Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time 09

Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Cycle B – July 5, 2009 Scripture Readings First : Ezekiel 2:2-5 Second : 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Gospel : Mark 6: 1-6a Prepared by: Fr. Stephen Dominic Hayes, OP 1. Subject Matter •

The readings today focus on the rejection of Jesus by his own people and town. In a sense these readings contrast strongly with last Sunday's readings which emphasized the need to touch Christ by faith after the pattern of a woman with a hemorrhage (Mark, 5: 25-34). In the current reading, the townspeople think they "know" Jesus; but in fact they do not know the living and Divine Person who is able to work miracles in their midst. They insist on trying to make Jesus spent in with their preconceived notions of him and so miss the opportunity of making a living connection with him, who has come to give them grace and healing. Because of their lack of faith, "He could not do many" miracles among them. This is not imply lack of power in Jesus, but a lack of openness in the people to whom he has come to receive him and the gift of divine life and communion he has come to bring.

2. Exegetical Notes •

Ezekiel 2:2-5: This Sunday's Old Testament reading summarizes, at the beginning of the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the prophet' s call from God. Ezekiel called, "Son of Man", a title which does not have a messianic meaning in reference to himself, but rather emphasizes his fragility as a vessel of human clay, will nonetheless contain and manifest the deathless Spirit of God. In the prophets and the judges before the Exile this spirit is manifest in feats of strength and power by which the Lord is a treat to Israel over its enemies; now the Spirit comes to give knowledge of God's will, and knowledge and truth, which will be opposed by Ezekiel's countrymen. Ezekiel's mission foreshadows Christ's own mission and rejection by his own people, which is the subject of Mark's Gospel today.

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2 Corinthians 12:7-10: St. Paul today recounts the opposition and difficulties he has had in his ministry as apostle of Jesus Christ: an opposition which is marked by internal struggles (the " thorn in the flesh"), as well as external difficulties of (v. 10.) The Word of God will be opposed, even by those who are close to the apostle and the believer, as the Corinthian church does resist, to some extent, St. Paul himself. But the signs of a true apostle in his election will in the end show themselves, no matter what (V.12).

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Mark 6: 1-6a: Mark's Gospel today recounts the opposition that Jesus meets from his own people, specifically, the people of his home town of Nazareth i and its environs. In Chapter 1 of his Gospel, these people receive Jesus teaching with delight, but this delight now gives way to skepticism, rejection, and even opposition..

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There is even insult given, perhaps: the term, "Son of Mary", is said by some commentators to imply that St. Joseph was not the father of Jesus-a true statement, but one placed in such a way as to imply bastardy. He is called a "carpenter" ("builder" might be a little more accurate in the translation); a man of low estate, a fact which was also a matter of reproach to ancient Christians by pagans, for instance, the anti-Christian writer Celsus. This passage therefore sets up the change in pastoral direction Jesus begins to make in the next section, beginning with v. 7, in which he turns from preaching to his neighbors and relations and focuses on teaching his disciples.

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“Where did he get all this?” The question, with its undertone of resentment, begins to put Jesus and the Spirit who speaks in him under human judgment. The crowd thinks that it knows all about Jesus: who he is, where he was born, who is parents are, what he is like,and this familiarity breeds a certain contempt towards him and his message. He is too familiar for them to treat him as a vessel of divine power and a prophet.

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In light of the early Church and its commentators on this passage, Jesus rejection by the people in his own family and locality (although Mark's text is clear that not all reject him) foreshadows the scandalization of the people of Israel by Jesus' ministry and death on the cross. The rejection of Christ by Israel, according to St. Paul in his discussion in Romans, is part of the mystery of God's providence which will continue to unfold until the end of the world.

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church •

CIC 500: Against this doctrine (of our Lady's perpetual virginity) the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph," brothers of Jesus," are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, and to St. Matthew significantly calls "the other Mary." They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.

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CIC 699: The hand. Jesus heals the sick and blesses little children by laying hands on them. In his name the apostles will do the same. Even more pointedly, it is by the Apostles' imposition of hands that the Holy Spirit is given. The Letter to the Hebrews lists the imposition of hands among the "fundamental elements" of its teaching. The Church has kept the side of the all powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit in its sacramental epicleses.

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CIC 2610: Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will." Such is the power of prayer and the faith that does not doubt:" all things are possible to him who believes." Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples as he struck with admiration as the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman.

4. Patristic Commentary •

The Venerable Bede (in the Catena Aurea): It goes on: “The brother of James, and Joses, of Jude, and of Simon. And are not his sisters here with us?” They bear witness that His brothers and sisters were with Him, who nevertheless are not to be taken for the sons of Joseph or of Mary, as heretics say, but rather, as is usual in Scripture, we must understand them to be His relations, as Abraham and Lot are called brothers, though Lot was brother’s son to Abraham.

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St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 7.9: Jesus came as the son of a carpenter. He was not physically attractive, just as the prophets had predicted of him. He was merely a carpenter, making plows and yokes, and instructing us by such symbols of righteousness to avoid an inactive life.

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St. John Cassian , Conferences; Third Conference of Abbot Chaermaon: In some cases (Jesus) so richly poured forth the mighty work of healing of the Evangelist was led to exclaim: "He healed all their sick." But among others the unfathomable depth of Christ's goodness was so thwarted that it was said: "And Jesus could do there no mighty works because of their unbelief." So the bounty of God is actually curtailed temporarily according to the receptivity of our faith. So it is said to one: "According to your faith may it be done to you," and to another: "Go your way, and as you have believed so that it be to you," and to another, "Let it be done to you according to your will," and again to another, "Your faith has made you whole."

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The Venerable Bede (in the Catena Aurea): Not as if He Who knows all things before they are done, wonders at what He did not expect or look forward to, but knowing the hidden things of the heart, and wishing to intimate to men that it was wonderful, He openly shows that He wonders. And indeed the blindness of the Jews is wonderful, for they neither believed what their prophets said of Christ, nor would in their own persons believe on Christ, Who was born amongst them. Mystically again; Christ is despised in His own house and country, that is, amongst the people of the Jews, and therefore He worked few miracles there, lest they should become altogether inexcusable. But He performs greater miracles every day amongst the Gentiles, not so much in the healing of their bodies, as in the salvation of their souls.

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars •

Sometimes, Christ is so familiar to those of us who are born into to Catholic families, that we do not see Christ in the way that we need to, and somehow put off and up the authentic conversion of heart, which is a necessity to an active Christian life. St. Teresa of Avila, the great reformer of the Carmelites, experienced this herself, according to her Autobiography. In describing her early life, she says that she went through periods of fervor and laxity, both before she entered the convent and after, not really coming to a full conversion of soul until she had been many years professed. She writes: “By this time my soul was growing weary, and, though it desired to rest the miserable habits which now enslaved it would not allow it to do so. It happened that, entering the oratory one day, I saw an image which had been procured for a certain festival that was observed in the house and had been taken there to be kept for that purpose. It represented Christ sorely wounded; and so conducive was it to devotion that when I looked at it I was deeply moved to see Him thus, so well did it picture what He suffered for us. So great was my distress when I thought how ill I had repaid Him for those wounds that I felt as if my heart were breaking, and

I threw myself down beside Him, shedding floods of tears and begging Him to give me strength once for all so that I might not offend Him. … But on this last occasion when I saw that image of which I am speaking, I think I must have made greater progress, because I had quite lost trust in myself and was placing all my confidence in God. I believe I told Him then that I would not rise from that spot until He had granted me what I was beseeching of Him. And I feel sure that this did me good, for from that time onward I began to improve. “(The Life of the Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus, C. 9) •

In some lives, this fundamental conversion is a something that happens over time, but has the same quality of opening a person up to the living Lord, and deliberately becoming his follower. In the case of our holy father Francis of Assisi, this happened over a period of three or four years. After his experience in prison showed him the true nature of a life lived for personal glory and selfishness, he underwent a conversion which is described in Franciscan literature in three parts: first, a pilgrimage to Rome, during which he put off his silk garments and put on the habit of a poor man, living with the other poor on alms; the encounter with the leper, whom at last he embraced and agreed as Christ; and his experience of being called personally by Jesus Christ to "rebuild his Church" as he prayed before the crucifix in the church of St. Damiano. In each of these moments he turned more intently to Christ, and discovered a way to live as a Christian, not merely for the sake of virtue - which is a life for a Stoic, not a Christian,- and so by faith touched the person of the risen Christ, and became his disciple in a specific and intentional manner. In this, Francis came to know Christ in a completely new and personal way.

6. Quotes •

Pope Benedict XVI : We ourselves have this very deep certainty that Christ is the answer and that without the concrete God, the God with the Face of Christ, the world destroys itself; and there is growing evidence that a closed rationalism, which thinks that human beings can rebuild the world better on their own, is not true. On the contrary, without the restraint of the true God, human beings destroy themselves. We see this with our own eyes. We ourselves must have a renewed certainty: he is the Truth; only by walking in his footsteps do we go in the right direction, and is in this direction we must walk and lead others. ... a sincere reflection is also rationally convincing but becomes personal, strong, and demanding by virtue of friendship and personally, every day, with Christ, truly seems to me to be very important. (L’Osservatore Romano, August 3, 2005; Address at the XX World Youth Day.)

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Pope Benedict XVI : A Rabbinical text may shed some light on what is meant here :(God) spoke: "How can I create the world, when these godless men will arise to ask me?" But when God looked upon Abraham, who was also to be born, he spoke: "behold I have found a rock upon which I can build and found the world." Abraham, the father of faith, is by his faith the rock that holds back chaos, the onrushing primordial flood of destruction, and thus sustains creation. Simon, the first to confess Jesus as the Christ and the first witness of the Resurrection, now becomes, by virtue of his Abrahamic faith, which is renewed in Christ, the rock that stands against the into her tide of unbelief and its destruction of man. (Called to Communion, Adrian Walker ,tr., San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996, Pp. 55-56.)

7. Other Considerations •

A practical way to touch the living Christ is to develop and maintain a deep devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. By devoutly calling on that Holy Name, the Christian is able, by faith, to embrace the Savior in a personal way through the mind and the will, which becomes a more profound bond with the living Jesus the more the habit is practiced and maintained. As early as the first half of the second century, Origen writes: “For we assert that the whole habitable world contains evidence of the works of Jesus, in the existence of those Churches of God which have been founded through Him by those who have been converted from the practice of innumerable sins. And the name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of men, and expel demons, and also take away diseases; and produce a marvelous meekness of spirit and complete change of character, and a humanity, and goodness, and gentleness in those individuals who do not feign themselves to be Christians for the sake of subsistence or the supply of any mortal wants, but who have honestly accepted the doctrine concerning God and Christ, and the judgment to come.” (Contra Celsum, 67).

Recommended Resources Benedict XVI, Pope. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Yonkers, Ignatius Press/ Magnificat 2006. New York: Magnificat: SAS, 2006.

Copyright

Brown, Raymond E., S.S., Fitzmeyer, Joseph, S.J., and Murphy, Roland E., O. Carm. The Jerome Biblical Commentary. Two Vols. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Harrington, Daniel J, S.J. The Gospel of Mark Sacra Pagina Series, Vol. 2: John R. Donaghue, S.J. and Daniel J Harrington, eds. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002. Jurgens, William A. The Faith of the Early Fathers. 3 Vols. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1979. Oden, Thomas C., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, Vol. 2, Mark. Thomas C. Oden, and Christopher A. Hall, eds. Downers Grove, IL : Intervarsity Press, (Institute of Classical Christian Studies), 1998. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the Works of the Fathers. Volume II: St. Mark. Albany, N.Y.: Preserving Christian Publications, Inc., 1999. Tugwell, Simon, OP., ed. Early Dominicans; Selected Writings. Spirituality. New York; Ramsey; Toronto : Paulist Press, 1982.

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