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Homilies are posted no later than during the week
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7 Ordinary Time
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Seven Sunday B
Three small boys went to confession. The first told
the priest, "I threw Peanuts in the lake." The second confessed the
same crime. When the third came in, the priest said, "I suppose you
threw peanuts in the lake too." The boy answered, "No, no, Father, I am
Peanuts."
Palestinian life was public. In the early morning,
the house door was opened. A stranger could enter and even expect
welcome. Along came four men.
They were carrying their buddy on a stretcher. The house in question
was SRO. These fellows used Plan B. They got up to the roof by an
exterior staircase. These staircases are still seen out in the Near
East. These hombres had a faith that would make ours look like the bush
league variety.
The roof was sun baked clay resting on twigs and
branches. The clay sat on sycamore beams three feet apart. So, there
was no big deal for these four paramedics, as Joseph Donders calls
them, from tearing the roof apart with their hands. Then they would let
their paralyzed buddy down from the ceiling by ropes.
Jesus was seated beneath them teaching this
perspiring packed crowd. All of a sudden He had to pick dirt and
branches from His eyes and hair. Christ got a chuckle out of the
incident. He was witnessing what somebody called a faith that laughs at
barriers. The landlord wasn't amused.
In that group were VIP Scribes. They had walked
three days from the Jerusalem Central Office to check Christ out.
The paralytic at Christ's feet was hyper with fear.
Jesus puts him at ease by addressing him as "My son." More importantly
He tells him, "Your sins are forgiven." Vincent McCorry tells us to
note Jesus does not ask God to forgive sins. He forgives them.
Forgiving sins may seem to us an odd way to begin a
cure but not to the Jews in that house. According to them, the man was
ill because he or his family had sinned. Indeed the awareness of that
sin may well have caused the paralysis. The power of mind over body is
something we haven't yet figured out. Thus, forgiveness of the man's
sins must come before the cure.
The Scribes went bonkers. The Jews believed only God
could forgive sins and only in a future judgment. Even their greatest
prophets never pretended to forgive sins. Here this Galilean peasant
was doing just that. They silently judged Him guilty of blasphemy. The
penalty for such was death by stoning.
Christ saw the busy little wheels moving in their
heads. He
decided to go on the offensive and call their bluff. He said to the
man, "Get up. Pick up your mat and go home." The delighted fellow did
just that. His buddies and he must have had a marvelous party that
night. Their hangovers notwithstanding, one hopes they came back to fix
the roof next day.
The Scribes got the message loud and clear. "If I
can make paralyzed legs work, I can forgive sins."
Check an interesting point. In this Gospel, Jesus
calls Himself the Son of Man. He will continue to do that in other
Gospels. Yet, nobody else will refer to Him as that. We still do not
understand the term or what He meant by it. Perhaps He was preparing
people for what He was - the Son of God.
In the long history of religion, as William Blake
points out, Jesus was the first person to claim that one's sins can be
forgiven by God here on earth. There is not one virtue that Christ
suggested that Plato and Cicero had not hyped long before Him. But
Christ leaves them both in the dust by forgiving sins.
Are we responsible to God for our sins? Jesus says a
resounding yes. Later on, He will give His apostles the power to
forgive sins.
The theology of the Sacrament of Penance has been
reexamined. The emphasis has been placed on its poetry, beauty, and
transcendence. It is called often today the Sacrament of
Reconciliation. Through the sacrament, we reconcile ourselves with God.
In the oppressive darkness of the tight wooden confessional, the sinner
encounters the same Christ that the paralytic met centuries ago in that
house in Palestine.
The Sacrament of Penance, the Sacrament of the
Encounter, the Sacrament of Reconciliation are all one an the same.
They are a Tiffany-class gift from Jesus.
When was the last time you took advantage of the
sacrament?
After all, as somebody has pointed out, you must
first face your sins before you can put them behind you.
And, if all you did was throw Peanuts in the lake,
you have nothing to worry about. |
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
7 Ordinary Time
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Healing Forgiveness
Today’s
Gospel reading is taken from the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
After the extensive healings of the first chapter--the man with the
unclean spirit, Peter’s mother in law, the many people who crowded
Jesus looking for some sort of cure, and even the healing of a
leper--we come upon this wonderful story of the paralytic and his
friends. The story is a lot deeper than a miracle story, it is a
story of healing forgiveness, the power of the Lord, and the power of
Christian friends.
We
are all acquainted with the story. We’ve heard it over and over
again. Jesus is in a house, crowded with people He is teaching,
including some scribes, and crowded with people looking for
healing. Four friends want to bring their paralyzed buddy to the
Lord, but they can’t get near the door. So, they climb up onto
the roof, haul the poor guy up, then pull apart the roof making a hole
right over where Jesus was. This is hard for us to imagine in the
United States, but if you ever traveled to the rural areas of the world
you would find that many people still live in homes with mud and thatch
roofs. I once saw a goat tethered to a roof eating the growing
grass. It would be relatively easy for four grown men to tear a
hole in a thatched roof even a hole big enough for them to lower their
friend. Jesus’ response to the incident is to commend the friends
for their faith and then to forgive the paralytic. When the
scribes complain that only God can forgive, Jesus notes that according
to Isaiah a sign of the Messiah would be that sins would be forgiven
and that, among other healings, the lame would walk. The man is
forgiven and healed. He leaves carrying his mat.
I
want to focus in today on this poor man and on his friends, and on the
Healing Messiah. First of all, the paralytic. In the
ancient world paralysis was seen as resulting from sin. We now
know that this is not true, at least not directly. Indirectly,
all evil, all sickness and suffering, is due to man’s allowing evil
into his world. The innocent and the guilty suffer the effects of
sin.
In
the case of this healing, the man is paralyzed by sin. And so are
we all. Sin can exercise such force over us that we feel
incapable of movement. A person’s self worth can be so torn down, that
the person feels incapable of approaching healing. “How can I go
to confession?” someone asks. “I’ve destroyed a life, destroyed a
marriage, destroyed my family?” Many times a person will say, “I
want forgiveness, but I just can’t get up the courage to seek it.
I can’t control temptations. I probably will sin again.” When we
feel that way, and at times all of us do feel that way, we are
paralyzed by sin. We need healing. Physical healing,
perhaps. Spiritual healing, certainly. In fact, if we were
lowered before the Lord and He offered us a choice: physical healing or
spiritual healing, I feel certain we would all take the latter.
But
He doesn’t offer the man in the Gospel a choice. He gives him
both physical and spiritual healing. Why? Because He is
God’s Love come down to earth. He loves the man too much to allow him
to continue suffering both spiritually and physically. He loves
us too much to allow us to stay in pain. The sacrament of
reconciliation, the sacrament of penance is the sacrament of joy, the
joy of healing received. The scribes couldn’t understand how
Jesus could forgive and heal because they refused to expose themselves
to the presence of God’s Love on earth. We are not doubters like
the scribes. We are believers, believers in the power of Love,
the Power of His Love.
And
now we come to the real heros of the story, at least the heros this
side of Jesus. We come to the paralytic man’s four friends.
These four would do whatever it took to bring their friend to the
Lord. Certainly they were pushed aside when they tried to enter
the door. They probably were yelled at, insulted and mocked for
climbing onto the roof and destroying it. But their determination
to do what was the best for their friend, their determination to bring
him to the Lord, was all that mattered.
This
is what Christian friendship is. A true friend is willing to do
whatever it takes to bring someone to the Lord. It is a huge blessing
to have friends like that. It takes great courage to be a friend
like that. How many times we come upon people wandering aimlessly
in life. How many times we come upon people who are mired in
their own self deprecation, mired in the effects of sin, whether they
caused the sin or are suffering from the sin of others. It takes
a courageous friend to say to someone, “Look, your killing yourself
with drugs, with alcohol, with the way you treat other people.
You don’t like who you’ve become. But you don’t have to stay
suffering like this. Come to Jesus. Start new again and be
happy.” It takes a lot of courage to be a friend like that.
It takes a lot of courage to be a Christian.
The
gospel story for today tells us about the responsibility and the
opportunity we have for one another within our faith community and
within the community of mankind. There are times that we are paralyzed
by selfishness, fear, pride, greed or whatever. We might not
realize the extent of our need. We might be unable or unwilling
to do anything on our own behalf. We depend upon others to carry
us to the Lord.
And
there are times that we come upon others that need our strength and our
faith to help them to see the Light of Christ in the middle of their
darkness. There are many times that others need the power of our
faith to sustain them and to carry them.
And
when Jesus saw their faith, the faith of the four friends, he healed
the paralytic.
We
pray today that we might not just have friends like that, but that we
might be friends like that. |
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http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/
* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
7 Ordinary Time
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No
Forgiveness for Darwin
(February 22, 2009)
Bottom line: Darwin's "Descent of Man" (not "Origin of Species")
eliminates blame, but also removes accountability: thus, no sin and no
forgiveness.
This year - 2009 - you will hear a lot about Charles Darwin and his
book "The Origin of Species." He published it 150 years ago - on
November 24, 1859. How should we as Christians (and specifically as
Catholics) participate in this commemoration? For what it is worth, I
will give my opinion. A few years ago, I sat down and read "The Origin
of Species." I enjoyed Darwin's elegant use of the English language and
I could understand why it received a broad and enthusiastic reception -
including from leading Christians. Catholics in particular had no great
problem with the book. After all, St. Thomas Aquinas had observed that
God did not necessarily create all species simultaneously. As the
Angelic Doctor explains, God could have created species over a period
of time, using natural processes.* Because of the writings of St.
Thomas and other great thinkers, Catholics in general did not react
hostilely to "The Origin of Species."
The real problem came 12 years later when Darwin published "The Descent
of Man." In that book he applied the concept of natural selection way
beyond biology; he used it to explain abstract things such as
conscience and morality.** Critics considered that he exaggerated the
capabilities of higher primates and unfairly placed some races into
inferior subgroups - in order to justify his view that humans gradually
evolved from lower animals. While Darwin himself avoided controversies,
many of his followers were only too willing to spell out the
implications of his theories: That there is no essential difference
between humans and other animals; that - like them - instinct alone
drives us and that we have no real control over our behavior.
There is much more one could say about this theory. My purpose this
Sunday is not to resolve the controversy surrounding evolution. I will
say this: If Darwin's "Descent of Man" is correct, Jesus' words to the
paralytic have no meaning. Remember that he said, "Child, your sins are
forgiven." If we are simply a bit more complex animal, there is no such
thing as sin. And rather than speaking about forgiveness, the best we
can say is, "Don't blame yourself."*** One of the attractions of
Darwin's theory is that it offers humans with the same "acceptance" we
give to animals. For example, I don't blame my dog. I re-program him -
or at least I try.
But there is the rub. If my dog runs loose and scares or - God forbid -
harms someone, no one blames Sam. But they do blame me. And rightly so.
I have a responsibility, an accountability that my dog or any other
animal could never have. None of the people who talk about animal
rights suggest corresponding responsibilities. They might want an ape
to have access to legal defense, but so far no one has proposed
bringing gorillas to trial for their misbehavior. Our economic stimulus
plan has money for just about everything, but it contains no funds to
build little jails for cats who wantonly attack smaller creatures.
As G.K. Chesterton said, there is a "division and disproportion"
between us and other animals. For one thing, we have an accountability
- a Stewardship - that we can never place on them. While Darwin's
theory seems attractive because it apparently frees us from blame and
guilt, it has a terrible downside.**** The person who takes his theory
about man to its logical consequences, has closed his ears to the
beautiful words, "Child, your sins are forgiven."
**********
*See: Commentary on Sentences, Discussion of Days of Creation, article
2: Are all things created simultaneously, distinct in their species?
(Answer: "Nature imitates the activity of the creator, but in natural
activity there is a process from the imperfect to the
perfect...scripture must be explained in such a way that infidels
cannot mock, and this opinion is more pleasing to me.") It takes no
great leap of faith to move from "I believe God creator of all things
visible and invisible" to a recognition that He is responsible for the
fundamental forces (electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong
nuclear force and gravitation) that led to formation of galaxies, the
solar system, our planet and the emergence of life on it. Of course,
creation involves more than getting the ball rolling - God is active
every step along the way.
**That Darwin ventured beyond biology or any hard science can be seen
in sentences such as this:
"Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex
sentiment--originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the
approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in
later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction
and habit."
Then he immediately admits that conscience and morality often go
against the instincts for survival and reproduction: "It must not be
forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight
or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other
men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of
well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will
certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another."
(Descent of Man, Chapter V) As that sentence indicates, the potency of
the theory comes from its elasticity. You can fit anything into the
theory of evolution - even evidence to the contrary.
***Of course, there are times when we do have to say, "Don't blame
yourself." St. Paul tells us that "godly grief produces a repentance
that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief
produces death." (II Cor 7:10) It is wonderful to free someone from
false guilt (worldly grief) but not by Darwin's way that brushes aside
true guilt (godly grief). Darwin's way leads to hardening of heart,
self-destruction and the destruction of others.
****In light of twentieth century history, some passages are chilling:
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the
civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace
throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the
anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,16 will
no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it
will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope,
than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at
present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Descent of
Man, Chapter 6)
General Intercessions for Seventh Ordinary Sunday (from Priests for
Life)
Spanish Version |
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http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
7 Ordinary Time
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Background:
Scripture: Mark 2:1-12
Scripture scholars today generally repudiate the conviction of
scholars from a generation or two that Jesus did not work any miracles
save the conversion of human hearts. They say that the tradition that
Jesus did signs and wonders is just too important and too powerful to
be casually dismissed. They leave open the question of the
precise nature of the miracles which has so baffled rationalists and
believers who want to keep the rationalists happy. Jesus did signs and
wonders to show that the kingdom of God was at hand, about that there
can be no debate. The issue of how he did them is less important than
that he did them and why he did them. Jesus did miracles to heal human
bodies and to show, as in today’s Gospel, that he came to heal human
spiritual hunger too. In this richly detailed story we see that, like
the senior in last week’s story Jesus like helping others
Story:
Once upon a time there was a young doctor in a hospital
who had great instincts about what was wrong with people, probably
because she liked them so much and listened very carefully to what they
said. She was so kind and pleasant and cheerful that all the patients
love her, but some of her colleagues and some of the nurses, thought
she was a little creepy. Not exactly a Patch Adams perhaps, but still
someone who spent to much time being nice. So one night when she was on
call, she went into the room of a man who was in for observation
because he had a fever and a diffuse pain. He refused to complain
no matter how bad the pain was (he was Irish and that’s the way they
generally try to react to pain!). She did her usual pleasant act and
noticed that it did not have much effect. He man was pale and
miserable, she could tell that. She touched his head. Fever was
higher. She jabbed at his gut. He shouted in agony. She called for a
surgeon. Hidden bowl obstruction, she said. Take it out. They did and
the man recovered and went home happy. Which is easier, she said, to
smile at people or to catch their symptoms because they trust you.
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http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lasso
7 Ordinary Time
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Feb,
22, 2009
Mark 2: 1-12
Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B.
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Gospel Summary
This Sunday's gospel passage recounts the story of Jesus' cure of a
paralytic. We must not be distracted by the ingenious efforts of the
paralytic's friends to lower him through the roof because they could
not get through the crowd. After all, this story is about salvation,
not engineering!
Jesus seems to have sought out paralytics because his miracles are so
often for their benefit. This makes good sense when we realize that the
miracles of Jesus were intended to show that he came to liberate and
therefore people with "frozen" muscles were prime candidates for
illustrating this.
The story also makes it clear that the real liberation brought by Jesus
is spiritual and eternal, which is revealed when Jesus declares that
the paralytic's sins are forgiven. This is the only liberation that we
absolutely must have. Cure of a physical ailment is most desirable but
it is only a temporary relief.
The scribes are shocked and scandalized to hear Jesus proclaim
forgiveness of sins. Instead of rejoicing to hear that this wonderful
power is now available, they choose to cling to their own narrow
interpretation of religion. Human knowledge alone is ultimately
pessimistic.
Life Implications
We are all in so many ways victims of paralysis in the sense that we
find it very difficult to realize our potential. Low self-esteem,
expressed usually in our fear of trying something new or of making a
mistake, not only denies others the benefit of our gifts but also
contributes to our own unhappiness. The only solution to this dilemma
is our willingness to trust the goodness that God has put in our
lives--a goodness that is revealed to us by the gift of faith.
This gift of faith is intended to do far more than merely help us
accept the words of the creed. Its real purpose is to enable us to
trust the goodness that comes to us from God, but also from loving
persons and from the beauty of God's creation. Thus, faith enables us
to see the often hidden goodness in life--a goodness that is sometimes
hard to discern but which is always available to those who are looking
for it. The effect of this experience of goodness is to liberate us and
thus to enable us to let go of the evil and hurt that are also a part
of every life.
This power of faith in our lives is not something that we can discover
by simply wishing for it. Like the paralytic in this story, we too need
to count on friends who are usually more than willing to help us to
meet Jesus and to hear those precious words: "Your sins are forgiven,"
and, "Rise, pick up your mat and walk." When this happens, we will
gladly join others in declaring, "We have never seen anything like
this."
Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B.
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
7 Ordinary Time
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SEVENTH
Sunday
Isaiah 43, 18-19. 21-22. 24-25; Psalm 41; 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Mark
2: 1-12
The scribes learned their catechism very well: "Who can forgive sins
but God alone?" Mark 2: 7)
Alas, today many people have no problem believing that they can forgive
their own sins. And they do so. Any Catholic who goes for years without
benefit of the sacrament of Confession must believe so, for as John
teaches, "he who says he is without sin is a liar." Catholics at Mass
go to Communion in large numbers without first discerning through an
examination of conscience whether or not they are spiritually prepared
to do so. To receive the Body and Blood of Christ while conscious of
serious sin is a sacrilege. The Sacrament of Confession is the means
commanded by Christ for the forgiving of serious sins. To reject the
Sacrament of Confession is to reject the divinity of Christ and Christ
Himself. Christ has been revealed that we may believe totally in him,
that we may totally follow him. Salvation comes to us through the
acceptance of love of the whole Christ, in all His Sacraments, in the
whole Gospel, not just those parts that we find personally appealing.
The Eucharist and Confession together work toward the salvation of
souls.
By the same charity that it enkindles in us, the Eucharist preserves us
from future mortal sins. The more we share the life of Christ and
progress in his friendship, the more difficult it is to break away from
him by mortal sin. The Eucharist is not ordered to the forgiveness of
mortal sins -- that is proper to the sacrament of Reconciliation. The
Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion
with the Church. (CCC 1395)
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we
"meet Christ in the liturgy", Father Cusick (Publish with permission.)
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
For further reading on today' Gospel, see also these paragraphs in the
CCC: 1422 and following.)
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http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
7 Ordinary Time
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Father Bonar will not be posting homilies for Cycle B to allow himself
time for other projects. His collection of homilies (including homilies
for Cycle B) is available at www.clydebonar.com.
7 Ordinary Time |
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These
homilies may be copied and adapted for your own use;
however, they may not be commercially published without permission of
the author. |
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