept them.

The bread from heaven is also the word of God: In the Bible, bread appears several times as an image of wisdom, or Divine revelation: Isaiah says "You who have no money, come, receive bread and eat" (55:1-3); Proverbs invites everyone, "Come, eat of my bread"(9:1-6), and Sirach says, "Whoever fears the Lord and holds to the law will obtain wisdom... She will feed him with the bread of learning."(15:1-3). This should make a lot of sense to us, because we read books and watch movies and television to learn about life (hopefully) and to increase our knowledge. In the same way, we need to read, reflect and pray over the Word of God privately so that it can nourish our souls and be our true "soul food".

Life messages: 1) We need to eat the living bread from Heaven and be one with Jesus: Jesus wants us to eat him because he IS Bread. "You are what you eat?" Jesus is Bread and he wants us to eat his Flesh. Thus, we bring him into the core of our being. He is ready to come into our lives, regardless of who we have been, or how unqualified we feel. Let us live the life of Faith ... making changes so that he becomes the staple food of our spiritual life, not a side dish. Let us be people who recognize that Jesus, whom we consume, is actually God Who assimilates us into His being. Then, from Sunday to Saturday we will grow into Jesus, as he grows in us, our lives will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we will become more like him. Thus, we shall share in the joyous and challenging life of being the Body of Christ for the world – Bread for a hungry world, and Drink for those who thirst for justice, peace, fullness of life, and even eternal life. # 2: We need to accept the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist as an inspiring challenge. Based on sound tradition and the centuries-long teaching of the Magisterium, the Roman Catholic Church has consistently held fast to the belief in the Real Presence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the other sacraments as the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all sacraments tend." In this most blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist "the Body and Blood, together with the soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ, is truly, really, and substantially contained" (CCC #1374). The Fathers of the Church explain that, while ordinary food is assimilated into man, the very opposite takes place in Holy Communion. Here man is assimilated into the Bread of Life. Hence, let us learn to receive Jesus, really present in the Eucharist, with due reverence, true repentance, proper preparation and grateful hearts. Let us remember that Holy Communion a) increases our intimate union with Christ; b) preserves, increases, and renews the Sanctifying Grace received at Baptism; c) cleanses us from past sin and preserves us from future sins; d) strengthens the theological virtue of Charity, thus enabling us to be separated from our disordered attachments and to be rooted in Christ; and e) unites us more deeply to the mystery of the Church. 3) We need to appreciate God’s love for us expressed in the Holy Eucharist. Pope John Paul II taught: “The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Presence of Christ, who gives himself to us because he loves us. He loves each one of us in a unique and personal way in our practical daily lives: in our families, among our friends, at study and work, in rest and relaxation. He loves us when he fills our days with freshness, and also when, in times of suffering, he allows trials to weigh upon us: even in the most severe trials, he lets us hear his voice. To celebrate the Eucharist, ‘to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood,’ means to accept the wisdom of the Cross and the path of service. It means that we signal our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for others, as Christ has done” Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (Holy Thursday, April 17, 2003). 4) We are participating in Christ in the Eucharistic celebration: The "Sacrifice of the Altar" is our participation in the entirety of Christ – his life, his ministry, his crucifixion and death for our sins, his Resurrection, and his Ascension to Heaven. We unite with him by offering our lives to him so that he ministers to the world through us. We sacrifice our will when and where it interferes with his, which results in our being raised up to new life as we follow Christ to Heaven. Every Catholic Mass accomplishes this by providing us with our Savior's Body and Blood, crucified and Risen, here and now, in the form of edible food. As Pope St. John Paul II pointed out in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, "The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic banquet of Mass is 'the source and summit of the Christian life'." Jokes of the week: # 1: Pastor’s bread of life: President Woodrow Wilson’s father was a preacher who eked out a meager living. One day, when he was riding his horse, he stopped to chat with a member of his parish. “That’s a handsome looking animal you have there,” said the latter admiringly. “But why is that your horse is so big and strong and you are so thin?” “Perhaps,” replied Wilson, “it is because I feed the horse and the congregation feeds me.” #: 2: “I am going to be a preacher:” After his return from church one Sunday a small boy said, "You know what, Mommy? I'm going to be a preacher when I grow up." "That's fine," said his mother, "but what made you decide to be a preacher?" "Well," said the boy thoughtfully. "Since I have to go to Church every Sunday anyway, I think it would be more fun to stand up and yell than to sit still and listen." # 3: Pope Franicis’ jokes: 1) VIPTdtEvr40?rel=0 2) ?v=lzGBhewlOEU USEFUL WEBSITES 1) Faith Magazine: 2) The Daily Motivator: 3) Vatican on Michael Voris’ views: ?v=kTZlHLtkPc8

Introduction: Today’s readings challenge us to avoid Job’s pessimistic and desperate view of life as a chain of pain and sufferings and to accept life with hope and optimism as a precious gift from God, using it to do good for others and spending our time, talents and lives for others as Jesus did and as St. Paul did.

 Scripture lessons: While the Gospel presents Jesus enthusiastically living out his Sabbath day of preaching and healing ministry, the first reading details Job’s frustrations in striking contrast: Job complains of the tedium and futility of life and the miseries of human existence. But eventually, his eyes opened by God,  Job surrenders himself, his suffering, his work and everything he had had and lost to God’s greater wisdom (Job 42:1-6).  Job’s miseries also marked the condition of the people who came to Jesus for healing. Jesus overturns the human condition, bringing hope and healing -- then and now. The second reading reveals Paul to us as a true, dynamic follower of Jesus, moved as Jesus was by concern for the lost which led him to preach the Gospel without cost to the people, and to serve them as their slave with Jesus’ love and fidelity. Pointing out the spontaneous response of Peter’s mother-in-law after she had been healed by Jesus, today’s Gospel teaches us that true discipleship means giving selfless, loving service to others. Mark shows us a typical Sabbath day in Jesus’ ministry: taking part in the synagogue worship, teaching with authority, exorcising a demon, healing Simon’s mother-in-law and, after sundown, curing “many who were sick with various diseases, and [driving] out many demons” – a full day and evening of selfless ministry. Yet, Jesus rises early the next morning and goes off "to a deserted place" to pray, in order to assess his work before God his Father and to recharge his spiritual batteries.  

Life messages: 1) We need to be instruments for Jesus’ healing work.  Bringing healing and wholeness is Jesus’ ministry even today.  We all need healing for our minds, our memories, and our broken relationships, and now Jesus is also using counselors, doctors, friends, or even strangers in his healing ministry.    Let us ask for the ordinary healing we need in our own lives.  When we are healed, let us not forget to thank Jesus for his goodness, mercy, and compassion by turning to serve others.  Our own healing process is completed only when we are ready to help others in their needs and to focus on things outside ourselves.  Let us also be instruments for Jesus’ healing by visiting the sick and praying for their healing.  But let us remember that we need the Lord’s strength not only to make ourselves and others well, but to make us and others whole.  2) We need to live for others as Jesus did: Jesus was a man for others, sharing what he had with others.  In his life there was time for prayer, time for healing, and time for reconciliation.  Let us take up this challenge by sharing love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness with others.  Instead of considering life as dull and pointless, let us live our lives as Jesus did, full of dynamism and zeal for the glory of God.

OT V [B] (Feb 7) Jb 7:1-4, 6-7; I Cor 9:16-19, 22-23; Mk 1:29-39 

Homily starter anecdotes: # 1: “A Million Little Pieces:” This controversial best seller (which was later proved to be a “fake-memoir” of the recovering addict hero, James Frey), begins with a challenging anecdote as its preface: The Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel. “I broke something, Old Man.”  “How badly is it broken?” “Into a million little pieces.”  “I’m afraid I can’t help you.” “Why not?”  “There is nothing I can do.” “Why can’t it be fixed?” “Because it’s broken beyond repair.  It’s in a million little pieces.” Doesn't that sound like what Job says in chapter 7: 1-4, 6-7 in today’s first reading when his life was broken into a million little pieces?  But today’s Gospel (Mark 1:29-39), gives us the assurance and proof that nothing in our lives is beyond repair for Jesus, the healing Savior. Fr. Tony (http://frtonyshomilies.com/).

# 2: Stop blaming others and start doing good: There is an old and funny little anecdote that goes something like this. An elderly man who was quite ill said to his wife, "You know, Sarah, you’ve always been with me – through the good and the bad.  Like the time I lost my job – you were right there by my side.  And when the war came, and I enlisted – you became a nurse so that you could be with me.  Then I was wounded, and you were there, Sarah, right by my side.  Then the Depression hit, and we had nothing – but you were there with me.  And now here I am, sick as a dog, and, as always, you’re right beside me.  You know something, Sarah -- you’re a jinx! You always bring me bad luck!” There is a part of us that is tempted to look for somebody else to blame for all the things that go wrong in our lives.  More often than not, we blame the very people we once looked up to for an answer.  Today’s first reading from the book of Job is a futile attempt to answer the perennial question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The Gospel shows us how Jesus spent himself in alleviating the pain and suffering around Galilee by his preaching and healing ministry rather than by pondering on universal solutions for the problem of worldwide evil. Fr. Tony (http://frtonyshomilies.com/). 

# 3 Experience the healing touch of God.  Most of us are familiar with Lourdes, the Catholic shrine in southern France built at the place where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a young girl, St. Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858.  Pilgrims today continue to throng to our Blessed Mother’s shrine, hoping to be cured of their ailments.  Over the decades, thousands have left behind their crutches and braces as silent witnesses to the Lord’s power to make them well. This sort of thing is, of course, nothing new.  Sites of holy apparitions and miraculous healings ranging from Lourdes (France), Fatima (Portugal), Guadalupe (Mexico) and Medjugorje (Yugoslavia; [not yet authenticated by the Church]), to the holy sites in our own land, have drawn pilgrims from all countries throughout the ages. These seekers have made their way to sacred temples, grottoes, and hillsides in the hope of finding healing and strength. Some dismiss such journeys of Faith as childish piety, inappropriate in an age of therapeutic advances such as our own.  But healing is an essential element of the Gospel message.  Surely, Jesus, whose Sabbath day of preaching and healing ministry is described in today’s Gospel, will not disappoint us today when we are assembled around the altar seeking his power, healing, and favor in our own lives. Fr. Tony (http://frtonyshomilies.com/). 

Introduction: The readings today challenge us to go courageously beyond people’s expectations by doing good as Jesus did, instead of brooding over all the pain and suffering in the world that we cannot end. They invite us to explore the importance of work in our lives and to learn a lesson about work and its motives from Job, Paul, and Jesus.  While the Gospel presents Jesus enthusiastically living out his Sabbath day of missionary work, the first reading details Job’s attitude in striking contrast: in the midst of his long suffering, Job speaks of the tedium and futility of life, and he describe the miseries of human existence. Eventually, Job arrived at a place in his life where, in trust and in Faith, he finally surrendered himself, his undeserved  but essential suffering, his work, and everything he had had and lost to the greater wisdom of God (Job 42:1-6). The second reading, on the other hand, reveals Paul as a true and dynamic follower of Jesus, ready to do something extra for his Lord. Paul’s conviction about the Good News and his commitment to Christ were so intense that preaching the Gospel had become a compulsion for him. Knowing that he had been called to do more than just “preach” the Gospel, he resolved to preach it without recompense.  Pointing out the spontaneous response of Peter’s mother-in-law after she had been healed by Jesus – “…the fever left her and she waited on them” (Mark 1:31)"-- today’s Gospel teaches us that true discipleship means getting involved in giving selfless service to others. Jesus’ first day of public ministry at Capernaum was a Sabbath day.  During the day, he had taken part in the synagogue worship, taught with authority, exorcised a demon and healed Simon’s mother-in-law.  After all that, when the sun had set, he “cured many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons.” Thus, Jesus spent himself and most of his time ministering to the needs of others, bringing healing, forgiveness, and a new beginning to many. Yet, he was well aware that even the most important work had to be continually refueled and evaluated before God his Father.  Hence, Jesus rose very early the next morning and went off "to a deserted place" to pray in order to assess his work for his Father’s glory and to recharge his spiritual batteries.  

First Reading, Job 7:1-4, 6-7 explained: The book of Job is a long didactic poem intended to refute the ancient Jewish belief that God rewards the good and punishes the wicked in this life. The book describes God’s permitting Satan to test the commitment of His servant Job.  A prosperous and God-fearing man, Job suddenly experienced the successive, catastrophic losses of wealth, family, and health. The only explanation the author offers for God’s permitting the innocent Job to suffer these losses is that He had allowed Satan to test Job’s trusting commitment and fidelity to God, even under extreme pressure, and Job had passed the tests. Only in the light of Christ's sufferings and cruel execution, can we see the value of suffering in this life.   Job’s detailed account of the miseries of human existence contrasts with Jesus’ work of healing as described in the Gospel.  Job’s account claims that the entire human condition is sad and hopeless, and he compares  himself to a farm laborer who is  forced to do degrading work for wages that barely keep him alive and who yearns for relief from the scorching sun.  There is no peace, Job says, even in sleep!  Instead, there is only a restless expectation of a return to toil at dawn.  But continued suffering, monotony, and isolation make Job aware of the emptiness of life without God and the hope of ultimate union with God.  We learn from this reading that God listens to every human cry, even to the anger and dismay of the lament. We also learn that there is no struggle so great, no suffering so intense that it cannot be surrendered with confidence into God’s capable, powerful hands.

Of course, Job is right.  Left to our own resources, we cannot escape the ultimate meaninglessness of life.  Fleeting joys are obliterated by suffering and inevitable death.  We are reassured by Faith, however that God gives life a purpose.  He permits pain to serve His saving will and to teach us appreciate His gift of Life to the full.  The Good News we proclaim is that, through the death and Resurrection of Jesus, God has joined us to Himself, now and forever.  Job eventually realizes that those who choose to give themselves to God will find that life has meaning.  Modern psychology teaches us that it is only our totally free actions that bring us real fulfillment in life.  If our life is filled with drudgery and our days are without hope, it may be because we have never dared go beyond the security of other people's approval and acceptance.  Jesus shows us that we can reach perfection only by allowing the risk of suffering into our lives, and submitting ourselves to God’ Wisdom and His loving Will in all things.

Second Reading, 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23 explained: Corinth was a center of philosophical and religious ferment, filled with new and bizarre ideas.  There were many in Corinth who considered Christianity to be merely one of many cults, this one initiated by a Jewish teacher named Jesus of Nazareth.  They also knew that Paul was a former persecutor of Christians. So, in Chapter Nine of this letter Paul explained his authorization to preach the Good News of Jesus to the Corinthians.  He exercised his authority modestly, making himself "a slave to all" and affirming that he had “no reason to boast.”  His preaching ministry went beyond what Jesus demanded.  First, Paul made no use of his Gospel-given right to accept support from the community.  He gave up rights and privileges, which he had the right to claim, in order to give himself fully to the spreading of the Gospel.  He was determined to be seen as free from any desire for personal praise or gain. Paul emphasized that giving up his legitimate rights for the sake of a higher ideal gave him true freedom.  He could remain respectful of others but never patronizing.  Like Jeremiah, Paul saw his preaching not merely as a job but as a Divine commission, a vocation. He also knew that, by accepting poverty for the Gospel’s sake, he also had a share in the blessing of the Gospel.  Paul thus encouraged his Corinthian converts to be ready always to forgo their own rights when the spiritual welfare of a neighbor was at stake.  Paul’s freedom to serve was rooted in the free choices he had made as a preacher of the Gospel.  The purpose of his ministry was not to gain personal profit, but to draw people closer to God.

Gospel exegesis:  Unrestricted preaching and healing ministry of Jesus: Capernaum was a small port town located on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, mostly serving fisherman and the fishing industry.  The Sea of Galilee (or the Lake of Tiberius, or the Lake of Gennesaret), is a freshwater lake, 13 miles long at its longest, and 8 miles wide at its widest, with a maximum depth of one  hundred fifty feet. It is surrounded by small mountains.  In the section of Mark's Gospel, we read for today, we find the description of a typical Sabbath day in the ministry of Jesus.  Having attended the synagogue service, Jesus exorcised a demon and ended the fever of Simon’s mother-in-law.  After sundown of that same day, he "cured many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons."  Whether the people whom Jesus healed were really possessed by the devil or not, they were mentally disturbed, and they were fully healed. Jesus worked miracles as signs that God’s healing love was at work in the world, and Divine validation of Jesus’ authority to preach. His disciples were excited at seeing their Master becoming a local hero and attracting huge crowds, as John the Baptist had done.  They felt that this would increase their reputation and prosperity.  So, when they found Jesus the next day, very early in the morning, at prayer in a deserted place, they suggested that he return to the place where he had been so successful.  Jesus’ answer, "Let us move on to the neighboring villages, so that I may proclaim the Good News there also; for this purpose, have I come!” told them that Jesus’ mission had an entirely different objective from the one they had expected. 

Jesus priority was His obedience to His Heavenly Father. In his preaching and teaching, therefore, Jesus’ only interest was to reach the people who flocked to listen to His preaching and teaching of the Truth, the Word of God and, so, to bring them to conversion. For Jesus, that was “success, -- not gaining popularity or winning the  patronage of the religious or political power-holders.  He came to the world to minister to the needs of the shepherdless sheep of the Lord God’s Flock, Israel,  by bringing them and all peoples spiritual salvation and blessing .  That is why, for the remaining two years of his life, Jesus went from town to town preaching the Kingdom of God.  Traveling to neighboring villages and throughout the whole of Galilee (and beyond), Jesus remained continually on the move so that everyone could benefit from his saving words and works. He used his energies to bring healing and wholeness into the lives of the people.  Jesus' purpose was to love, to teach, to serve, and to give them Life by sharing their lives.  Since nobody can be saved who has not first believed (Mark 16:16), it is the first task of priests, as co-workers of the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, to preach the Gospel of God to all men (2 Cor 11:7). In the Church of God, all of us should listen devoutly to the preaching of the Gospel, and we all should feel a responsibility to spread the Gospel by our words and actions.  It is the responsibility of the hierarchy of the Church to teach the Gospel authentically--on the authority of Christ.  By leaving the relative safety and security of Capernaum and going to other towns and villages in obedience to His Father’s mandate,  Jesus risked opposition and even death.  It is precisely by going beyond what people expected of him that Jesus accomplished his saving mission.  If we, as Christ’s disciples, are tempted to use only a part of our gifts in serving Him in our brothers and sisters, we may hesitate to take risks for Christ, lest this creates problems for us.  Jesus shows us that we reach perfection only by allowing the element of risk into our obedient, surrendered lives.

Jesus recharged his spiritual batteries every day: Jesus was convinced that if he were going to spend himself for others by his preaching and healing ministry, he would repeatedly have to summon spiritual reinforcements.  He knew that he could not live without prayer, because his teaching and healing ministry drained him of power. For example, after describing how the woman who had touched Jesus’ garment was instantly healed, Mark remarks: “Jesus knew that power had gone out of him” (5:30).  The “deserted place” to which Jesus went to pray was not actually a desert. Rather, it was a place where he he could be free from distractions -- a place where he could give himself unreservedly to prayer.  He went there, not so much to escape the pressures of life, as to refresh himself for further service. Jesus' prayer is a prayer of perfect praise and thanksgiving to the Father; it is a prayer of petition for himself and for us; and it also a model for the prayer of His disciples. Our daily activities also drain us of our spiritual power and vitality.  Our mission of bearing witness to God requires spiritual energy which comes to us through daily anointing by the Holy Spirit.  Hence, we, too, need to be recharged spiritually and rejuvenated every day by prayer – listening to God and talking to Him. 

Life messages: 1) We need to be instruments for the exercise of Jesus’ healing power.  Bringing healing and wholeness is Jesus’ ministry even today. He continues it through the Church and through the Christians. In the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, the Church prays for spiritual and physical healing, forgiveness of sins, and comfort for those who are suffering from illness. We all need the healing of our minds, our memories,  and our broken relationships.  Jesus now uses counselors, doctors, friends, or even strangers in his healing ministry.   Let us look at today's Gospel and identify with the mother-in-law of Peter.  Let us ask for the ordinary healing we need in our own lives.  When we are healed, let us not forget to thank Jesus for his goodness, mercy, and compassion toward us by our own turning to serve others.  Our own healing process is completed only when we are ready to help others in their needs and to focus on things outside ourselves. The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes 7:39 instructs us: “Be not slow to visit the sick; because by these things you shall be confirmed in love.”  Let us also be instruments for the exercise of Jesus’ healing power by visiting the sick and praying for their healing. But let us remember that we need the Lord’s strength, not only to make ourselves and others well, but to make ourselves and others whole.   

2) We need to live for others as Jesus did: Jesus the son of God was a man for others, sharing  who he was and what he had with others.  In his life there was time for prayer, time for healing, time for rest, and time for reconciliation.  Let us take up this challenge by sharing love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness with others.  Instead of considering life as dull and boring let us live our lives as Jesus did, full of dynamism and zeal for the glory of God.

JOKES OF THE WEEK: 1) Humor in our healing ministry: “Laugh and the world laughs with you.”  “Laughter is music of the spheres, language of the gods.”  And it's fine medicine.  Laughter exercises the face, shoulders, diaphragm, and abdomen.  The breathing deepens, the heart rate rises, and the blood is more oxygenated.  Endorphins are released, pain thresholds are raised, and some studies suggest that even immune systems are boosted.  Norman Cousins, in Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, tried laughter therapy, and found that ten minutes of hearty laughter could give him two hours of pain-free sleep. When you laugh, others laugh too.  Laughter is a contagious, highly effective, totally organic medicine.  It has no side effects, and no one is allergic to it.  Did you have your dose of laughter today?  Jesus may have burst into hearty laughter when he watched Zacchaeus climb down from the sycamore tree. Perhaps he also had at least a compassionate smile when he reached out to grab Peter’s reaching hand as the Apostle began to sink in his attempt to walk on water, forgetting the Master in his sudden fear.  Then why don’t we too have a hearty laugh in the worshipping community in the real presence of our Lord?

2) Humor in the preaching ministry:  After the Sunday Mass a little boy told the pastor, "When I grow up, I'm going to give you some money." "Well, thank you," the pastor replied, "but why?" "Because my daddy says you're one of the poorest preachers we've ever had."

3) Humor at Sunday collection: During the last Sunday service that the visiting pastor was to spend at the Church he had served for some months, his hat was passed around for goodwill, farewell offering. When it returned to the pastor, it was empty. The pastor didn’t flinch. He raised the hat to Heaven. "I thank you, Lord, that I got my hat back from this congregation."4) Humor at the liturgy: A very innovative liturgy director, a young lady, danced the offertory procession in 'attractive' costumes and playing the banjo. The bishop was presiding on this occasion of the pastor's golden jubilee Mass. As the "dancer" approached the altar the bishop whispered to the pastor: "If she asked for your head on a platter, she'd have it!"

(Prepared by: Fr. Anthony Kadavil, Chaplain, Sacred Heart Residence (L. S. P.), 1655 McGill Ave, Mobile, AL 36604, USA)

Synopsis of OT VI [B] Homily on Mark 1: 40-45 Introduction: All three readings today teach us that we are called to become pure and holy. But we don’t become holy by some ritual observances. We become holy by confessing our sins to God and offering our lives for God’s glory and by sharing God’s love with everyone around us without discriminating against anyone on the basis of color, race, culture, religion, life style or social status. Scripture lessons:  The word Vayikra (the Hebrew name of the Book of Leviticus) means that God called Moses and His chosen people to holiness and purity.  That is why the first reading teaches the theme of freedom from bodily and ritual impurity as a sign of internal holiness.  This freedom is symbolized by the precautions against contracting leprosy given in the first reading and the healing of the leper described in the Gospel.  The first reading shows the ancient Jewish attitude toward leprosy and gives the rules for the segregation of lepers.  This provides a background for Jesus' healing of a leper.  In today's Responsorial Psalm (Ps 32), the psalmist says:  “I confessed my faults to the LORD, and You took away my guilt." He teaches us that we become holy by confessing our sins and being reconciled with God every day. The psalm serves as a mini-treatise on reconciliation, covering the meaning of the spiritual leprosy of sin and showing how we are forgiven by a sacramental encounter with God.  “I turn to You, Lord, in times of trouble, and You fill me with the joy of salvation."  In today’s second reading, St. Paul exhorts us to become holy by doing “everything for the glory of God” and by showing sensitivity toward others who are different from us, rather than passing judgment on them.  Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus heals a leper, liberating him both from the disease of leprosy and from the unjust and inhuman social isolation and ostracism to which the lepers were subjected.

Life messages: 1) We need to trust in the mercy of a forgiving God who assures us that our sins are forgiven and that we are clean.  We are forgiven and made spiritually clean from the spiritual leprosy of sins when we repent of our sins because God is a God of love Who waits patiently for us.  The only condition required of us is that we ask for forgiveness with a repentant heart.  We are sure to hear His words of absolution, "Very well-- your sins are forgiven, and you are clean," echoed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.   2) We need to tear down the walls that separate us from others and build bridges of loving relationship. Jesus calls every one of us to demolish the walls that separate us from each other and to welcome the outcasts and the untouchables of society.   These include homosexuals, AIDS victims, alcoholics, drug addicts and marginalized groups -  the divorced, the unmarried-single mothers, migrant workers and the mentally ill.  God's loving hand must reach out to them through us.   Jesus wants us to touch their lives.    Let us re-examine the barriers we have created and approach God with a heart that is ready to welcome the outcasts in our society.

OT VI [B]) Lv 13:1-2, 44-46; I Cor 10:31--11:1; Mk 1:40-45  

Anecdote: # 1: St. Francis of Assisi and the leper: Today’s Scripture lessons teach us that the sick and the maimed are not to be objects of scorn, but potential reservoirs of God's mercy for us.  St. Francis of Assisi, for instance, understood this.  At one time in his life, he had a terrible fear of lepers.  Then one day when he was out for a walk, he heard the warning bell that lepers were required to ring in the Middle Ages.  When a leper emerged from a clump of trees, St. Francis saw that he was horribly disfigured.  Half of his nose had been eaten away; his hands were stubs without fingers and his lips were oozing white pus.  Instead of giving in to his fears, Francis ran forward, embraced the leper and kissed him.  Francis’ life was never the same after that episode.  He had found a new relationship with God, a new sensitivity to others and a new energy for his ministry.

# 2:  The healing touch of Jesus repeated by St. Damien of Molokai: 85,000 people who gathered in a football stadium in Brussels, to celebrate the centenary of Blessed Damien the, leper priest (beatified by Pope St, John Paul II, in 1995). Father Damien had lived for sixteen years in a remote corner of one of the remotest islands in the Pacific. He worked with lepers and, like Jesus in today's Gospel, word spread about him far and near. He was written about in newspapers from England to Australia. The day of our gathering was a national holiday in Belgium. The king and queen attended. The whole country was en fete. And all for one man who spent sixteen years working at the back of beyond, but working in Jesus' name, and doing his work. It coincided - with the centenary of the birth of Adolf Hitler; and there were no celebrations. [Blessed Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI, October 11, 2009; his feast day is celebrated May 10^th. (Encyclopaedia Britannica on-line).]   There is a beautiful song by Marilla Ness called "He Touched Me." It has a haunting melody, and the words are powerful and moving. "He touched me and oh, the joy that fills my soul; something happened: now I know: he touched me, and made me whole." Today’s Gospel describes how the healing touch of Jesus made a leper whole.

# 3: Segregation--past and present: In India, the low caste people were untouchables for high caste Hindus. Until the Civil Rights Movement, African-American heritage was such a social disability in the U. S. that white shopkeepers would slap a black customer’s change on the counter to keep from touching his/her hands. In some restaurants, dishes or glasses used by blacks would be broken immediately after they had finished eating.  If a black swam in a public pool, it would immediately be closed, drained, and disinfected.  Even in some of our Catholic parishes, black parishioners had to wait until all the white parishioners had received the Eucharist before presenting themselves at the altar for Communion.  The issue, however, is not only a matter of race.  It's a question of all   people in our society who are "different" from us.  Our modern society ostracizes the gays, the lesbians, the AIDS victims, the alcoholics, the drug addicts.  We tend to marginalize the divorced, the cohabiting, the unemployed single mothers, Gypsies, the homeless, migrant workers and asylum seekers. People with AIDS also report that they don't get touched as much as they used to before they became HIV positive.  Church workers and volunteers tend to steer clear of teenagers.  It's hard to get people to work among them.  Their awkward stage of development makes a lot of us uncomfortable.  Their music, their dress, their attitudes and thoughts are viewed as alien. But such attitudes are unchristian. They have no place among Jesus’ disciples, as He teaches us today by touching a leper with affection and healing him with compassion. We must open our hearts and minds to those outside the pale of society if we are going to truly follow Jesus.

Introduction: All three readings today contain the Christian teaching on the need for social acceptance even when people are different from us.  They also tell us that it is purity or holiness of soul coming from God that cleanses our lives.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Book of Leviticus is known by its first word, Vayikra (ויקרא), meaning "and he called".    The wordVayikra means that God called Moses and His chosen people to holiness and purity.  That is why the first reading teaches the theme of freedom from bodily and ritual impurity as a sign of internal holiness.  This freedom is symbolized by the precautions against contracting leprosy given in the first reading and the healing of the leper described in the Gospel.  The first reading shows the ancient Jewish attitude toward leprosy and the rules for segregating lepers.  This provides a background for Jesus' healing of a leper.  In today's Responsorial Psalm (Ps 32), the psalmist exhorts us to rejoice in the Lord because He purifies us from our sins:   “I confessed my faults to the LORD, and You took away my guilt." The psalm serves as a mini-treatise on reconciliation, covering the meaning of the spiritual leprosy of sin and showing how we are forgiven by a sacramental encounter with God.  “I turn to You, Lord, in times of trouble, and You fill me with the joy of salvation."  Intoday’s second reading, St. Paul exhorts us to testify to our healing from the leprosy of sin by living changed lives, expressed in our doing “everything for the glory of God” and for the salvation of others. Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus heals a leper, liberating him both from the disease of leprosy and from the unjust and inhuman social isolation and ostracism to which the lepers were subjected.

First reading, , explained: The first reading gives us the background of the sad state of lepers in first-century Palestinian society.  The Book of Leviticus contains laws that teach the Israelites that they should always keep themselves in a state of legal purity, or external sanctity, as a sign of their intimate union with the Lord.  The first reading deals with very ancient rules and customs.  It was the duty of the priests to decide whether a man was infected with leprosy and whether he was healed.  Once the priest had examined a patient and declared him a leper, the afflicted person had to live in isolation, away from the dwelling-places of healthy people, in order to prevent the spread of the dreaded disease.  In other words, victims of leprosy were segregated from the community on two counts: (1) fear of contagion and (2) fear of the ritualistic uncleanness which resulted from contact with the diseased. Since it was believed that an illness like leprosy resulted from corrupted morals and not from bacteria or viruses, a healing that was spiritually rather than physically oriented was sought. However, some medical historians argue that true leprosy entered Palestine after the first century, and other conditions, like psoriasis, eczema, ringworm, boils, impetigo, acne, ulcers, rashes or dandruff rashes may have been considered as leprosy in Christ’s days. That may have been why many “lepers” were healed by native medicine.   Hence, it is likely that the Hebrew word sara'at and Greek lepra, which are translated as "leprosy," do not always describe true leprosy or Hansen's disease.

Second reading:  1 Corinthians 10:31-11, explained: Saint Paul worked hard to teach the young Christian community of Corinth to find the truths that would separate and protect them from the diverse religious beliefs and pagan rituals practiced by their still-pagan neighbors.  There were, for instance, pagan temples in Corinth in which animals were sacrificed to the gods, after which a large portion of the meat which had been offered was sold in the market.  Corinthian Christians were sometimes invited out to dinner by their pagan friends who might offer them the choice meat that had previously been used in pagan sacrifices.  Both Jewish and Gentile Christians had scruples about the eating of such meat because that would be a participation in the sacrifice honoring pagan gods, a declaration in deed that those gods were real and that worshipping them had value for the Christians.  Paul's general answer was that since "the earth and all that is in it is the property of the Lord" a Christian could lawfully eat any meat placed before him, and he need not be concerned as to its origin.  But if the use of this lawful freedom should scandalize a weaker brother who would think that his fellow Christian was intending to honor the pagan gods, then the Christian should deny himself this freedom.  Paul calls each of us to follow our own conscience carefully, without condemning others or trying to change their behavior.  “I try to please all in any way I can by seeking not my own advantage.”  We, too, must follow Paul's and Jesus' example, responding with sensitivity toward others who are different from us, rather than by passing judgment on them.  The glory of God is served when God’s people serve one another and live in loving unity.

Gospel Exegesis: Why did Jesus become “angry” and issue a “stern warning?” Most translations say that Jesus was"moved with pity" when he saw the leper who approached him.  But some modern Bible scholars tell us that there are ancient manuscripts that indicate that Jesus was "angry” or even “indignant” when he was confronted by this leper, and that after healing him Jesus spoke sternly to him about showing himself to a priest. A background study reveals that Jesus was not angered by the leper but by the social and religious conditions of the day.  There may have been two reasons for this:  1) Jesus could have been angered by the unjust and inhuman social isolation and ostracism to which the lepers were subjected.  In Jesus’ day, a leper had no right either to medical care or to other kinds of help from the community.  In addition, the Book of Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 demanded that lepers wear the tattered clothes and uncombed, uncut hair of mourners (Note, Harper Collins Study Bible, p. 172).  When meeting any "sound" person a leper had to cover his mouth with one hand and shout out a warning of his/her own "unclean" condition. Lepers were taken away from their families and forced to live in leper colonies or in caves outside the city.   Anyone suspected of having contracted leprosy was to be taken before a priest for examination. According to historians, in some cities Jews were massacred at the mere mention of the plague being in the area, even before it had actually arrived.” (René Girard, The Scapegoat). The rabbinic sayings compare the cure of leprosy to raising the dead.  Thus, it would be no wonder if Jesus were angry about conventions that forced the leper to live like an animal, without rights or privileges. 2) Jesus could have been angered by the blasphemous religious explanation of the day that all leprosy was God’s punishment for grave sins. Jesus was also angry at the way lepers were treated as cursed creatures by the Jewish religion which sanctioned such inhuman treatment for lepers.  Lepers were not only considered physically loathsome but were looked upon as persistent sinners. Even if the lepers were cured, they had to submit to a ritual cleansing and purging of sin before they would be re-admitted to society.  Jesus might well have been revoltedby the whole notion that lepers were sinners beyond God’s embrace. That might be precisely why He healed the leper by “stretching out his hand, touching” the legally untouchable. By instructing the healed leper to go and show himself to the priest, Jesus may have been challenging the religious authorities to see that God’s healing grace is available to anyone who asks.

Jesus’ identification with the leper: According to some Fathers of the Church, one reason Jesus promptly responded to the leper's cry in today's Gospel story, ignoring the Mosaic Law prohibiting touching a leper and thus becoming ritually unclean, is that Jesus identified himself with the man's condition.  Jesus dramatically identified himself with the sufferer in the total rejection and isolation waiting for him. The irony here is that Jesus risked becoming “unclean” Himself in order to make the leper clean.  Just as he stretched out his hand to the leper and touched him and made him whole, Jesus stretched out his hands on the cross to make us whole.  He touched the leper thus bridging the gap between what is clean and what is unclean, identifying himself with all lepers, with all who are ritually or socially unclean and isolated and with all of us sinners who are spiritually unclean and have no way to change our condition except through His sacrifice and mercy.  Thus, He became “unclean” in the eyes of the law that we might be made clean. He allowed himself to be rejected by his family and people so that those who are separated from God might return to him and be healed.

A story about how we judge others as acceptable or not in the community: This is a story about how we treat others on the basis of appearance – both real and supposed.  In our society, looks aren't everything. They are the only thing!  No wonder if we get feelings of inferiority, looking at all those young, attractive and trim models and superstars in magazines and on TV commercials. As a result, we make rash judgments with far-reaching consequences, making people outcasts in the society.  For example, who can live down an accusation of child abuse?  Who can really live a normal life in the community if he or she is known to be HIV positive?  Who can really walk about as one of us in this age of the war against terrorism if he/she comes from the wrong ethnic group, wears the wrong clothes, or has the wrong skin-color?  In today’s Gospel incident, Jesus challenges us to accept others unconditionally as our own brothers and sisters.  (Our media gave little attention to those Catholic high-school girls who wore head-scarves in support of their innocent Muslim friends after Sept. 11, 2001).  Jesus reaches out to touch us in this very Eucharistic celebration, making us whole and restoring our relationship with him and with one another.  Then he grants us a share in his Divine life through the Holy Communion. Healed and graced by Jesus, we, like the leper are each compelled to tell our story, making public the good news that God saves sinners and welcomes them home.

Life messages: 1) We need to trust in the mercy of a forgiving God who assures us that our sins are forgiven and that we are clean.  We are forgiven and made spiritually clean from the spiritual leprosy of sins when we repent of our sins.  This is because God is a God of love who waits patiently for us.  No matter how many sins we have committed or how badly we have behaved, we know God forgives us.  The only condition required of us is that we ask for forgiveness with a repentant heart.  We need only kneel before him and ask him, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean" We are sure to hear his words of absolution, "Very well-- your sins are forgiven, and you are clean" echoed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  

2) We need to tear down the walls that separate us from others and build bridges of loving relationship. Jesus calls every one of us to demolish the walls that separate us from each other and to welcome the outcasts and the untouchables of society.   These include homosexuals, AIDS victims, alcoholics, drug-addicts and marginalized groups such as the divorced, the unmarried, single mothers, migrant workers and the mentally ill.  God's loving hand must reach out to them through us.   Jesus wants us to touch their lives.  Let us pass beyond the narrow circles of our friends and peers and try to relate to those who may be outside the bounds of propriety.   Let us re-examine the barriers we have created and approach God with a heart that is ready to welcome the outcasts in our society.  Remember the old African-American children’s song reminding us that there is room for everyone in God's Kingdom: "All God's creatures got a place in the choir, some sing low and some sing higher.  Some sing out loud on a telephone wire and some just clap their hands or paws or anything they've got."

JOKE OF THE WEEK

#1. Jesus in disguise? A leper goes into a bar, sits down and says to the bartender, "Look, before I order, I'd like you to know that I'm aware of how my appearance affects some people, and I'll fully understand it if you refuse to serve me."  The bartender says, "No, sir, I am a professional, and you are my customer.  It is my pleasure to serve you.  What would you like?" "A shot of whiskey, if it's not too much trouble." "Coming right up, sir."  The bartender pours the drink, then goes to the area behind the bar, ostensibly to wash some glasses, but the leper can hear him puking his guts out.  When the bartender returns a few minutes later, wiping the corner of his mouth with a rag, the leper says, "Look, I told you I would understand.  You didn't have to go through that for my sake!"  The bartender replied, "I know that, sir, and I would like to assure you that I would have had no trouble, but for the last three minutes or so, the drunk next to you has been hugging you as if he was St. Francis of Assisi and you were Jesus in disguise."

# 2: A pastor had a dread of getting leprosy. He had read that the early signs are loss of feeling in the limbs, and was always pinching his legs, and if it hurt, he was reassured. On one occasion at a dinner with the parishioners he reached under the table and pinched his leg. He couldn't feel a thing.  He pinched it again - harder this time. Still no sensation. The pastor visibly blanched and blurted out, " Oh, no! I've got leprosy!" A young lady sitting next to him asked: "But how do you know?" "Well, one of the early signs is loss of feeling in the leg. I've just pinched my leg twice and I didn't feel a thing!" The young lady remarked, "It was my leg you were pinching, pastor."

OCT 18: WORLD MISSION SUNDAY - 2015

Anecdote: # 1: “I have no other plan.” S.D. Gordon has a beautiful story about

the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. When the grand welcome ceremony was

over, the Archangel Gabriel approached Jesus to resolve  his doubts. He said, “I

know that only very few in Palestine are aware of the great work of human

salvation you have accomplished through your suffering, death and Resurrection.

But the whole world should know and appreciate it and become your disciples,

acknowledging you as their Lord and Savior. What is your plan of action?”  Jesus

answered, “I have told all my Apostles to tell other people about me and preach

my message through their lives. That’s all.” “Suppose they don’t do that,” Gabriel

responded. “What’s your Plan B?” Jesus replied, “I have no other plan; I am

counting on them.” On this World Mission Sunday, the Church reminds us that

Jesus is counting on each one of us to make him known loved and accepted by

others around us.

# 2: "We Wanted To Be Like Them" A striking story tells about one remote area

in western Sudan. Expatriate missionaries, especially priests, Brothers and

Sisters, had labored there for many years with few visible results. Then

expatriate lay missionaries -- married and single -- came to that area and soon

many Sudanese people become Catholics. A Sudanese elder explained: "When

we saw the priests and Sisters living separately and alone we didn't want to be

like them. But when we saw Catholic families -- men, women and children --

living happily together, we wanted to be like them." In our family-oriented African

society, married missionary couples with children have a powerful and unique

witness and credibility. (Fr. Joseph G. Healey, M.M., a Maryknoll missionary)

# 3:  "God Is Like a Large Baobab Tree" One day my pickup truck broke down

on the road from Maswa to Bariadi in western Tanzania. After I had waited for a

half hour a big Coca-Cola truck came by and the driver named Musa kindly

towed my vehicle to the next town -- a common occurrence of friendship and

mutual help on our poor dirt roads. Part of the time I sat in his big cab and we

talked about, of all things, religion. Musa was a Muslim who belonged to the

Nyamwezi Ethnic Group from Tabora. In commenting on the tensions between

Christians and Muslims in Tanzania he told me: "There is only one God. God is

like one large tree with different branches that represent the different religions of

Islam, Christianity, African Religion and so forth. These branches are part of the

same family of God so we should work together." Simply put, Musa taught me an

African metaphor of world religions and interreligious dialogue. (Fr. Healey).

Introduction: Over one billion Catholics all over the world observe today as

the 89th World Mission Sunday. This annual observance was instituted 89 years

ago in 1926 by a Papal decree issued by Pope Pius XI. Every year since then,

the universal Church has dedicated the month of October to reflection on and

prayer for the missions. On World Mission Sunday, Catholics gather to celebrate

the Eucharist and to contribute to a collection for the work of evangelization

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around the world. This annual celebration gives us a chance to reflect on the

importance of mission work for the life of the Church. It reminds us that we are

one with the Church around the world and that we are all committed to carrying

on the mission of Christ, however different our situations may be. The greatest

missionary challenge that we face at home is a secular and consumerist culture

in which God is not important, moral values are relative and institutional religions

are unnecessary.

The Holy Fathers’ Mission Sunday messages: It is because of the

modern challenges to evangelization that, in his World Mission Sunday Message

2003, Pope St. John Paul II  called on the Church to become “more

contemplative, holy, and missionary-oriented, grounding its work on fervent

prayer.” Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2006 message, stressed the importance of

Christian charity in action as the keynote of evangelization.   "All the Churches for

all the World" was the Pope’s theme for World Mission Sunday, 2007. Pope

Benedict encouraged the sending of missionaries from Church communities

which have a large number of vocations to serve those communities of the West

which experience a shortage of vocations.  In 2008, the Pope encouraged

everyone “to take renewed awareness of the urgent need to proclaim the Gospel”

in this Pauline Year, following the example and imbibing the missionary zeal of

St. Paul, the greatest missionary of all times.  In 2009, the Pope clarified that the

“the goal of the Church's mission was to illumine all peoples with the light of the

Gospel as they journey through history towards God.” He asked all Christians to

redouble their commitment to participate in the missionary activity that is an

essential component of the life of the Church. Pope Francis, in his first World

Mission Sunday message (2013), challenged us to proclaim courageously and in

every situation the Gospel of Christ, a message of hope, reconciliation and

communion, a proclamation of God's closeness, His mercy and His salvation,

and a proclamation that the power of God’s love is able to overcome the

darkness of evil and guide us on the path of goodness. In the light of the

conclusion of the Year of Faith, the Pope offers his thoughts about Faith: the

necessity of sharing it, some roadblocks missionary efforts can encounter, and

the importance of generously responding to the missionary call of the Holy Spirit.

In his 2014 Mission Sunday message, Pope Francis challenges the Church to

become a welcoming home, a mother for all peoples and the source of rebirth for

our world through the intercession of Mary, the model of humble and joyful

evangelization. In his 2015 message Pope Francis says, “The Church’s mission

is faced by the challenge of meeting the needs of all people to return to their

roots and to protect the values of their respective cultures. This means knowing

and respecting other traditions and philosophical systems, and realizing that all

peoples and cultures have the right to be helped from within their own traditions

to enter into the mystery of God’s wisdom and to accept the Gospel of Jesus,

who is light and transforming strength for all cultures.”

The missionary Church: The Church, according to Vatican Council II, is

"missionary" in her very nature because her founder, Jesus Christ, was the first

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missionary.   God the Father sent God the Son into the world with a message.

 This message, called the Gospel or the "Good News," is explicitly stated in John

3:16: “For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that

everyone who believes in him may not die, but have eternal life.”  John further

clarifies Jesus' message in his epistle: “God sent his only Son into the world, so

that we might live through him."(I Jn 4: 9).  St. Paul writes to Timothy about the

Church’s mission: “God desires all men to be saved and to come to the

knowledge of the truth.” (I Tim. 2:4). Thus, the evangelizing mission of the

Church is essentially the announcement of God's love, mercy, forgiveness and

salvation as these are revealed to mankind through the life, death, and

Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Gospels show us how Jesus

demonstrated this all-embracing and unconditional love of God by his life,

suffering, death, and Resurrection.

 Why should we preach? Jesus, the first missionary, made a permanent

arrangement for inviting all men throughout the ages to share God’s love and

salvation:  "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the

Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to

observe everything I have commanded you." (Mt 28:19).  This is why the Council

Fathers of the Second Vatican Council declared that the Church of Christ “is

missionary in its origin and nature.”  Hence, it follows that the mission of the

Church is the mission of every member of the Church, and is not reserved for the

priests, the religious, and the active missionaries alone.    Thus, every Christian

is a missionary with a message to share -- the message of God’s love, liberation,

and eternal salvation.

How are we to accomplish this goal?   The most powerful means of fulfilling

this goal is by living a truly   Christian life -- a life filled with love, mercy, kindness,

compassion and a forgiving spirit.   Mr. Gandhi used to say:   “My life is my

message."  He often challenged the Christian missionaries to observe the

“apostolate of the rose."   A rose doesn’t preach. It simply radiates its

fragrance and attracts every one to it by its irresistible beauty.   Hence, the most

important thing is not the Gospel we preach, but the life we live.  This is how the

early Christians evangelized.   Their Gentile neighbors used to say:  “See how

these Christians love one another."   The Christ they recognized and accepted

was the Christ who lived in each Christian.

Prayer is the second means of missionary work.  Jesus said: “Without me you

can do nothing” (John 15: 5). Therefore, prayer is necessary for anyone who

wishes to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.   In his message for World Mission

Sunday, 2004, Pope St. John Paul II stressed the fact that the Holy Spirit would

help us to become witnesses of Christ only in an atmosphere of prayer.  Since

missionaries are weak human beings and since witnessing to Christ through life

is not easy, we need to support them by our prayers. In his message for 2007,

Pope Benedict reminds us, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few", the

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Lord said; "pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his

harvest" (Lk 10: 2).

All missionary efforts also require financial support because the love of God can

often be explained to the poor only by providing them with food and means of

livelihood.  The sick can experience the healing power of Jesus only through the

dedicated service of doctors, nurses, and health care workers.   Hospitals and

nursing homes require funding.  The use of expensive modern media of

communication is often necessary to bring Christ’s message of love and

liberation more effectively to non-Christians in the modern world.

Hence, on this Mission Sunday, let us learn to appreciate our missionary

obligation and support the Church’s missionary activities by leading transparent

Christian lives, by fervent prayers, and by generous donations. Pope Benedict

XVI concluded his 2006 Mission Sunday message thus: “May the Virgin Mary,

who collaborated actively in the beginning of the Church's mission with her

presence beneath the Cross and her prayers in the Upper Room, sustain their

action and help believers in Christ to be ever more capable of true love, so that

they become sources of living water in a spiritually thirsting world.”

JOKE OF THE DAY

# 1: 3) 97% of the world has heard of Coca-Cola

72% of the world has seen a can of Coca-Cola

51% of the world has tasted a can of Coca-Cola

Coke has only been around 111 years (2015).

If God had given the task of world evangelization to the Coke company it would

probably be done by now.

# 2:  Did Jesus Christ Ever Kill a Lion? A story is told about a missionary who

went to a remote area in Northern Tanzania to proclaim the Gospel among the

Maasai tribes who were warriors.  One day he was explaining to a group of

adults the saving activity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He told how Jesus is

the Savior and Redeemer of all humankind. When he finished, a Maasai elder

slowly stood up and said to the missionary: "You have spoken well, but I want to

learn more about this great person Jesus Christ. Now I have three questions

about Jesus. First, did he ever kill a lion? Second, how many cows did he have?

Third, how many wives and children did he have?"

# 3: Rescue mission to Egypt: Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what

he had learned in Sunday school. “Well, Mom,” he reported, “our teacher told us

how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the

Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he ordered his engineers to

build a pontoon bridge, and all the people walked across safely. He used his

walkie-talkie to radio headquarters to call in an air strike. They sent in bombers to

blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.

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"Now, Joey, is that REALLY what your teacher taught you?" his mother asked.

“Well, no, Mom,” Joey admitted, “but if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd

never believe it!”

#3: Religion is a good thing, as long as it’s in small doses. A family lived off the

alley behind my first church. There were three floors to their row house, each

floor inhabited by a different generation. The grandparents, who were members

of the church, lived on the ground floor. Next floor up was their son and daughter-

in-law, and the grandchildren’s bedrooms were at the top. One day, the

grandfather beckoned me to the back fence. “I’m worried about my grandson,” he

said. “What’s the problem?” I asked. He said, “When he gets up in the morning,

he reads the Bible before he does anything else. Every time he sits at the kitchen

table, he insists on saying grace. Now he’s talking about joining a prayer group

with his girlfriend.” Walter,” I said, “what’s the problem?” “Don’t get me wrong,

Reverend,” he said. “Religion is a good thing, as long as it’s in small doses. I’m

worried my grandson is becoming an extremist.” I admit it was hard to

sympathize with my neighbor. So far, no member of my family has been lost to

such radical behavior. Neither has a child of mine wandered off to the Temple for

three days. But it’s important to remember that religious commitments can divide

a family. [William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing

# 5: The hell broke loose: Mark Twain used to tell a joke that he put a dog and a

cat in a cage together as an experiment, to see if they could get along. They did.

So he put in a bird, pig and goat. They, too, got along fine after a few

adjustments. Then he put in a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and a Catholic, and hell

Additional anecdotes: 1) "You're not a white man; you're Jesus.”  A

touching story is told of a British missionary priest who lived   in a remote part of

Tanzania.  He lived alone, a single white man among his African flock, speaking

their language.  One day a British government official arrived on a tour of the

area. The Tanzanian children ran out to welcome the visitor. They entertained

the official by clapping, singing and dancing.  After the official left, the children

excitedly told the missionary priest, "We saw a white man! We saw a white

man!"   Some of the children said that the visitor was the first foreigner they had

ever seen. The priest was amazed and exclaimed, "But I'm a white man. I'm a

foreigner. But I've been living here with you all these years."   One of the children

said, "You're not a white man; you're Jesus, you are our Father."  Mission

Sunday reminds us that transparent Christian life, as lived by this missionary,

radiating the real presence of Jesus within, is the mission of every Christian.

(Joseph G. Healey, M.M).

2)  "Athanasius Evangelized Me With a Cup of Tea" : One day Bishop

Christopher Mwoleka came to our house in Nyabihanga Village in Rulenge,

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Tanzania on an unexpected visit. My good friend Athanasius and I hurriedly

prepared tea for the villagers who came to greet the bishop. We started with two

full thermoses, but then several other visitors came and soon we had finished all

the tea. I wondered what I would do if another person came. Just then one of our

neighbors arrived to say hello. As I started to apologize for not having any more

tea, Athanasius spontaneously picked up his own cup of tea and politely handed

it to the visitor. It was a simple gesture of sharing, but for me a profound act of

love and beauty. By his example Athanasius had evangelized me. (Joseph G.

3) Americans give $700 million per year to mission agencies. However, they pay

as much for pet food every 52 days. A person must overeat by at least $1.50

worth of food per month to maintain one excess pound of flesh. Yet $1.50 per

month is more than what 90 percent of all Christians in America give to missions.

If the average missions' supporter is only five pounds overweight, it means he

spends (to his own hurt) at least five times as much as he gives for missions. If

he were to choose simple food (as well as not overeat), he could give ten times

as much as he does to missions and not modify his standard of living in any other

way!  [Ralph Winter of the William Carey Library, 1705 North Sterra Bonita

Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91104, in Leadership, IV,4,p. 64. ]

 4) Mary Moffatt Livingstone:  Sometimes marriage to a great leader comes with

a special price for his wife. Such was the case for Mary Moffatt Livingstone, wife

of Dr. David Livingstone, perhaps the most celebrated missionary in the Western

world. Mary was born in Africa; she was the daughter of Robert Moffatt, the

missionary who inspired Livingstone to go to Africa. The Livingstones were

married in Africa in 1845, but the years that followed were difficult for Mary.

Finally, she and their six children returned to England so she could recuperate as

Livingstone plunged deeper into the African interior. Unfortunately, even in

England Mary lived in near poverty. The hardships and long separations took

their toll on Mrs. Livingstone, who died when she was just forty-two.

Did Jesus have brothers and sisters? Catholic Church teaches that Jesus did not have blood brothers and sisters. The problem arises because we read in Mark about the crowd asking, "Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, a brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters our neighbors here?" (Mk 6:3). A similar reference occurs earlier in Mk 3:31 — "His mother and brothers arrived...." At first hearing, the words seem to state that Jesus did indeed have blood brothers and sisters. But the Greek word adelphos, was used to describe brothers not born of the same parents, like a half-brother or step-brother. The word also described other relationships like cousins, nephews, etc. For example, in Genesis 13:8 and 14:14-16, the word adelphos was used to describe the relationship between Abraham and his nephew Lot and the relation between Laban and his nephew Jacob. In the Gospel, Mary of Clopas is called "the sister" of Mary, the Mother of Jesus where sister means only a cousin.  In Hebrew and Aramaic languages, no special word existed for cousin, nephew, half-brother, or step-brother. So, they used the word brother in all these cases. The Greek translation of the Hebrew texts used the word adelphos. In addition, other Gospel passages clarify these relationships between James, Joses, Judas, and Simon.  James the Less and Joses were the sons of Mary the wife of Clopas (Mk 15:40, Jn 19:25), and James the Less was also identified as "the son of Alphaeus" (Lk 6:15), a synonym of “Clopas." James the Greater and John were the sons of Zebedee with a mother other than our Blessed Mother Mary (Mt 20:20ff). After the birth of our Lord, although the Gospels do not give us many details of Jesus’ childhood, no mention is made of Mary and Joseph ever having other children. Never does it refer to the "sons of Mary" or "a son of Mary," but only the son of Mary. By this time, St. Joseph has died. Since Jesus, the first-born, had no "blood brother," when He was hanging on the cross, He entrusted Mary to the care of St. John, the Beloved Disciple. Interestingly, the Orthodox Churches solve this problem over brothers and sisters by speculating that St. Joseph was an elderly widower who had other children before he married Mary. The earliest explanation of who the brothers and sisters were, found in the second-century document known as The Protoevagelium of James, is that they were stepbrothers through Joseph. According to this document, Joseph was an elderly widower who agreed to become the guardian of Mary, a consecrated virgin. Being elderly and already having children, he was not seeking to raise a new family and so was an appropriate guardian for a virgin. This theory is consistent with Joseph’s apparent death before the ministry of Jesus. It is the standard explanation in Eastern Christendom of who the brethren of Christ are. Shortly before the year 400, St. Jerome began to popularize the view that the brethren of Christ were cousins, and this view became common in the West. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has faithfully taught that Mary gave birth only   to Jesus, whom she had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.

4) ‘United We Stand Divided We Fall’: I read about a Church that had grown to the point of needing a new building. After the building was completed, a disagreement arose about which side of the auditorium they should put the piano. Words were exchanged, tempers flared, and the Church ultimately split. The side that “won” kept the building, but they no longer needed the extra seating and could not afford to pay the mortgage … so they had to sell it. (Tim Seevers, in The Pleasant Viewer June 2000). And I also have read about another Church down in Texas where folks go so mad at each other that the Church split and then they fought over the property. Each group filed lawsuits against the other group. During a hearing, it was discovered that the conflict had begun years before at a church dinner (pause) when an elder was served a smaller piece of ham than the child seated next to him. (Jim Belcher, 10/12/09 Sermoncentral.com article). L/18

SYNOPSIS: OT XIV [B] (July 7) HOMILY ON MARK 6: 1-6 (L-15)

Introduction: Today’s readings introduce Jesus as a prophet and explain how prophets and other messengers from God inevitably suffer rejection. The readings challenge us to face rejection and hardship with prophetic courage.

Scripture lessons:   The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, tells us about his call from God to be a prophet. Yahweh warns Ezekiel that he is being sent to obstinate and rebellious Israelites in exile in Babylon. Hence, as God’s prophet, he will have to face rejection and persecution for giving God’s message. The reading gives us the warning that as Christians who accept the call of Jesus and seek to follow him, we also may face indifference and hostility, contempt and scorn, weakness, hardship and persecution, insults and rejection.  In the second reading, St. Paul gives us the same warning from his experience that not only the prophets, but the apostles and missionaries also will have to encounter hardships and rejection in their preaching mission. Paul confesses that God has given him a share in Christ’s suffering – a chronic illness which gave him pain, a "thorn in the flesh," so that he might rely on God’s grace and might glory in the power of a strengthening God.  The apostle invites us to rise above our own weakness and disability, cooperate with the grace of God and preach the word of God by word and example as Paul did.  Today's Gospel passage, , shows us that many people of Jesus' hometown ofNazareth did not accept him as a prophet because they knew him and his family too well. They knew that he was a carpenter with no schooling in Mosaic Law and knew that he could not be the promised Messiah who would come from Bethlehem as a descendant of David’s royal family. Besides, they were angry when Jesus  not only did not work any miracles in Nazareth, but chided them with prophetic courage for their lack of faith and warned that he would go to other people to do his preaching and healing ministry.

Life messages: Today’s Scriptures challenge us to face rejection with prophetic courage and optimism. Very often our friends, families, or childhood companions fail to listen to us and refuse to accept the words of grace, love and encouragement that we offer to them because they are too familiar with us.  Hence, they are unable to see us as God's appointed instruments, the agents of God's healing and saving grace. But we have to face such rejection with prophetic courage because by our Baptism we are called to be prophets like Jesus, sharing his prophetic mission. As prophets, our task is to speak the truth and oppose the evils in our society without condoning or encouraging sinful behavior even in our dear ones. Let us also acknowledge, appreciate and encourage the prophets of our time who stand for truth and justice in our society with the wisdom of God in their heads, the power of the Holy Spirit in their words and the courage of God in their actions.

OT XIV [B] (July 5) Ez 2: 2-5; II Cor 12: 7-10; Mark 6: 1-6

Anecdotes: # 1: Rev. Deacon Prophet: There is a funny story about a bishop who was interviewing a senior seminarian before his ordination as deacon, and asked him where he would like to be assigned as a deacon for pastoral training. The seminarian said, somewhat boldly, "Oh, my bishop, anywhere but New Canaan!" "Why not there," the bishop asked? "You know," the seminarian answered, "That’s my hometown -- and we all know that ‘a prophet is not without honor except in his native place.’” The bishop replied, "Don't worry my friend! Nobody in your hometown is going to confuse you with a prophet."

# 2: Don’t allow rejection to derail your dreams: Brilliant British Theologian G.K. Chesterton could not read until he was eight years old. A teacher said if his head were opened they would probably find a lump of fat where there was supposed to be a brain. That teacher was wrong. Einstein’s parents were informed by a teacher that he would never amount to anything.  Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was rejected by seven publishers. Richard Bach got twenty rejection slips before Jonathan Livingston Seagull was published. Dr. Seuss, one of the most popular children’s authors of all time, got more than two dozen rejection slips before The Cat in the Hat made it to print. Ruth Graham felt an uncontrollable urge to run out of the meeting the first time she heard Billy Graham preach. She was not convinced of his preaching ability. She was put off by his preaching style. Billy had to improve his preaching before Ruth would become his wife. Today’s Gospel tells us how Jesus encountered rejection with prophetic courage.

# 3: Good news to the poor! But are we poor? Mother Teresa thinks so. There was a beautiful article about her in Timemagazine. She was asked about the materialism of the West. "The more you have, the more you are occupied," she contends. "But the less you have the freer you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is a joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the whole house...and it is for the guests. But we are happy. "I find the rich poorer," she continues. "Sometimes they are lonelier inside...The hunger for love is much more difficult to fill than the hunger for bread...The real poor know what is joy." When asked about her plans for the future, she replied, "I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today to love Jesus." Is there anyone in this Church as rich as Mother Teresa?

Introduction:  Today’s readings introduce Jesus as a prophet and explain how prophets and other messengers from God inevitably suffer rejection. The readings challenge us to face rejection and hardship with prophetic courage. The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, tells us about his call from God to be a prophet. Yahweh warns Ezekiel that he is being sent to obstinate and rebellious Israelites in exile in Babylon. Hence, as God’s prophet, he will have  to face rejection and persecution for giving God’s message. The reading gives us the warning that as Christians who accept the call of Jesus and seek to follow him, we also may face indifference and hostility, contempt and scorn, weakness, hardship and persecution, insults and rejection.  In the second reading, St. Paul gives us the same warning from his experience that not only the prophets, but the apostles and missionaries also, will have to encounter hardships and rejection in their preaching mission. Paul confesses that God gave him a share in Christ’s suffering – a chronic illness which gave him pain, a  "thorn in the flesh" –  so that he might rely on God’s grace and might glory in the power of a strengthening God.  Paul invites us to rise above our own weakness and disability, cooperate with the grace of God and preach the word of God by word and example as the apostle did.  Today's Gospel passage, (), shows how many people of Jesus' hometown Nazareth did not accept him as a prophet because they knew him and his family. They knew that he was a carpenter with no schooling in Mosaic Law and that he could not be the promised Messiah who would come from Bethlehem as a descendant of David’s royal family. Besides, they were angry when Jesus did not work any miracles in Nazareth, chided them with prophetic courage for their lack of faith and warned that he would go to other people to do his preaching and healing ministry.

First reading, : Today's reading from Ezekiel captures the same experience in the career of the prophet Ezekiel, who lived about 600 years before Jesus. Ezekiel is warned by God that, though he has been called by Yahweh and sent with a message to the people of Israel, they will almost certainly refuse to hear and accept his message. God is angry about the rebelliousness of the people to whom he is sending his prophet. Ezekiel was the first person called to become a prophet while the people were in Exile in Babylon. While the false prophets were consoling people, saying that the Exile was soon to end and they'd be going home to a newly prosperous Jerusalem soon, Ezekiel resolutely foretold the further destruction of Jerusalem. No wonder he was hated and rejected by the people! Those who accept the call of God and seek to follow Him may face indifference and hostility, contempt and scorn, weakness, hardship and persecution, insults and rejection.

Second Reading, : In today’s selection, Paul frankly admits the fact he had learned by trial and error, that he couldn't preach the Gospel on the basis of his own strength and talent. Rather, the weaker he became, the more room he left for the Spirit of God to work through him. In the midst of a conflict with the Corinthian Christian community, Paul tells about two of his deepest spiritual experiences. In one he had an ecstatic theophany when he received an exceptional revelation. In the other, he fervently prayed to have the unidentified cause of great suffering removed, but was given instead the reassurance that God's grace would be sufficient for his every need. Paul’s opponents within the Corinthian community presumed that an authentic apostle would be vindicated by heavenly visitation and a miraculous healing. Instead, Paul discovered positive value in his pain. He understood that suffering, accepted as God’s gift, produces patience, sensitivity and compassion and a genuine appreciation of life's blessings. Hence, Paul declares that the weaknesses which continue to mark his life as an apostle represent the effective working of the power of the crucified Christ in his ministry.  Paul was content with weaknesses and hardships for the sake of Christ; we, too, find God’s grace sufficient for our needs, for Christ’s power dwells in us in our weakness, and in weakness we are truly strong.

Exegesis: The context: It was natural that Jesus should visit his hometown, Nazareth, as a rabbi with a band of his disciples. On the Sabbath day he went to the local synagogue. In the synagogue there was no definite person to give the address. Any distinguished stranger present who had a message to give might be asked by the ruler of the synagogue to speak. Since Jesus’ fame as a preacher and miracle worker in other places of Galilee had reached Nazareth, he was invited to read from the Prophets and explain the text. During his “Inaugural Address” or “Mission Statement,” Jesus took upon himself the identity of a prophet, different from the image of a miracle worker that people wished to see.  As other faithful prophets of Israel had done, Jesus, too, held  people accountable for their selfishness, their faithlessness to God, their lack of justice and mercy (Mi 6:6-8), and their sinfulness.

The adverse reaction: The first reaction of the people in the synagogue to Jesus' words was one of astonishment. Luke says they were "amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips." But Mark says that they asked one another: “Where did this man get all this? They knew him only as a carpenter from a poor family, with no formal training in Mosaic Law. Certainly they thought he had gone far beyond what one of his status as a humble carpenter should go. (One of the dreams of Martin Luther King was that people "would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character"). Jesus’ neighbors did not expect him, “the carpenter’s son,” to be skilled in interpreting the Scriptures.  They also could not understand how a mere carpenter could be their political Messiah who would liberate them from Roman rule and reestablish the Davidic kingdom of power and glory. The local townsfolk also objected that Jesus had no distinguished lineage. He is identified as “the son of Mary” (v. 3) rather than the traditional “son of Joseph” (“Bar Joseph”) title. Such a reference could be seen as an insult because men in that culture were identified by who their fathers were (see John 1:45). Jesus responded: “No prophet is accepted in his native place.” Those who accept the call of God and seek to follow Him may face indifference and hostility, contempt and scorn, weakness, hardship and persecution, insults and rejection.

Life messages: 1) Let us face rejection with prophetic courage and optimism. The story of Jesus' rejection in his own town is a story that we can identify with, because it is a story that has happened to most of us. We might have experienced the pain of rejection caused by hurts, wounds, betrayal, divorce, abandonment, violated trust, trauma, neglect or various forms of abuse. What about rejection by those closest to us? Often our friends, families, or childhood companions fail to listen to, and refuse to accept, the words of grace, love and encouragement that we offer to them, because they are too familiar with us.  Hence, they are unable to see us as God's appointed instruments, the agents of God's healing and saving grace. Let us check also the other side of the coin. How often do we discount God’s agents through prejudice?  How often do we fail to see God’s image in them because of our own hardheartedness?  We must realize that God's power is always available to transform even the most unlikely people.

2) We need to handle rejection in the right spirit: a) We can handle rejection with respect – respect for ourselves and respect for others. Our first reaction to rejection is often anger – anger at ourselves for assuming we deserve what we got and bitterness toward others who perpetuate the rejection. In the face of rejection, we will be wise to follow the advice of St. Paul who said, “Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your anger.” b) We need to avoid self-defeating assumptions. One rejection need not be an indictment on one’s life. Rejection is not synonymous with continuous failure. c) We need to avoid magnifying the rejection. Rejection need not be a forecast of our future, and it must not become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rejection in the past need not be a predictor of rejection in the future. d) We need to avoid allowing rejection to derail our dreams and instead to keep coming back. e) We need to learn from our rejections. We are not perfect, and we do not always get it right, but we need to keep coming back until we do get it right. Every rejection can be a lesson if we stay open to new possibilities and new opportunities. What can I do differently? How can I improve? What needs can I meet? These are the questions we need to ask if we are to prevent a trouble from going to waste.

3)  Let us acknowledge the prophets of God’s goodness in our midst. God is present giving us his message through our nearest and dearest and our neighbors and coworkers. Since God uses them as His prophets to convey His message to us, it is our duty to acknowledge and honor them. Let us express our appreciation today for our families – spouses for each other, parents and children for each other.  A word of appreciation for the lady who cooks the dinner, for the neighbor who is always ready to share our happiness and sorrow, for the friends who have given us time, support and attention during a recent bereavement or a tragedy in our  life – all are our proper responses to God’s messengers of love and light. Let us not take for granted the presence of God among us as evidenced by the goodness shown by family and friends. Let us also recognize God’s direction, help and support in our lives through His words in the Bible and through the advice and examples of others.

4) We must have the prophetic courage of our convictions.  By our Baptism, God   calls us to be prophets like Jesus, sharing his prophetic mission.  The task of a prophet is to speak God’s truth.   We must never be afraid of this call.   We may rely on   Jesus to supply us with the courage to oppose the many evils in our society.  By legalizing abortion in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the killing of over thirty million unborn children in forty-two years and it is tolerating the brutal execution of 4400 defenseless lives every day by abortion.  Our television and movie conglomerates, which are supported by the tax money of millions of citizens, systematically poison the minds of the young as well as the old by the excessive importance given to perverted sex and unnecessary violence. Many well-known corporate sponsors support more than 75,000 U. S. websites of pornographic material, thus enabling the destructive behavior of perverts and sex abusers.  Our society tells youngsters thatpromiscuous sex, drugs and alcohol are means by which they express their individuality.   It is here that our country needs Christians with the prophetic courage of their convictions to fight against such moral evils.

5) We need to speak the truth of Christ with love, never being hypocritical or disrespectful.  We must never remain silent in the face of evil for fear of being thought "politically incorrect."   Jesus was not against conflict if it promoted truth. He taught us to give respect and freedom without condoning or encouraging sinful behavior. Love does not tolerate destructive behavior but, nevertheless, it sometimes causes pain--just as a surgeon must sometimes hurt in order to heal. We can be kind, charitable, and honest and forgiving as we speak forth our own convictions as Jesus did in the synagogue.

Jokes of the week: # 1: Rejection resulting in the resignation: There was a feud between the Pastor and the Choir Director of a Southern Baptist parish. The first hint of trouble came when the Pastor preached on Dedicating oneself to serviceand the Choir Director chose to sing: "I Shall Not Be Moved". Trying to believe it was a coincidence, the Pastor put the incident behind him. The next Sunday he preached on Giving. Afterwards, the choir squirmed as the director led them in the hymn:"Jesus Paid It All" By this time, the Pastor was losing his temper. Sunday morning attendance swelled as the tension between the two began public. A large crowd showed up the next week to hear his sermon on the Sin of Gossiping. Would you believe the Choir Director selected: "I Love To Tell the Story"? There was no turning back. The following Sunday the Pastor told the congregation that unless something changed he was considering resignation. The entire church gasped when the Choir Director led them in: “Why Not Tonight?” Truthfully, no one was surprised when the Pastor resigned a week later, explaining that Jesus had led him there and Jesus was leading him away. The Choir Director could not resist singing: "What a Friend We Have In Jesus."

# 2: Rejection at the Pearly Gate, too: A cab driver reaches the Pearly Gates and announces his presence to St. Peter, who looks him up in his Big Book. Upon reading the entry for the cabby, St. Peter invites him to grab a silk robe and a golden staff and to proceed into Heaven. A preacher is next in line behind the cabby and has been watching these proceedings with interest. He announces himself to St. Peter. Upon scanning the preacher's entry in the Big Book, St. Peter furrows his brow and says, "Okay, we'll let you in, but take that cotton robe and wooden staff." The preacher is astonished and replies, "But I am a man of the cloth. You gave that cab driver a gold staff and a silk robe. Surely, I rate higher than a cabby." St. Peter responded matter-of-factly: "Here we are interested in results. When you preached, people slept. When the cabby drove his taxi, people prayed."

Synopsis: OT XV Sunday (July 12) Homily on Mk 6:7-13 (L/15)

Introduction: Today’s readings remind us of our Divine adoption as God's children and of our call to preach the Good News of Jesus by bearing witness to God’s love, mercy and salvation as revealed through Jesus. "God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world." (Ephesians 1: 4).

Scripture lessons: The first reading warns us that our witnessing mission will be rejected, as happened to the Old Testament prophets like Amos. He was ordered by Amaziah, the angry chief priest serving in the Northern Kingdom of Israel at Parajumpers Jacka Billigt Bethel, to take his prophesying back to his own country, the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Amos defended his prophetic role with courage, clarifying that it was not his choice but his God’s choice to elevate him from a shepherd and tree-dresser to a prophet. Like Amos, each one of us is chosen by God through the mystery of Divine adoption in Jesus, to become a missionary and to preach the “Good News,” mainly by Christian witnessing.

In the second reading, St. Paul explains the blessings that we have received through our Baptism and the responsibility we have to become missionaries. Then Paul reveals the Divine secret that it had been God’s eternal plan to extend salvation, through Jesus, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. Hence, the Jewish and the Gentile Christians need to love, help and respect one another and thus proclaim Jesus, giving true witness by their lives.

In today’s Gospel (Mark 6:1-13), the evangelist tells the story of Jesus' commissioning of the twelve apostles to preach the “Good News” of repentance, forgiveness of sins, liberation and salvation through Jesus. Just as God sent the prophet Amos to preach repentance to ancient Israel and St. Paul to preach the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles, so Jesus sends forth his followers to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom and to bring healing to those who need it most. Today’s Gospel reports the instruction Jesus gave his disciples for their first mission. They should be walking illustrations of God’s love and providence in action. They should preach repentance -- a change of heart and a change of action taking people from a self-centered life to a God-centered life.

Life Messages: # 1: We too have a witnessing mission: We are called to be witnessing disciples and evangelizing apostles. As witnessing disciples, we need to follow Jesus, imitate him, reflect him and radiate him. As apostles, we need to evangelize the world by sharing with others our experience of God and His Son, Jesus, proclaiming the Gospel and the salvation promised by Jesus through our transparent Christian lives and radiating the love, mercy, forgiveness, spirit of humble service and concern of Jesus to the people around us.

2) We also have a liberating mission, helping free people from the demons of nicotine, alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, promiscuous sex, hatred, jealousy, racial prejudice and consumerism. We need the help of Jesus to liberate us and others from these things.

OT XV SUNDAY (July 12) (Am 7:12-15, Eph 1:3-14, Mk 6:7-13)

Anecdote: # 1: : Gideon’s army and Jesus’ fishermen: An angel spoke directly to Gideon (Judges 6: 11-25), the fourth judge of the Israelites in the 12th century B.C. This two-way conversation is recorded in detail and comprises the commissioning of Gideon to be a deliverer and “Judge” of God's people. The angel of the Lord came to meet Gideon under the oak tree at Ophrah with specific instructions for a raid on the Midianites who were the controlling force in the land, fielding a unique and fast-moving camel battalion. They forcefully reaped all the grain of the Israelites during the harvest season for seven years. Gideon protested that his clan, Manasseh, was the weakest in the nation. But God assured Gideon, “I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them" (v 16). Gideon asked for a sign from God and God graciously gave it to convince Gideon that it was God who was sending him to fight, and it was God who would be fighting for him. In Judges 7:2-11 God gave additional instruction to Gideon and asked him to send home those soldiers who were afraid to fight a strong and big army. That reduced the number of soldiers in Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 10,000. But it was still too many in God’s sight. God further instructed Gideon to conduct a water-drinking test in the river. The test eliminated 9700 more soldiers, leaving behind only 300 soldiers of God’s selection. The story of Gideon's calling was about Kd 7 Shoes strategy: "Go in My strength." The Midianites had a force of 135,000 men with them when they invaded Israel in the 8th harvest season. But Gideon trusted in the strength of the Lord and defeated and destroyed the mighty army of the Midianites by his surprise midnight attack. Today’s Gospel tells us how Jesus selected and delegated twelve ordinary men for his preaching and healing ministry.

# 2: “Let people hear it”: Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), the world-famous violinist, earned a fortune with his concerts and compositions, but he generously gave most of it away. So, when he discovered an exquisite violin on one of his trips, he wasn’t able to buy it. Later, having raised enough money to meet the asking price, he returned to the seller, hoping to purchase that beautiful instrument. But to his great dismay it had been sold to a collector. Kreisler made his way to the new owner’s home and offered to buy the violin. The collector said it had become his prized possession and he would not sell it. Keenly disappointed, Kreisler was about to leave when he had an idea. "Could I play the instrument once before it is consigned to silence?" he asked. Permission was granted, and the great virtuoso filled the room with such heart-moving music that the collector’s emotions were deeply stirred. "I have no right to keep this violin to myself," he exclaimed. "It’s yours, Mr. Kreisler. Take it into the world, and let people hear it." Jesus gives us the same instruction the collector gave Kreisler when He shares with us the mission He gives the Apostles today in the Gospel.

Introduction: Today’s readings remind us of our Divine Adoption as God's children and of our call to preach the Good News of Jesus by bearing witness to God’s love, mercy and salvation as revealed through Jesus. The first reading warns us that our witnessing mission will be rejected, as happened to the Old Testament prophets like Amos. Amos condemned the cozy lifestyle of priests who supported the king and the rich and ignored the oppression of the poor. The angry chief priest, Amaziah of Bethel in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, told Amos to take his prophesying back to his own country, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, because they did not want to listen to his prophecy in Bethel. Amos defended his prophetic role with courage, clarifying that it was not his choice but his God’s choice to elevate him from a shepherd and tree dresser to a prophet. Like Amos, each one of us is chosen by God through the mystery of Divine adoption in Jesus to become missionaries and to preach the “Good News” by the witness of our Christian lives. The Psalmist sings in today's Responsorial Psalm that in Jesus alone, "Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from Heaven" (Psalm 85: 11-12). In the second reading, St. Paul explains the blessings that we have received through our Baptism and the responsibility we have to become missionaries. Through Christ, God has chosen us to be holy, made us the adopted brothers and sisters of His Son, Jesus, forgiven our sins, given us a right relationship with God, and enabled us to understand His plan of salvation. Then Paul reveals the Divine secret that it had been God’s eternal plan to extend salvation, through Jesus, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. Hence, the Jewish and the Gentile Christians needed to love, help and respect one another and thus proclaim Jesus by the witness of their lives. In today’s Gospel (Mark 6:1-13), the evangelist tells the story of Jesus' commissioning of the twelve apostles for their first missionary journey. They are to preach the “Good News” of repentance, forgiveness of sins, liberation and salvation through Jesus. Just as God sent the prophet Amos to preach repentance to ancient Israel and St. Paul to preach the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles, so Jesus sends forth his followers to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom and to bring healing to those who need it most.

The first reading, Amos 7:12-15: This first reading shows us, in the rejection of an Old Testament prophet, what would happen to Jesus and his apostles. For a long time, the territory we call the Holy Land had been divided between a northern kingdom called Israel and a southern kingdom known as Judah. The city of Jerusalem was in Judah. In the northern kingdom, at Bethel, there was a very ancient shrine with several priests. These Bethel priests sponsored the rich people and acted as cronies of King Jeroboam. Amos the prophet was sent by God to these priests with the demand that they speak against the current neglect and exploitation of the poor by the powerful. Amos had come from Tekoa in the southern kingdom of Judah to Bethel in the northern kingdom of Israel, to pronounce God’s judgment on Israel and its King, Jeroboam. As a prophet, Amos foretold the overthrow of the throne and shrine by the hand of God. Amaziah who was the high priest told him that the King was angry with him and he was seeking to kill him. It would be better for Amos to look for his own safety. Amos tells Amaziah that in the eyes of God the Temple that Amaziah served was not legitimate as it had been established by the royal household. But the furious chief priest of Bethel, Amaziah, told Amos to get out and go south to Judah. Amos explained that he was not a professional prophet; he was a shepherd and dresser of sycamores. He had become a prophet only because God had sent him to deliver a message to Israel and its King. We are invited to see the mission of the twelve apostles and our mission as Christians as parallel to the mission of Amos.

The second reading, Ephesians 1:3-10: This reading, taken from the letter to the Ephesians, is a prayer praising God for what God has accomplished in Jesus. In other words, Paul offers us the exercise of counting our blessings in the form of a benediction and thanksgiving in which we point to God as the Source of our blessings, in and through Jesus’ life, death and Resurrection. Through Christ, God has given us a clear purpose in life—to praise and to serve God and one another—with the Holy Spirit as a Helper in carrying out the task. Paul advises the Ephesians to count their blessings instead of focusing excessively on their inadequacies and deficiencies. In this prayer, Paul also reveals a Divine secret to the Jewish Christians. It had not been God’s plan to keep the Jews as His Chosen People exclusively. God's plan had always been to include the Gentiles eventually. And that is what Jesus did by sending Paul to preach to the Gentiles. Hence, the Jewish and the Gentile Christians were to respect and help each other as both were now adopted children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Exegetical notes: 1) The context: Jesus, like the prophets before Him, was rejected by the people of his hometown as he corrected them for their prejudice. But instead of getting discouraged, Jesus went with his disciples to the neighboring towns and villages with his preaching and healing ministry. He prepared his disciples to go ahead of him to various places to announce his coming and to preach the Good News of the salvation coming through their master, Jesus. Today’s Gospel gives us the instruction Jesus gave his disciples for their first mission.

2) Travelers’ kit in Palestine: In Jesus' time, the Jews of Palestine ordinarily wore five articles of clothing. The innermost garment was called the tunic; and the outer garment was used as a cloak by day and as a blanket by night. Next, there was a girdle, which was worn over the tunic and cloak. The skirts of the tunic could be hitched up under the girdle for work or any strenuous activity. A headdress was also worn in order to protect the neck, the cheekbones, and the eyes from the heat and glare of the sun. Finally, the Jews wore sandals made of leather, wood or matted grass. They also carried a wicker basket within which was an ordinary traveler's bag made of kid's skin. The Jewish priests and devotees, who were often very covetous, carried these bags supposedly to collect contributions. No wonder, people labeled them "pious robbers” with their booty growing from village to village.

3) The meaning of Jesus’ instructions: Why did Jesus send the Apostles in pairs? Because according to Jewish law, two witnesses were needed to pronounce a truth. Going two by two carries with it the authority of official witnesses. By his instructions, it is clear that Jesus meant that his disciples should take no supplies for the road but simply trust in God for their requirements. God, the Provider, would open the hearts of believers to take care of the needs of the disciples. Jesus’ instructions also suggest that his disciples should not be like the acquisitive priests of the day, who were interested only in gaining riches. Instead, the disciples of Jesus must be concerned with "giving" rather than “getting." They should be walking examples of God’s love and providence. By doing so, they would also have the maximum of freedom and the minimum of burdens in their preaching and healing ministry. Jesus wanted his apostles to be rich in all the things which really mattered, so that they might enrich those who came into contact with them. Statistics tell us that most people who come to join a Church do so because a friend or relative brought them. So the best advertisement for any Church is the number of the faithful – men, women, and children, whose daily lives show forth some of the radiance of the Gospel.

3) "Shake off the dust from your feet:" Jesus knew that when his disciples went to any place to evangelize, a family or house would take them in, welcome them and give them what they needed because hospitality was an important religious tradition in Palestine. By His stern instruction, Jesus seems to be saying, “If people refuse to listen to you or to show you hospitality, the only thing you can do is to treat them as an orthodox Jew would treat a Gentile or a pagan.” The Rabbinic law Golden Goose Sale stated that the dust of a Gentile country was defiled, so that when a Jew entered Palestine from another country, he had to shake off every particle of the unclean land’s dust from his clothing and sandals.

4) Convey the Good News of God’s love and mercy: Jesus’ disciples were to preach the Good News that God is not a punishing judge, but rather a loving Father who wants to save men from their bondage to sin through Jesus His Son. The disciples were to preach the message of metanoia or repentance--which has disturbing implications. To "repent" means to change one's mind and then fit one's actions to this change. Metanoia literally means change your mind. It can also mean taking a new direction. Thus, repentance means a change of heart and a change of action--a change from a self-centered life to a God-centered life. Such a change may hurt a bit at times. It is also interesting to note that Jesus commanded his disciples to anoint with oil. In the ancient world, oil was regarded as a sort of cure-all. In the hands of Christ's servants, however, the old cures would acquire a new virtue through the power of God.

Life Messages: # 1: We, too, have a witnessing mission: Each Christian is called not only to be a disciple but also to be an apostle. As disciples, we have to follow Jesus and imitate Jesus. As apostles, we have to evangelize the world. We are called to share with others not just words, or ideas, or doctrines but an experience, our experience of God and His Son, Jesus. Like the apostles, like St. Francis Assisi, like Blessed Mother Teresa, we are all chosen and sent to proclaim the Gospel through our living. It is through our transparent Christian lives that we must show in our own actions the love, mercy and concern of Jesus for the people around us. Since we are baptized, Jesus is calling us in our working and living environment to evangelize, to invite people to know Jesus, to love him, to serve him and to follow him. An important part of evangelism is the simple act of inviting a friend or family member to join us in worship. This is where reconciliation between persons and God is most likely to take place. We do not have to commit verbal assault on someone with our convictions. A simple invitation offered out of a loving and joyful heart is the most powerful evangelistic message of all.

#2: We have a liberating mission: Although many people don’t believe in real demonic possession in our age, there are many demons which can control the lives of people around us making them helpless slaves. For example there are the demons of nicotine, alcohol, gambling, pornography and promiscuous sex, materialism and consumerism, or of any other activity which somehow can take control of people’s lives and become an addiction over which they have no control. All of these, or any one of them, can turn people into slaves. We need the help of Jesus to liberate us and others from these things. Jesus is inviting us today to cooperate with him. He wants us to be his instruments of liberation, to help others recover their freedom. We are meant to help people to cure their sicknesses - not only the bodily sicknesses but psychological and emotional illnesses as well. As a family member, a friend, a colleague, an evangelizer, when we work with Jesus, we can truly have a healing influence.

#3: We have a mission to live as children of God. Realization of our dignity as children of God should change our outlook on life. We are to be children filled with love, rather than selfishness and disobedience. We are to respect our brothers and sisters in Christ. As God’s children, we should live a life of absolute trust in the goodness of our Heavenly Father, who knows what is best for us. The realization that we are the children of God should bring us great Nike Roshe Cortez Nm Sp Sneakers comfort, peace and joy--even in our worst moments.

#4: We have a mission to grow in Divine adoption: It is in the Church--principally through the seven Sacraments--that our Divine adoption is made possible. We are chosen by God in Christ, baptized into his death and his Church, healed by his forgiveness, and nourished at the Eucharistic table. Today, when we gather as His adopted sons and daughters at this table of Christ’s sacrificial banquet, we can rightly address God as our Divine Father and ask Him for the special anointing of the Holy Spirit that we may grow daily in the true spirit and practice of our Divine adoption. L/15

Synopsis of OT XVI Sunday Homily (July 19) on Mk 6: 30-34 (L/15)

Introduction:  Today’s readings explain how God, like a good shepherd, redeems His people and provides for them. They also challenge us to use our God-given authority in the family, in the Church and in society, with fidelity and responsibility.   Today, pastoral ministry includes not only the pastoral care given by those named or ordained as “pastors” but the loving service given by all Christians who follow different callings to serve and lead others.

Scripture lessons: In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah (sixth century B.C.), thunders against Israel's careless leaders - the king, some priests and some court prophets – because they have shown no concern for the poor. The prophet also foretells the rise of a good, new shepherd in the family line of David. Then he consoles the Israelites enslaved in Babylon, by assuring them that God will lead them back to their original pasture in Israel.  Today’s Good Shepherd Psalm(Ps 23) affirms David’s faith and trust in God, the “Good Shepherd.”   The second reading introduces Jesus as the shepherd of both the Jews and the Gentiles and explains how Jesus, the good shepherd, reconciled all of us with His Father by offering himself on the cross. Paul also speaks about another reconciliation between the Jews and the Gentiles, brought about by Jesus who has accepted both into the same Christian brotherhood. The reading from the Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as the good shepherd fulfilling God’s promise given through his prophet Jeremiah in the first reading.  Here we see Jesus attending to his weary apostles, who have just returned from their first preaching mission, while at the same time expressing his concern for the people who, like “sheep without a shepherd," have gathered to meet him in the wilderness.

Life messages: 1) We need God’s grace to become good shepherds: The Christian life is a continuous passage from the presence of God to the presence of people and back again. Prayer is essentially listening to God and talking to Him. We should allow God the opportunity to speak to us and recharge us with spiritual energy and strength by setting aside enough time for Him to speak to us and for us to speak to Him. He speaks to us powerfully when we spend some time every day reading the Bible devoutly and meditating on the message God gives us. We receive strength from God to do our share of the shepherd’s preaching and healing ministry by praying to Him individually, in the family and as a community, in the parish Church participating in the Eucharistic celebration.

2) The Church has the double responsibility of teaching and feeding: There can be no true Christianity without the proclamation of the Gospel. Teaching the Word of God is essential to a Christian community.   Christians must also display the compassion of Jesus by meeting the social and material needs of others by our works of charity as individual Christians and as a parish community.

OT XVI SUNDAY (July 19) Jer 23:1-6, Eph 2:13-18, Mk 6:30-34)

Anecdote: # 1:  “Altar of the Chair:” Today’s Gospel presents Jesus as the good shepherd for people who were like sheep without shepherd. At St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the role of Pope as a teaching shepherd is depicted very powerfully in art. At the very back of the basilica, there is one of the most famous pieces in art history, done by the great sculptor Bernini. It’s called the “Altar of the Chair,” and it was so beautiful and influential that art historians say it was the start of the baroque era. It was Pope Alexander VII who commissioned Bernini to build a sumptuous monument which would give prominence to the ancient wooden chair believed to have been used by St. Peter.  Bernini built a throne in gilded bronze richly ornamented with bas-reliefs, in which the chair was enclosed: two pieces of furniture, one within the other. At the top of the altar, there is the brilliant translucent image of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove surrounded by angels. The Holy Spirit is descending upon a huge bronze chair which houses what in the 16th century was believed to be the actual chair on which St. Peter sat to teach the people of Rome. Peter’s chair is a symbol of the teaching authority of the Church and particularly of the Popes, the successors of St. Peter, who are Christ’s vicars on earth. The most formal teachings of the Church are called “ex cathedra,” meaning literally “from the chair.” Underneath the chair there are four bishops who are all famous teaching saints in the early Church—Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Ambrose—who are depicted referring to and spiritually upholding the teaching authority of the Church and papacy. But the element that is most relevant to today’s Scriptures is found sculpted into the backrest of the Chair. It’s a depiction of Peter feeding Christ’s sheep. It’s a reference to the end of St. John’s Gospel, when Jesus asked Peter three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter replied that he did. And Jesus responded, “Feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” and “feed my sheep.” Peter’s obedience in caring for Christ’s sheep is seen above all, therefore, in his TEACHING of Christ’s truth. Every year on February 22, the Church celebrates the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, to commemorate St. Peter's teaching in Rome.

# 2: The hour of a mid-week prayer service in a little church: Michael Faraday was a 19^th century British physicist and chemist, best known for his discoveries of electromagnetic induction (the principle behind the electric transformer and generator) and of the laws of electrolysis. His biggest breakthrough in electricity was his invention of the electric motor.This great scientist once addressed convocation of scientists. For an hour he held the audience spellbound with his lecture on the electromagnetic induction, electrolysis, electric motor and their future applications. After he had finished, he received a thundering ovation. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, stood to congratulate him. The applause thundered again. Just as quickly, a deadened silence pervaded the audience. Faraday had left. It was the hour of a mid-week prayer service in a little church of which he was a member. Do we have a similar commitment? Like Faraday, have we pledged our allegiances to a Power that outlasts the short-lived fads and governments of this world? One of the reasons we gather for worship each week is for the refreshment of our spirits, the recharging of our spiritual; batteries. We need to shut the world out and focus our attention on God's presence in our lives. Jesus knew the value of getting away to a quiet place. With our families, would we put into practice what the Wall Street Journal suggested a generation ago? "What America needs ... is a revival of piety - the piety of our fathers.”  Today’s Gospel tells us how Jesus takes his worn-out disciples to a lonely place for rest and refreshment.

# 3: Expectant waiting for dear ones: A story from the life of Mother Teresa shows her love for lonely and unwanted people, the "sheep without a shepherd," who, while materially well-off, are sometimes "the Reebok Club C Outlet poorest of the poor."  On one occasion, she visited a well-run nursing home where good food, medical care and other facilities were offered to the elderly.   As she moved among the old people, she noticed that none of them smiled unless she touched them and smiled at them first.  She also noticed that many of them kept glancing expectantly towards the door while listening to her.   When she asked one of the nurses why this was so, she was told:   “They are looking for a visit from someone related to them.  But, except for an occasional visit, birthday gift or a get-well card, this never happens." Jesus invites us, in today’s Gospel, to show concern, mercy and compassion for such sheep without a shepherd.

Introduction:  Today’s readings explain how God, like a Good Shepherd, redeems His people and provides for them. They also challenge us to use our God-given authority in the family, in the Church and in society, with fidelity and responsibility.   Today “pastoral” ministry includes not only the pastoral care given by those named or ordained as “pastors” but the loving service given by many others who follow different callings to serve and lead others. In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah (sixth century B.C.), thunders against Israel's careless leaders - the king, some priests and some court prophets – because they have shown no concern for the poor. The prophet also foretells the rise of a good, new shepherd in the family line of David. Then he consoles the Israelites enslaved in Babylon, by assuring them that God will lead them back to their original pasture in Israel.  Today’s Good Shepherd Psalm (Ps 23) affirms David’s faith and trust in God, the Good Shepherd.”   The second reading introduces Jesus as the shepherd of both Jews and Gentiles and explains how Jesus, the good shepherd, reconciled all of us with His Father by offering himself on the cross. Paul also speaks about another reconciliation, that between the Jews and the Gentiles, brought about by Jesus who accepted both into the same Christian brotherhood. The reading from the Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as the good shepherd fulfilling God’s promisegiven through his prophet Jeremiah in the first reading.  Here we see Jesus attending to his weary apostles, who have just returned from their first preaching mission, while at the same time expressing his concern for the people who, like “sheep without a shepherd," have gathered to meet him in the wilderness. First reading, :  The prophet Jeremiah lived from about 650 BC to perhaps 580 B.C. Most of his work was in Judah's capital, Jerusalem. He tried to keep the people and several kings Nike Air Max Bw Outlet faithful to God amidst an atmosphere of political intrigue and backstabbing. Jeremiah was blunt about what was right and what was not.  He suffered at the hands of the powerful because of his outspokenness. At the time of this prophecy, a good king in Judah had just been replaced by a king who allied Judah to Egypt. Jeremiah was sent by God to rage against this policy, reminding the people and the King that God's people should trust in God, not in alliances with pagan nations. Some flattering "prophets" of the court backed the King and criticized Jeremiah. But Jeremiah remained a vigorous, courageous, outspoken man. Today we'd say Jeremiah had fire in his belly. Here he thunders on Chaussures Asics Soldes behalf of a God outraged at the powerful people's neglect of their responsibility to the poor. "I gave you the privileges of a shepherd, you mislead and scatter the flock, I'm about to replace you, and my people will be restored!" Jeremiah assured his audience that Yahweh would give them a "new shepherd," a new leader who would exercise Yahweh's care and concern for His people. Jesus fulfills the prophecy of the good shepherd God promised through Jeremiah – the one who would shepherd the sheep “so that they need no longer fear and tremble,” and the Davidic king who would do what was just and right in the land. Jeremiah’s prophetic denunciation of faithless servants in the Old Testament is applicable also to our own time. All of us who exercise responsibility in various ministries in the Church, in family life and in society, are called to Nike Cortez Soldes imitate God’s diligent, effective caring by bringing people together, leading  them and showing selfless concern for our subjects rather than taking personal advantage of them.

Second Reading, : In this reading, Paul celebrates the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy (first reading) of a future shepherd who would gather the dispersed and the scattered into one people of God. This passage explains how Christ has brought about reconciliation between ancient enemies, the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul says that the Jews were "near" and the Gentiles "far off." But by becoming Christians, those Jews, who had enjoyed God's favor for so many generations, have now accepted Christ as the Messiah. The converted Gentiles had long been estranged from God. But they, too, have now accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. Hence, as Christians, the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians are now no more enemies but brothers and sisters. The Law of Moses “with its commandments and legal claims"served to separate the Jews who kept it from the Gentiles who didn't know of it and didn't bother. Against the attempts by some Jewish Christians to impose the Mosaic Law on Gentile converts, Paul affirms that the Law can no longer separate God's single people into factions.

Exegesis: The context: Today’s Gospel passage presents the sympathetic and merciful heart of Jesus who lovingly invites his apostles to a desolate place for some rest.   Jesus had sent his apostles on their first mission, which was one of healing, teaching and preaching.  When they returned, they were no doubt exhilarated by the experience. They had witnessed at first hand, the power of God's Word.   Nonetheless, they were hungry, exhausted, and in need of rest, both physical and spiritual. In fact, Jesus was eager to hear about their missionary adventures as they proudly shared their experiences. But Jesus, too, was in need of a break from the crowds who were constantly pressing on him, Chaussures Adidas Outlet demanding his attention and healing. Hence, he led the Apostles by boat to a “deserted place” on the other side of the Lake for a period of rest and sharing.

2) “Sheep without shepherd:” But when they came ashore there was a large crowd waiting for them. Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for those people who were “sheep without a shepherd.” Here the reference to the shepherd was probably to religious leaders, because at this time the Jews were an occupied people and the real political power was in the hands of the Romans. This brief description, “sheep without a shepherd,” is also dense with Biblical allusions. Like the people of Israel, the crowds were in the desert where they would receive not only miraculous food (next Sunday’s Gospel), but guidance and instruction, just as the Torah had been given in the desert of Sinai.  “Sheep without s shepherd” will perish because a) they cannot find their way and will probably end up eaten by a wolf or other carnivores   b) they cannot find pasture and food and c) they have no defense against the dangers which threaten them.   Jesus' first act with these shepherd-less sheep was to teach them [v. 34] and then to feed them [vv. 35-40] and finally to protect his closest disciples who were also His sheep from the storm [vv. 45-52]. This text affirms Jesus’ extraordinary availability and his compassion for the needy. It teaches us that a Christian should be ready to sacrifice his time and even his rest in the service of the Gospel.

Life messages: 1) Christians must be people of prayer and action: The Christian life is a continuous passage from the presence of God to the presence of people and back again. Prayer is essentially listening to God and talking to Him. One of our main problems is that we do not truly allow God the opportunity to speak to us.  We also do not know how to "be still and to listen." Hence, we are often in danger of refusing to allow God to recharge us with spiritual energy and strength.  In addition, we do not set aside enough time for Him to speak to us and for us to speak to God.   How can we shoulder life's burdens if we have no contact with the Lord of Life?  How can we do God's work unless we rely on God's strength?  And how can we receive that strength unless we pray to him individually, in the family and as a parish community in the Church and receive His grace by participating in the Holy Mass and through the reception of the Sacraments? However, we must never seek God's fellowship in order to avoid the fellowship of men but always in order to prepare for it.   From our reflection on today’s Gospel, let us remind ourselves that the Christian life consists of meeting with God in the secret place so that we may serve people more effectively in the market place.

2) The Church has the double responsibility of teaching and feeding: People today find it difficult to balance those two aspects of the Christian life. Some apparently believe that the social ministry of the Church is all that is needed to make Christ present in the world.   Others seem to believe that the Church's major concern should be preaching the Gospel, rather than feeding the hungry and healing the sick.  The Church's duty, so the argument goes, is to spread the Gospel and provide for public worship. Both views are one-sided.  There can be no true Christianity without the proclamation of the Gospel. Teaching the Word of God is essential to a Christian community.  But that is only half of the story. Christians must also display the same compassion for the suffering that Jesus exhibited by meeting the social and material needs of others - even those who are not members of our Church.

3) The Church needs ideal pastors: The pastor must be a person of compassion. He must be able to feel deeply the suffering of others, to understand why they fear and tremble. The pastors are also called to lead and “govern wisely” (Jer 23:5), living the teaching they communicate. They are to guide people in right paths and are to be concerned about what is right and just. Their pastoral care should be involved and peaceful care and guidance. There are very many people searching for truth today, people hungering for instruction, good people who are looking for direction. They may be parents who are sick with grief over the future of a troubled child; a man stripped of his dignity by unemployment; a woman facing a pregnancy alone; elderly people who feel the diminishing surge of life in their bodies; people who are angry and confused because they have lost confidence in their leaders, whether political or religious. They are people who are looking for answers and for meaning. They are like sheep without a shepherd. They all need ideal pastors filled with the spirit of Christ the “Good Shepherd.”

Joke of the week: # 1: The young pastor was teaching the 23^rd psalm to the Sunday school children. He told them that they were sheep who needed guidance. Then the priest asked, "If you are the sheep then who the shepherd is?” (Nike Presto Fly France obviously meaning himself). A silence of a few seconds followed. Then a young boy said, "Jesus. Jesus is the Shepherd." The young priest, obviously caught by surprise, said to the boy, "Well then, who am I?" The boy frowned thoughtfully and then said, "I guess you must be a sheep dog."

1 page Synopsis of O.T. XVII [B] Sunday (July 26) Jn 6: 1-15(L/15) Introduction:  Today’s readings invite us to become humble instruments in God’s hands by sharing our blessings with our needy brothers and sisters. They also Uruguay Kits 2015 remind us that if our country has been blessed with an abundance of earthly bread or with the technical capabilities to produce such abundance, then these gifts are for sharing with the hungry people and poor countries. Once physical hungers are satisfied, then we are challenged to satisfy the deeper hungers, for love, mercy, forgiveness, companionship, peace and fulfillment.

Scripture lessons: The first reading tells us how the prophet Elisha, by invoking God’s power, fed one hundred men with twenty barley loaves.  This miracle foreshadowed the gospel account of Jesus' miraculous feeding of the crowd who followed him to hear his words. Today’s psalm gives us the assurance that it is “the hand of the Lord that feeds us,” and that it is God who “answers all our needs.”  In the second reading, St. Paul reminds the Ephesians that Jesus united the Jews and the Gentiles by bringing them together as Christians in one faith and one baptism, and, hence, they have to live together, helping each other by sharing their blessings. Paul urges us to become communities of sharing Christians. The miraculous feeding of the five thousand people by Jesus, using five barley loaves and two fish, as described in today’s gospel, is associated with the Holy Eucharist early in the Church’s tradition. The people immediately interpreted the miracle, giving Jesus two Messianic titles: "The prophet” and "the one who is to come." This miracle teaches us that God works marvels through ordinary people. Elisha’s servant and Jesus’ disciples distributed the bread provided by God through generous people who were willing to share their food with the hungry. Thus, God meets the needs of people through the good will and services provided by members of His community.

Life messages:  A challenge to generous sharing: 1) The gospel story teaches that Jesus meets the most basic human need, namely hunger, with generosity and compassion. 2) Today’s readings also tell us that God really cares about His people and that there is enough and more than enough for everybody. Studies show that the world today produces enough food grains to provide every human being on the planet with 3,600 calories a day, not counting such foods as tuber crops, vegetables, beans, nuts, fruits, meats, and fish. Hence, let us pray and work for better social justice in all communities and countries. 3) As Christians we need to commit ourselves to share and to work with God in communicating His compassion to all as the early Christians did. God always blesses those who share their blessings and talents with loving commitment. We can begin our own humble efforts at "sharing" right in our parish by participating in the works of charity done by organizations like St. Vincent DePaul Society, the Knights of Columbus etc. (L/12

O.T. XVII [B] (Jly 29): 2Kings 4:42-44, Eph 4:1-6, John 6:1-15 Anecdote: #1: “No Golden Goose Sneaker Outlet my son, the pigs of my village don’t pray before meals!” Monsignor Arthur Tonne has a funny story on today’s gospel lesson. A village farmer stopped at a restaurant in the nearby town and sat near a group of young fellows who were acting up, shouting at the cook and heckling the waitress. When his meal was set before him the old farmer bowed his head to offer a prayer.  One of the smart-alecks thought he would have some fun with the old farmer.  So he shouted in a loud voice that could be heard by everyone, “Hey, Pop, does everyone do this where you come from?”  Calmly the old man turned towards the lad with an innocent smile and replied in an equally loud voice: “No son, our pigs don’t.”  Today’s gospel tells us that, before feeding the five thousand, Jesus took the loaves of bread, gave thanks (to God his Father) and distributed them.

#2: A bag of rice to share:   From her personal experience, Mother Teresa relates a story showing how the poor are more generous than the rich because they have experienced hunger and poverty.   Learning of a poor Hindu family in Calcutta who had been starving for many days, Mother Theresa visited them and brought a big parcel of rice to the mother.  She was surprised to see how the mother divided the rice into two equal portions and went out with one bundle to give it   to her Moslem neighbor.  When she returned, Mother   Theresa asked her why she had done such a generous deed.  The woman replied: “My family can manage with half the rice in this bag.  My neighbor’s family has several children and they are also starving."   Today’s gospel tells the story of a small boy who showed this same kind of generosity.  By sharing his small lunch (which consisted of five barley loaves and two dried fish), he became the instrument in Jesus’ working of a miracle that fed thousands.

# 3: “I wish I could be a brother like that:” Paul had received a special pre- Christmas gift from his rich brother. It was a beautiful new car - fully loaded and ready to go.  On Christmas Eve, when Paul came out of his office, a street kid was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it.  "Is this your car, mister?” the kid   asked.  When he replied that it was and that his brother had given it to him for Christmas, the boy said, "You mean your brother gave it to you, and it didn't cost you anything?  Free?  For nothing?  Gosh, I wish..."  The boy hesitated, and Paul knew what he was about to say.  He had heard it many times over the past few days.  He was going to wish he had a brother like that.  But what the boy said shocked Paul.  ”I wish", the boy said, "I wish I could be a brother like that."  We can be a brother like that or a sister like that.  All it takes is that we offer ourselves and what we have, to God.  All it takes is that we cease to worry about how little we have and begin instead to think about what it is that we can offer to others, as the little boy in today’s gospel story did by sharing his bread and fish with the multitude through Jesus. (“Chicken Soup” series).

Introduction:  Today’s readings invite us to become humble instruments in God’s hands by sharing our blessings with our needy brothers and sisters. Miracles can happen through our hands, when we collect and distribute to the needy the food destined for all by our generous God.  Today’s readings also remind us that if  we have been blessed with an abundance of earthly bread or with the technical capabilities to produce such an abundance, then these gifts are for sharing with the hungry.  When physical hungers are satisfied, then we are challenged to satisfy the deeper hungers - for love, mercy, forgiveness, companionship, peace and fulfillment.  The first reading tells us how the prophet Elisha, by invoking God’s power, fed one hundred men with twenty barley loaves.  This miracle foreshadowed the gospel account of Jesus' miraculous feeding of the crowd who followed him to hear his words.  Today’s  psalm tells us: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; God answers all our needs.”   In thesecond reading, St. Paul reminds the Ephesians that Jesus united the Jews and the Gentiles, bringing them together as Christians in one faith and one baptism.  Hence, he urges them to keep this unity intact as one body and one spirit by living as true Christians, “bearing with one another through love,” in humility, gentleness, patience and peace.  If we become such a community, nobody will go hungry, and God will meet the needs of people through the services provided by members of our community.  The miraculous feeding of the five thousand people by Jesus, with five barley loaves and two fish, as described in today’s gospel, is associated in Church tradition with the Holy Eucharist.  John’s version of the miracle clearly heightens the Eucharistic allusions when we read it along with the miraculous feeding of 100 men by the prophet Elisha in today’s first reading.  But unlike Elisha, Jesus himself assumed the divine role, feeding the people with eschatological plenty.  The reaction of the people was immediate and unanimous; they interpreted the miracle as a messianic sign and gave Jesus two Messianic titles: "The prophet” and "the one who is to come."  This miracleteaches us that God works marvels through ordinary people.  Elisha’s servant and Jesus’ disciples distributed the bread, provided by God.  Thus, God meets the needs of the people through the services provided by the members of His community.

First reading, : The first reading, taken from the Second Book of Kings, prepares us for today’s gospel which describes the miraculous feeding of more than five thousand people by Jesus using a boy’s gift of five barley loaves and two dried fish.  Acting through the prophet Elisha, God fed about 100 people with 20 barley loaves.  Both incidents tell us that God works marvels through ordinary people and meets the needs of people through the services provided by members of the community.  The Fathers of the Church recognized this miraculous feeding of Elisha as a type of, and prelude for, Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes in today’s gospel, an event that itself foreshadowed his gift of Himself in the Eucharist which continues to nourish believers.  The paired readings challenge the Church to continue Elisha’s and Jesus’ tradition by becoming, with His power, a provider and multiplier of bread for the poor.

Second Reading, : St. Paul, in prison, reminds the Ephesians that Jesus united the Jews and the Gentiles, bringing them together as Christians in one faith and one baptism.  Hence, he advises them to keep this unity intact as one body and one spirit by living as true Christians “bearing with one another inlove,” with humility, gentleness, patience and peace.  At present, we are the community that Paul describes.  We are the ones called to feed the hungry today.  As members of the body of Christ, we need to remember that miracles can happen through our prayers, our donations and our hands when we help Him to  distribute to the hungry the food destined for all by our generous God.

Exegesis:  The context: Jesus’ withdrawals into the wilderness were probably intended to provide periods of rest and reflection for Jesus and his disciples, and a time for him to teach them privately.  In addition, withdrawal might have allowed them to avoid danger from those hostile to him, particularly after the execution of John the Baptist.  Today’s gospel shows us one such incident, Here, we see Jesus trying, in vain, to withdraw with his Adidas Climachill Ride Boost Gfx apostles from the crowds at Capernaum by sailing to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus stepped ashore near a remote village called Bethsaida Julius, where the River Jordan flows into the north end of the Sea of Galilee, and faced a large crowd of people who had pursued him around the Sea on foot. His immediate reaction was one of deep compassion. Near the place where they had landed, there was a small grassy plain, and there he began to heal the sick among them and to teach them at length.  This was the scene of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand as described in today’s gospel.

A great miracle before a multitude: The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is found in all four Parajumpers Kodiak Homme gospels, although the context and emphasis vary.  This is the only miracle, other than the resurrection, that is told in all the gospels, a fact that speaks of its importance to the early Church.  Compare Mark 6:35-44 with Matthew 14:13-21, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14.  Matthew says that there were about 5,000 men, not including women and children. This miraculous feeding in the desert had precedents: Moses, Elijah and Elisha had fed people without resources.  The present miracle resembles particularly the one performed by Elisha in 2 Kings 4:42-44.  In both cases, unlike the manna in the desert, there were leftovers, for everyone there had had enough and more than enough.  This miracle, then, is greater than the manna of the exodus.  The Gospel story should be treated as a witness to the power of God and an implicit declaration of Jesus’ divinity.  It also shows how, to this day, Jesus empowers his disciples to continue his works of compassion.  We may regard the incident both as a miracle of divine providence and also as a messianic sign in which Jesus multiplied loaves and fish in order to feed his hungry listeners.  The lesson for every Christian is that, no matter how impossible his or her assignments may seem, with divine help they can be done because "nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37).

A messianic sign or a miracle of generous sharing?  The traditional teaching of the Church is that Jesus literally multiplied the bread and fish to feed his hungry listeners.C.S. Lewis, in his book Miracles, says that this is simply God doing in microcosm what God does all of the time in macrocosm. At the beginning of this century in his classic book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, Schweitzer suggested that what we have here is a "sacrament" rather than a full meal.   All the people received was the merest crumb of food, and yet, somehow, with Jesus present among them, it was enough. That, however, does not explain the baskets full of leftovers from the five loaves and two fish. A few bible scholars even suggest that the "miracle" may be interpreted also as Jesus’ success in getting a group of selfish people to share their personal provisions with others.  According to this interpretation, it appears strange and unnatural that the crowd had made this nine-mile long expedition to such a desolate village without taking anything to eat.  When people set out on a journey, they usually took their food with them in a small basket called a kophinah or in a bigger wicker basket.  But if they had done so in this case, each one might have been unwilling to share what he had brought with others.  If such were the case, Jesus might have deliberately accepted the five loaves and fish from the little boy in order to set a good example for the crowd.  Moved by this example of generosity, the crowd might have done the same: thus, there could have been enough for all.  This view was propounded by the famous preacher-novelist Lloyd C. Douglas, author ofThe Robe. This rather fanciful explanation may still be considered a “miracle”: it might show that how the example of the boy responding to Jesus “miraculously” turned a crowd of selfish men and women into a fellowship of generous sharers.  It does, however, militate against the Divinity of Jesus, True God and True Man. For it is the literal interpretation of the miracle which makes the miracle a messianic sign with Eucharistic reference, points to the Divinity of Christ and offers an example of God’s love for us, expressed in superabundant generosity.

A symbol of the Eucharist: No Bible scholar doubts that all six bread miracles in the gospels are about the Eucharist.  The multiplication of the loaves is the only miracle from Jesus’ public ministry narrated in all four Gospels with Eucharistic overtones.  The early Christian community saw this event as anticipating the Eucharist.  John uses this story in his gospel to introduce Jesus’ profound and extended reflection on the Eucharist and the Bread of Life.  The Cycle B lectionary has selected portions from John chapter 6 for five Sundays to remind us of Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist.  The Eucharistic coloring of the multiplication of bread is clear in Jesus' blessing, breaking, and giving the loaves.  Thus, the miracle itself becomes a symbol of the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity. The sharing of the broken bread is a sign of a community that is expected to share and provide in abundance for the needs of its members.  Matthew invites us to see this miracle as a type or symbol explaining the sacrament's meaning. Clearly the account suggests the early Christian rite of the breaking of the bread, celebrated daily (Acts 2), rather than the covenant-sacrifice meal, or the annual Jewish Passover celebration, or the yearly Christian Paschal celebration.  This daily breaking of the bread also had eschatological associations: it was an anticipation of the messianic banquet.  The Church's Eucharist today combines both the sacrificial and the eschatological associations.  In the recent past, emphasis has been placed more on the sacrificial than on the eschatological aspect, but the imbalance is now being redressed.

Life messages: #1: "You give them something to eat." The gospel story teaches that Jesus meets the most basic human need, hunger, with generosity and compassion.  Today’s readings also tell us that God really cares about His people and that there is enough and more than enough for everybody.  Studies show that the world today produces enough food grains to provide every human being on the planet with 3,600 calories a day, not counting such foods as tuber crops, vegetables, beans, nuts, fruits, meats, and fish.  Over the past twenty five years, food production has exceeded world population growth by about 16%. This means that there is no good reason for any human being in today's world to go hungry.  But even in a rich country like U.S.A., one child out of five grows up in poverty, three million people are homeless and 4000 unborn babies are aborted every day.  “The problem in feeding the world’s hungry population lies with our political lack of will, our economic system biased in favor of the affluent, our militarism, and our tendency to blame the victims of social tragedies such as famine.  We all share responsibility for the fact that populations are undernourished.  Therefore, it is necessary to arouse a sense of responsibility in individuals, especially among those more blessed with this world’s goods.” (Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (1961) 157-58).

#2: We need to commit ourselves to share with others, and to work with God in communicating His compassion.  It is too easy to blame God, too easy to blame governments, too easy see these things as other people's problems.  They are also our problems.  That is the meaning of the Eucharist we celebrate here today.  In other words, as Christians we need to commit ourselves to share what we have with others, and to work with God in communicating his compassion to all.                                                                                                                                          God is a caring Father and He wants our co-operation to be part of His caring for all of us, His children.  That’s what the early Christians did, generously sharing what they had with the needy.  They were convinced that everything they needed to experience a fulfilling life was already there, in the gifts and talents of the people around them.  People of our time need to be encouraged to share, even when they think they have nothing to offer.  Whatever we offer through Jesus will have a life-giving effect in those who receive it.  We are shown two attitudes in the Gospel story: that of Philip and that of Andrew (John 6:7-9). Philip said, in effect:  "The situation is hopeless; nothing can be done."  But Andrew's attitude was: "I'll see what I can do; and I will trust Jesus to do the rest."  Let us have Andrew’s attitude.

#3: God blesses those who share their talents, with loving commitment.  This is illustrated by Mother Teresa who went to serve the slum dwellers of Calcutta with just twenty cents in her pocket.  When she died forty-nine years later, God had turned those original twenty cents into eighty schools, three hundred mobile dispensaries, seventy leprosy clinics, thirty homes for the dying, thirty homes for abandoned children and forty thousand volunteers from all over the world to help her.  We can begin our own humble efforts at "sharing" right in our parish by participating in the works of charity done by organizations like the St. Vincent DePaul Society, the Knights of Columbus and so many other volunteer groups. We may say, “I do not have enough money or talent to make any difference”.   But we need to remember that the small boy in the story had only five barley loaves and two dried fish.  The Bible guarantees that every believer has at least one gift from the Holy Spirit.  This is our one “tiny fish”.  Perhaps our “fish” is not money, but a talent or an ability that God has given us.  We all have something. If you have never trusted God with your time, or your talent, or your treasure...all your resources...this is the time to start.  Let us offer ourselves and whatever we have to God saying, “Here is what I am and what I have Lord; use me; use it.”  And He will bless us and bless our offering, amplifying it beyond our expectations.  When we give what we have to God, and we ask Him to bless it, it is then the miracle happens.  We, too, can perform wonders in our own time and place, by practicing the four "Eucharistic verbs” of Jesus:   Take humbly and generously what God gives us, bless it by offering it to others in God’s love, break it off from our own needs and interests for the sake of others, give it away with joy-filled gratitude to God who has blessed us with so much.

Jokes of the week: 1) "What would Jesus do?" I heard about a little boy who got into a heated argument with his sister about who was going to get the last brownie, and his mother overheard this discussion and came in to try to resolve the fuss. Her two children, both extremely upset, each wanted that last brownie. So sensing the opportunity to teach a deeper spiritual truth, the mother looked at her children and asked that very relevant question..."What would Jesus do?" Well, that little boy immediately answered, "That's easy. Jesus would just break that brownie and make 5,000 more!"

2) "What's the expiration date on it?" It's like the story of a little girl in Milwaukee who had had her tonsils out and was staying with her grandmother while her parents were at work. One day she complained of a sore throat. "I have some holy water from Lourdes that I got from my mother," the grandmother said. "Should I put some on your neck?" The girl thought for a moment and then asked, "What's the expiration date on it?"

3) Football Austria Sharing everything: A young man saw an elderly couple sitting down to lunch at McDonald's.  He noticed that they had ordered one meal, and an extra drink cup. As he watched, the gentleman carefully divided the hamburger in half, counted out the fries, one for him, one for her, until each had half of them.  Then he poured half of the soft drink into the extra cup and set that in front of his wife. The old man then began to eat, and his wife sat watching, with her hands folded in her lap.  The young man decided to ask if they would allow him to purchase another meal for them so that they didn't have to split theirs. The old gentleman said, "Oh no.  We've been married 50 years, and everything has always been and will always be shared, 50/50." The young man then asked the wife if she was not going to eat, and she replied, "It's his turn with the teeth." (L/15)

Synopsis: OT XVIII [B] (August 2) Homily John 6: 24-35 L/15

Introduction:  Today’s readings challenge us to trust in the providence of a loving and caring God and to hunger and thirst for the Bread of eternal life – the Holy Eucharist.  Only God can satisfy our various forms of spiritual hunger. Scripture lessons:   The first reading shows us how God satisfied the hunger of His chosen people in the desert by giving them manna and quail.  The restrictions imposed by God for the collecting of manna remind us to acknowledge humbly our total dependence on God and to trust that He will always provide for what we need.  Today’sResponsorial Psalm (Ps 78), refers to manna as “Heavenly bread” and the “bread of angels.”  In the second reading, St. Paul advises the Ephesians to satisfy their spiritual hunger by turning away from their former evil ways and leading lives of love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness.  Paul reminds us that our acceptance of Jesus as the real source of our life and the nourishment of our souls effects a total transformation in us.  Having been nourished by the Bread from Heaven and the word of God, we need to bear witness to Christ by living lives renewed by the Holy Spirit.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes the unique and bold claim: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."  Jesus was offering the crowd Bread from Heaven, Bread that nourishes for eternal life, Bread available to people who have faith in Jesus Christ.  When Jesus invited those who sought after him for earthly food to be fed, as well, by the Bread of his word or teaching, some accepted the nourishment.  But others turned away, disappointed because Jesus’ challenge required a commitment that they were unwilling to make.

Life messages: 1) We need spiritual nourishment from the word of God and from the Holy Eucharist: In the Holy Mass, the Church offers us two types of bread: a) the Bread of Life, contained in God’s Word and b) the Bread of Life, contained in the Holy Eucharist.  Let us nourish our souls with this Heavenly manna and carry Jesus to our homes and workplaces, radiating his love, mercy and compassion all around us. But we should not take for granted the Divine generosity that provides these gifts so readily and gratuitously by sharing in the Bread of Life simply as a matter of habit, without showing due attention and proper respect.

2) We need to accept God’s gifts of spiritual life and strength by properly receiving the Holy Eucharist: The Sacrament gives us 1) Courage to carry out God's work in the world, 2) Help to live the life God wants for us, 3) Inspiration to know the will of God in our lives, 4) A deeperUnderstanding of the holy mystery of Christ's Presence, 5) Encouragement to love others and strengthen the Faith community, 6) Grace to overcome temptation and avoid sin and 7) Joy and Peace of heart, knowing that Christ lives in us and will bring us to God's Heavenly Kingdom. Let us remember that the “Bread of Life” is Jesus Christ himself, not merely human bread.    It is Food for our souls giving us a share in God’s life and assurance of eternal life with Him.

OT XVIII [B] (8/2/2015): Ex 16:2-4, 12-15; Eph 4:17, 20-24; Jn 6:24-35 Anecdotes: # 1: A modern Good Samaritan: A few years ago the news media carried the story of a modern-day Good Samaritan who packed his car each day with dozens of homemade sandwiches and traveled to the inner city to distribute them to homeless and otherwise needy people.  Eventually, those who benefited from his generosity became familiar with the Samaritan’s customary route and began to congregate on certain corners at a specific time each day to wait for their daily gift of food.  Today’s Gospel describes such a scene where people who had been sumptuously fed on the previous day by Jesus came searching for him for another free meal.

# 2: All about food, earthly and Heavenly:  In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about food. The two biggest sellers in any bookstore, according to Andy Rooney, are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it. Orson Wells once said, "My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for four, unless, of course, there are three other people eating with me." Champion archer Rick McKinney confesses that he regularly eats chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. He refers to "the basic four food groups" as a Big Mac, fries, a shake and a lemon tart. A California scientist has computed that the average human being eats 16 times his or her own weight in an average year, while a horse eats only eight times its weight. This all seems to prove that if you want to lose weight, you should eat like a horse. (Sunshine Magazine). That's a subject most of us know too much about. A recent survey found that 41% of men and 55% of women consider themselves overweight. In one way or another, many of us are obsessed with earthly food. Think what a difference it would make in our lives if we were equally obsessed with Heavenly Food, the Food that Christ gives us.

# 3: Cat to kill mice:  Once there was a young Hindu hermit who lived as an ascetic in a forest.  He owned nothing except a pair of loincloths.  One morning, to his great disappointment, he found that mice had destroyed one of the loincloths.  He brought a cat to kill the mice and then a cow to give milk to the cat.  Later, as the cows multiplied, he hired a girl from the nearby village to look after the cows and to sell the extra milk in the village.  Finally, his ever-growing material needs prompted him to end his religious life, marry the girl and settle down as a farmer in the village.  This little story illustrates how easily the never-ceasing hunger for material things can take over our spiritual life. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises to satisfy our spiritual hunger by offering His Body as our food.

Introduction:  Today’s readings challenge us to trust in the providence of a loving and caring God and to hunger and thirst for the Bread of eternal life – the Holy Eucharist.  As human beings, we hunger for many things besides food and material possessions.  We hunger to be recognized and honored, to love and be loved, to be listened to and to be appreciated, to help, console and encourage people and receive gratitude.  But only God can satisfy our various forms of spiritual hunger.  St. Augustine said: "O God, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” (Confessions,

The first reading shows us how God satisfied the hunger of His chosen people in the desert by giving them manna and quail.  The restrictions imposed by God for the collecting of manna remind us to trust that God will always provide for our needs.  Sometimes we have to be stripped of our usual sources of support in order to be reminded that our ultimate sustenance comes only from God, and then to acknowledge humbly our total dependence on God.  Today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 78), refers to manna as “Heavenly bread” and the “bread of angels.”  In the second reading, St. Paul advises the Ephesians to satisfy their spiritual hunger by turning away from their former evil ways and leading lives of love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness.  Paul reminds us that our acceptance of Jesus as the real source of our life and the nourishment of our souls effects a total transformation in us.  Having been fed on the Bread from Heaven, we need to put aside our old selves, steeped in ignorance and self-interest, and put on a new self, created in Christ’s image.  Having been nourished by the word of God, we need to bear witness to Christ by living lives renewed by the Holy Spirit.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes the unique and bold claim: “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst."  Jesus was offering the crowd Bread from Heaven, Bread that nourishes for eternal life, Bread available to people who have faith in Jesus Christ.  When Jesus invited those who sought after him to be fed spiritually by the bread of his word or teaching, some accepted the nourishment.  But others turned away, disappointed because Jesus’ challenge required a commitment that they were unwilling to make. First reading, : The passage from Exodus describes how the people complained to Moses of the acute shortage of food in the desert and accused him of leading them from Egypt, where food was plentiful, into the desert, “to die of famine.”  God heard the complaint of His people and lavished on them “food from heaven” in the form of fleshy quails in the evening and delicious manna in the morning.  The restrictions imposed by God for collecting the manna remind us to trust that God will always provide what we need. Sometimes we have to be stripped of our usual sources of support in order to remember that our ultimate sustenance comes only from God, and to acknowledge humbly our total dependence on God.  The fact that the Israelites were given bread from Heaven even after their murmuring reminds us that God’s generosity is not dependent on our virtue, but on His Goodness.  According to Bible scholars, quails and manna are occasional phenomena in the Sinai desert. Arranging for these gifts to arrive at the moment they were needed to meet the people’s need, however, was God’s work alone, His miracle.  The quail might have been migratory birds that often drop down in groups to the Sinai deserts due to exhaustion after their return flight from Europe over the Mediterranean Sea to their autumn habitats.  Manna is the secretion of two species of scale insects on the tamarisk shrub during the months of May and June. But it was God’s doing that the fall of manna occurred daily (except Sabbaths), for the 40 unbroken years of their wandering in the desert.   As the secretions drop from the shrub’s leaves to the ground, they cool in the night air and become firm.  If gathered early before the parching desert sun melts it, the manna provides a tasty, nourishing meal.  Bedouins in the northern Sinai call it mann and still use it as a sweetener.  The fact that the occasional occurrence of the manna and quail can be explained scientifically does not, in any way, lessen their theological importance in demonstrating God’s love for His people; indeed, the Israelites rightly ascribed these nourishing, timely gifts from the desert to the loving providence of their God.

Second Reading, : In the selections from Ephesians which we have read on these past two Sundays, St. Paul showed us how God effected the new unity of God's once separated peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles, by making both Christians.  In today’s second reading, St. Paul encourages the Jewish and Gentile Christians to live out the consequences of their unification, by treating each other like members of one family.  He also demands of the Gentile Christians of Ephesus radical changes from their pre-Christian way of life.  They must a) “put away the old self of their former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires,” b) “be renewed in the spirit of their minds,” and c) ”put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” They must put away the old pagan life and put on the new Christian life, just as the catechumens divested themselves of their outer garments to go down into the Baptismal waters and, after emerging, were clothed in Baptismal robes.  Here, St. Paul is challenging all baptized believers to personal holiness.

Exegesis: The context: Today’s Gospel presents an introduction to Jesus’ famous discourse on the Holy Eucharist in the form of a dialogue between Jesus and the Jews who had gone around the Lake and come to Capernaum searching for him.  The people were looking for a repeat performance of their miraculous feeding.  In answer to their question about his arrival, Jesus told them that they looked for him for another free meal and that such meals would not satisfy them. Hence, he instructed them to labor for food that would give them eternal life.

Believing is the first condition: Although Jesus identifies himself as "the bread of life" (v. 35), he is not yet speaking about the Sacramental Eucharist in this part of his Eucharistic discourse. Here, the emphasis is placed on the faith-acceptance of the teaching of Jesus. In other words, Jesus states that he is nourishment, first of all, as one who offers us the life-giving words of God about the meaning of our lives. His message only gives life when we accept it and when it leads us from selfishness to selfless and sacrificial service for others. Jesus states that he is the bread of life for the one who "comes" to him and "believes" in him (v. 35). Jesus offered to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the people gathered around him on one condition.  They must believe him to be the Messiah, sent with the message that God is a loving, holy, and forgiving Father, and not a punishing judge.  Belief in Jesus is not simple intellectual assent, but an authentic, total commitment to Him of loyalty and solidarity. There is no reference yet to eating or drinking his body and blood, which will come later. Here, we are reminded that only a believing reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus will bring us true life.

Demand for a sign from Heaven: In reply to Jesus’ claim that he was the Messiah sent from Heaven to give eternal life to those who believed in him, the Jews demanded a sign from Heaven.  Moses, they said, had given a Heavenly sign to their ancestors in the manna rained down on them from Heaven.  The Jewish rabbis taught that the Messiah would repeat the miracle of manna and the prophet Jeremiah would reappear and unearth the Ark of the Covenant from its hidden place to show the Jews the original manna kept in the Ark.  Jesus corrected their understanding of Exodus 16:15 by stating that it was not Moses but God, Jesus’ Father Who had given, and continued to give, bread from Heaven. Now, Jesus not only gives the Bread of Life (John 6:11, 27), but also is the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 48).  The giver and the gift are one and the same.  As the Bread of Life from Heaven, Jesus claims that only he can satisfy man’s spiritual hunger. While bodily food helps us to stay alive in this world, spiritual food sustains and develops our supernatural life which will last forever in heaven.  Through God's infinite love we are given, in the Blessed Eucharist, the very Author of the gifts of faith and sanctifying grace.  Thus, the Eucharist is not a mere "symbol" of Jesus; rather, it is a Sacramental sign of Jesus’ Real Bodily Presence in his glorified risen Body.  This Bread of Life -- which is Jesus himself -- gives mankind a new relationship with God, a relationship of trust, obedience and love.

“The source and summit of the Christian Life:" We believe that the Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian Life“(Lumen Gentium), because it contains the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Jesus Christ himself.  The Eucharist is a Sacrament of love that unites us with Christ who lived, died and rose again to bring us salvation, strengthens and makes holy our relationship with our fellow-Christians, nourishes us with the transforming power of grace andprepares us for the future glory of God's Heavenly banquet. Life messages: 1) We need spiritual nourishment from the word of God and from the Holy Eucharist: In the Holy Mass, the Church offers us two types of bread: a) the Bread of Life, contained in God’s Word and b) the Bread of Life, contained in the Holy Eucharist.  Unfortunately, many of us come to Mass every week to present on the altar only our earthly needs without accepting spiritual nourishment by properly receiving God’s Word and the Holy Eucharist.  Let us nourish our souls with this Heavenly manna and carry Jesus to our homes and workplaces, radiating his love, mercy and compassion all around us. It is perhaps the plainness and ordinariness of the consecrated Bread and Wine and their easy availability in our Churches that sometimes prevent some of us from appreciating the great gift of God in the Holy Eucharist.  But we should not take for granted the Divine generosity that provides these gifts so readily and gratuitously by sharing in the Bread of Life simply as a matter of habit and without showing due attention and proper respect.

2) Let us gain spiritual life and strength by properly receiving the Holy Eucharist: It gives us 1)Courage to carry out God's work in the world, 2) Help to live the life God wants for us, 3) Inspiration to know the will of God in our lives, 4) A deeper Understanding of the holy mystery of Christ's presence, 5) Encouragement to love others and strengthen the Faith community, 6)Grace to overcome temptation and avoid sin, and 7) Joy and Peace of heart, knowing that Christ lives in us and will bring us to God's Heavenly Kingdom.  Hence, we must receive the Holy Eucharist with our whole minds and hearts.  Let us never forget that the “Bread of Life” is Jesus Christ himself, not merely human bread.  When we pray, "give us this day our daily bread," let us remember that the Holy Eucharist is not simply a "snack," such as we might eat at a party or at lunch.   It is food for our souls giving us a share in God’s life.

OT XX [B] (Aug 16) Homily on Jn 6: 51-58 (L/15)

Introduction: Today’s readings stress the fact that the Holy Eucharist, the perfect fulfillment of the symbol of the manna of the Old Testament, is the Food that gives us life forever. In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus declared that the Bread he gives is his Flesh. This Sunday, Jesus asserts that to eat this Bread is to have eternal life.

Scripture lessons: In today’s first reading, taken from the Book of Proverbs, Lady Wisdom, representing God, offers wisdom and understanding in the form of a rich banquet to all those who are willing to heed her invitation. The early Christians often identified Jesus as the Wisdom of God. They regarded the Eucharist as Wisdom’s banquet, where they shared in the Divine Wisdom now Incarnate in Jesus. The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 34), thanks God for His providential care and His close association with His people, and invites all to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” In the second reading, Paul advises the Gentile Christians to show their gratitude to God for calling them, along with the Jews, to Christianity, and for giving them a share in Christ’s life. They will be able to receive this life by avoiding their former foolish ways, like getting drunk on wine.Instead they are to be Spirit-filled with their talk edifying, always trying to discern and do the will of God. In today’s Gospelpassage, Jesus asserts that eating the Living Bread, himself, allows us to participate in his life and to grow here and now in our eternal life with God. Jesus emphasizes the eternal-life dimensions of eating his Body and drinking his Blood – that those who have faith in Jesus and do so have already stepped into Heaven in this life, sharing in God’s own life and therefore in eternal life. Our participation in the Eucharist also concretizes and energizes our relationship with Christ and with one another. When we share in the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus himself comes to dwell within us. This communion with the Lord makes us one Body, brings us eternal life, and sends us forth to be Christ's Body for the life of the world.

Life messages: # 1: We need to allow our body to be broken and our blood to be shed for others as Jesus did.  That is why, at the end of the Mass, we are sent out to announce the Gospel of the Lord by our humble service and exemplary lives, radiating Jesus’ love, mercy, forgiveness and spirit of service all around us.  Let us say with Jesus, "This is my body, given over for you" and"This is my blood, poured out for you“ and live out these words by living for others.

#2: We need to keep the hunger and thirst for God alive in our hearts: Every human being is blessed with an insatiable longing for God. We want God as our Father to hold us gently in His arms, keeping us safe throughout the dangers we face.   But often we use substitutes as an escape from that need: fast living, fast food, fast cars, needless luxuries, unrestricted sexual fulfillment.  We demand the right to do whatever we want to do whenever we want.  But let us remember the truth that unless we keep the hunger for God strong in our hearts, we will eventually realize the emptiness of our lives without Him.

1. T. XX (B) (August 16) , , John 6: 51-58

Anecdotes: # 1: Touching the body of Christ! Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a rule that when a newcomer arrived to join her Order, the Missionaries of Charity, the very next day the newcomer had to go to the Home of the Dying. One day a girl came from outside India to join the Order.  Mother Teresa said to her: "You saw with what love and care the priest touched Jesus in the Host during Mass. Now go to the Home for the Dying and do the same, because it is the same Jesus you will find there in the broken bodies of our poor." Three hours later the newcomer came back and, with a big smile, said to her, "Mother, I have been touching the body of Christ for three hours." "How? What did you do?" Mother Teresa asked her. "When I arrived there," she replied, "they brought in a man who had fallen into a drain, and been there for some time. He was covered with dirt and had several wounds. I washed him and cleaned his wounds. As I did so I knew I was touching the body of Christ." To be able to make this kind of connection we need the help of the Lord himself. It is above all in the Eucharist that he gives us this help.  

# 2: Cannibalism in the Andes: In October, 1972, a plane carrying 46 passengers an Uruguayan rugby team and their families and supporters to an exhibition game in Chile crashed in the Andes.   Nando Parrado, one of the survivors, tells the story of their 72 day struggle against freezing weather and dangerous avalanches in the book Miracle in the Andes. [Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home is a 2006 book by and .]  The author's mother and sister were among those killed in the crash.  High in the Andes, with a fractured skull, eating the raw flesh of his deceased teammates and friends, Parrado calmly pondered the cruelties of fate, the power of the natural world and the possibility of his continued existence: "I would live from moment to moment and from breath to breath, until I had used up all the life I had," he wrote.   The 16 survivors had nothing to eat except the flesh of their dead teammates.  After two months, Nando, an ordinary young man – a rugby player - with no disposition for leadership or heroism, led an expedition of the remaining three of the survivors up the treacherous slopes of a snow-capped mountain and across forty-five miles of frozen wilderness in an attempt to find help.  The party was finally rescued by helicopter crews.  It was difficult for them to decide that eating human flesh was all right, even in those extreme circumstances!  Hence, it is not surprising that Jesus’ listeners protested against his invitation to eat his flesh and drink his blood as described in today’s Gospel. ()’

3) Food pyramids: New standards for diet were proposed recently. A new food pyramid was developed as a guide for healthy eating. It includes a base of bread, cereals, rice and pasta. The next level up the pyramid is vegetables and fruit. A still smaller next level is milk, yogurt, cheese, meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and nuts. The smallest group at the top is fats, oils and sweets. We can propose a food pyramid for those who want a healthy spiritual life. You may want to develop your own, but it might include a base of feeding on the Word of God in the Eucharist and by study and meditation on the Scriptures. Upon that base one is nourished by Christian fellowship. It should include servings of regular worship. To that a daily use of prayer and devotions could be added. On top of those elements should be time for Christian service to meet the needs of others.

Introduction: Today’s readings stress the fact that the Holy Eucharist, the perfect fulfillment of the symbol of the manna of the Old Testament, is the Food that gives us life forever.   In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus declared that the Bread he gives is his Flesh. This Sunday, Jesus asserts that to eat this Bread is to have eternal life.    The first and second readings encourage us to turn aside from those things that do not nourish and sustain us and turn towards the Divine source: “be filled with the Spirit.”  In  today’s first reading, taken from the Book of Proverbs, Lady Wisdom, representing God, offers wisdom and understanding in the form of a rich banquet to all those who are willing to heed her invitation. The early Christians often identified Jesus as the Wisdom of God. They regarded the Eucharist as Wisdom’s banquet, where they shared in the Divine Wisdom now present in Jesus. The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 34), thanks God for His providential care and His close association with His people, and invites all to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” In the second reading, Paul advises the Gentile Christians to show their gratitude to God for calling them, along with the Jews, to Christianity, and for giving them a share in Christ’s life. They will be able to receive this life by avoiding their former foolish ways, like  getting drunk on wine. Instead they are to be Spirit-filled with their talk edifying, always trying to discern and do the will of God. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus asserts that eating the Living Bread, himself, allows us to participate in his life and to grow here and now in our eternal life with God. Jesus emphasizes the eternal-life dimensions of eating His Body and drinking his Blood. "Eternal life" is complete and lasting happiness, satisfying our deepest longings and realizing all our dreams. We begin to experience this happiness in this world and enter it completely and forever in Heaven. This means that those who have Faith in Jesus have already stepped into Heaven in this life, sharing in God’s own life and therefore in eternal life. In the case of the Eucharist, once we start eating and drinking Jesus’ Body and Blood, we’re there. Our participation in the Eucharist also concretizes and energizes our relationship with Christ and with one another.

First reading, : In Old Testament times, most people believed that Heaven and Hell existed within this present life rather than in the future. According to Proverbs, Heaven exists in the quest for Divine wisdom, that is, the quest to discover Yahweh's presence in everything and everyone.  Those who discover how God operates in this world will live fulfilled and happy lives. In chapter nine from which today’s first reading is taken, Wisdom is depicted as a gracious hostess inviting the people to a fine banquet.  "Wisdom" becomes the symbolic image of the search for God's will.  As this reading suggests, Faith opens up the fonts of wisdom to nourish us. The reading invites us to an even more excellent banquet: the banquet depicted in today’s Gospel, .  When we partake of the Flesh and Blood of Christ, we are filled with true wisdom.  Here, wisdom means knowing the will of God in our lives, knowing the real values in life and knowing how to live life as God means us to live. In their hymns and creeds, early Christians often identified Jesus as the Wisdom of God. The Bread of Life discourse in John indicates that the Eucharist is Wisdom’s banquet, where we share in the Divine Wisdom Incarnate in Jesus.

Second Reading, : In the earlier chapters of his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul reveals God’s secret plan.  It is to extend the call of the Chosen People to the Gentiles, too.  Hence, in today’s selection, Paul advises the Gentile Christians to show their gratitude to God by avoiding their former foolish ways, like getting drunk on wine.  Instead, they have to be filled with the Spirit, understand the will of the Lord and address one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual singing, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.  Paul encourages the community in Ephesus "to discern the will of the Lord." The authentic follower of Jesus “gives thanks always and for everything."  Paul believes that no one can be a faithful follower of God without actively trying to discover God's will for him or her. The apostle believes that we can discover God’s will wherever we may     be.

Exegesis: The background: Although the traditional and accepted view of today's selection from the Bread of Life discourse is that the passage represents a literal event in the life of Jesus, there are some Bible scholars who suggest that this passage is simply a theological reflection on the Eucharist, written for the early Christians.   Among the four Gospels, only John’s Gospel fails to mention the Eucharistic institution at the Last Supper.  Instead he dedicates five chapters (13-17) to reporting Jesus' discourse, a dialogue between Jesus and his critics, on that theme.  Today’s selection, the fourth of five excerpts from this discourse, read on successive Sundays, shows the shocked reaction of some people to Jesus’ blunt statement that the Life-giving bread which he is going to give them is his own body and blood.  

Life-giving bread from Heaven: "I, myself, am the living Bread come down from Heaven." “Come down from Heaven” refers to the Incarnation and announces Jesus’ Divine origins; without the Son’s becoming a human being there would be neither Sacrament nor Salvation.   Eating this Bread results in profound at-oneness with the Divine: the Son-become-man.   The reference to the future, "I will give," points to Jesus’ sacrificial death and to his "Flesh," which was to be offered on Calvary and shared at every Eucharistic celebration.   Jesus reminds his listeners that this was not the first time in the history of salvation that God had provided his people with food.   The people knew about the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness.   They now must realize how that experience differed from Jesus’ feeding his followers with the Holy Eucharist.

A shocking statement: “Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Bood, you do not have life within you,” Jesus insists. That we cannot have everlasting life unless we eat Jesus' Body and drink his Blood was a shocking message to the listeners. Indeed, Jewish law prohibited the eating of human flesh, and blood of any kind was considered to be the actual life of a living being.   Drinking of blood, consequently, was prohibited in Judaism and in Christianity (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:10, 12, 14; cf. Acts 15:29).   Some of Israel’s Old Testament neighbors apparently drank blood as a religious act, believing that if they drank the blood of an animal they took into themselves the strength and vitality of that creature because blood was life, and life was blood.   Seeking life from the blood of an animal was idolatrous for Israelites because life comes from God alone.   In addition, for the Jews, blood itself was a spiritual contaminant, and coming in contact with blood immediately rendered one ritually unclean.  That was why a woman was considered to be ritually unclean for several weeks after she gave birth to a child.  We saw in the Gospel [13th Sunday B] how a woman with a chronic hemorrhage of blood dared not approach Jesus openly.  In the story of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite on their way to the Temple would not contaminate themselves by contact with the injured man because he was bleeding.  To this day, observant Jews will eat only kosher meat from which the blood has been fully drained.

The Bread of Life from Heaven is the Body of Christ: The Bread of Life, or the Holy Eucharist, is the Sacramental Body of Christ.  Theologians recognize four elements in this “Body of Christ.” 1) The physical body: It is the physical body of Christ which was born in Bethlehem and died on Calvary.   2) The risen body: It is the transformed and glorified body of Jesus (I Cor 15: 35-49) with which Jesus appeared to his disciples.   3) The Mystical Body: It is the Church which is the continuation of Jesus Christ on earth.   Each baptized believer is an integral part (member), of the Mystical Body of Christ.   4) The Sacramental Body: It is related to and distinct from the above mentioned bodies of Christ.  During the Holy Mass, Jesus takes the bread and wine which we offer on the altar, offers it to God his Father and declares: “This is no longer your body, it is My Body; this is no longer your life’s blood, it is My Blood.”  The Eucharist is, thus, Jesus' dying for us, sacrificing himself for us, and calling us to perform the same sacrifice for others.

The Eucharist is the eternal sacrifice of Jesus providing life to those who eat his Body and drink his Blood.  Thus, the Holy Massis the Sacramental act which transforms our lives into the Divine Life.   In each Mass, Jesus transforms us into other Christs - ritually, sacramentally and existentially – thus keeping his promise: “I will be with you till the end of the world.”  

The deeper meaning: In spite of the Jewish antipathy to eating human flesh and blood, “eating Jesus' Flesh and drinking his Blood" became a common liturgical activity for Christians around the time of John's Gospel.   The second century martyr, St. Ignatius of Antioch, said, "For food I want the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ and for drink I want His Blood, which is incorruptible love."   It was at the Last Supper that Jesus linked his Flesh with the bread he broke, and shared it with his disciples.  Likewise, he linked his Blood with the cup that was passed around, the Blood that was the pledge of an unbreakable bond between Jesus and his people. "This is my Body (my Flesh)... This is My Blood... which will be poured out for you.”   The Bread that we eat in the Eucharist is the Body of the Risen Lord; the Wine that we drink in the Eucharist is the Blood of the Risen Lord.   When Jesus spoke of his Flesh and Blood as the Food and Drink of eternal life, he was offering himself to the multitude as the real Source of Life.  To eat the Flesh of Jesus and to drink his Blood is to become totally identified with his very Person, with his deepest thoughts, with his vision of life, with his values, and with his mission to build the Kingdom of God.   In other words, Jesus is here calling us to follow him, to be with him sharing totally and unconditionally his mission and destiny.   Thus, the Eucharist is more than a memorial of Jesus' death (see 1 Cor 11:23-25).  Rather, it is the continuation of Jesus’ life after his Resurrection (Luke 24:13-35).

Heaven on earth theology: “Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”    "Eternal life" is complete and lasting happiness satisfying our deepest longings and realizing all our dreams.   But Jesus’ audience was content with the “bread" they already possessed:  the Mosaic Law.    Their ancestors ate this "heavenly bread" but "died nonetheless."   Jesus is as essential for our resurrected existence as food and drink are for our earthly life. Remember what Jesus told Martha after her brother Lazarus died?   "I am the Resurrection and the Life; whoever believes in me, even if he die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”   Heaven doesn’t begin after death.  It already exists for those who believe in Jesus.  When we begin to eat and drink Jesus’ Jesus warns us that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we Body and Blood, we are already in Heaven.   No wonder that unless we eat this Food and drink from this Cup wewill not have Divine life within us!

Life messages: # 1: We need to allow our body to be broken and our blood shed for others as Jesus did: When we receive Jesus in Holy Communion we accept a great challenge.  We accept the triumphs and the tragedies, joys and the pains necessary to build up the Kingdom of God wherever we have been called to serve.   That is why, at the end of the Mass, we are sent out to announce the Gospel of the Lord (Form 2), through the witness of our humble service and exemplary lives, radiating Jesus’ love, mercy, forgiveness and spirit of service all around us. As we walk away from the altar we may perhaps hear Jesus saying: "This is my Body, which will be given up for you" and "This is the Chalice of my Blood … which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins”.   What a power we would be for our world around us if each one of us could say that and mean it!   That is why, at the end of the Mass, we are sent out with, "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life"(Form 3), through our lives.

#2: We need to keep the hunger and thirst for God alive in our hearts: Every human being is blessed with an insatiable longing for God. We want God as our Father to hold us gently in His arms, keeping us safe throughout the dangers we face.   But often we use substitutes as an escape from that need: fast living, fast food, fast cars, needless luxuries, unrestricted sexual fulfillment.  We demand the right to do whatever we want to do whenever we want.  But unless we keep the hunger for God strong in our hearts, we will eventually realize the emptiness of our lives without God.

THE JOKE OF THE WEEK : # 1: Life-giving bread in Heaven’s buffet: This 85-year-old couple, having been married almost 60 years, had died in a car crash.   They had been in good health for the last ten years, mainly due to their interest in healthful food and exercise.

When they reached the Pearly Gates, St. Peter took them to their mansion, which was decked out with a beautiful kitchen, a master bath suite and a Jacuzzi.   As they "ooohed and aaahed,” the old man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost.

"It's free," Peter replied, "this is Heaven."

Next they went to see the championship golf course that their heavenly home backed up to.  St. Peter told them they would have golfing privileges every day.

The old man asked, "What are the greens fees?"

Peter's reply, "This is heaven; you play for free."

Next they went to the clubhouse and saw a lavish buffet laid out for them.

"How much does it cost to eat?" asked the old man.

"Don't you understand yet?   This is heaven! It's free!" Peter replied.

"Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol foods?" the old man asked timidly.  Peter smiled and said, "That's the best part...you can eat as much as you like of whatever you like and you never get fat and you never get sick.   This is Heaven."

The old man looked angrily at his wife and said, "You and your bran muffins! I   could have been here ten years ago!”

1. T. XX (B) Prv 9:1-6, Eph 5:15-20, Jn 6: 51-58