Jesus’ Family

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.

Jesus came home with his disciples.
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for they said, "He is out of his mind."
The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said,
"He is possessed by Beelzebul,"
and "By the prince of demons he drives out demons."
Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables,
"How can Satan drive out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself
and is divided, he cannot stand;
that is the end of him

But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property
unless he first ties up the strong man.
Then he can plunder the house.
Amen, I say to you,
all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be
forgiven them.
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will never have forgiveness,
but is guilty of an everlasting sin."
For they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

His mother and his brothers arrived.
Standing outside they sent word to him and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him,
"Your mother and your brothers and your sisters
are outside asking for you."
But he said to them in reply,
"Who are my mother and my brothers?"
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
"Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother."

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Reflection

What is the best visible expression of true Christian faith? It is community!

Jesus, true to His claim, is the Shepherd who came to gather the lost sheep of humanity. Where there were 12 people who were from different backgrounds, He formed a group of Apostles. Where there were public sinners, the misfits, the deformed, and the poor, He touched, healed, and gathered around Him. Jesus was busy building a community of people, healing the wounds of brokenness within men and among men.

Sin and the devil causes fractures within us and among us but for those who are called to follow Jesus, we are bound by the love of the Spirit. To sin against the Holy Spirit means to go against the call of communion; and there is no forgiveness in that in the sense that one cannot include someone who wants to exclude himself!

But the call to community in Jesus is also a challenge. It is a community not bound by blood nor association. It is a community bound by faith and obedience to God. God is the source of all unity. Anyone who wishes to be faithful to God will naturally find this unity in Jesus who showed us how to follow God’s will. Because in Jesus, doing the will of God means taking God as Father and taking upon oneself the obligations of being a beloved child of God, making one a brother, a sister, and a mother to Jesus and siblings to each other. In this communion, we see that God’s will is expressed in the person of Jesus, in what Jesus does, and in the life of the community, which is the Church today.

Why We Eat Jesus in the Mass

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
"Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?"
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
"Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
'The Teacher says, "Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there."
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
"Take it; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
"This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.

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Reflection

Continuing the tradition of the first Christians, we Catholics gather once a week to celebrate the "breaking of the bread", the ritual we celebrate every Sunday which commemorates Jesus' last supper which He commanded to "do this in memory of me." Such a ritual is so pronounced and is deemed important in the Church that it is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, given a long theological discourse by John (chapters 13-17), and taught by Paul in his missions. This ritual is the Holy Mass.

The significance of this ritual is rooted in the Jewish ritual sacrifice. The Jews worship God by offering gifts in the Temple. Except for the burnt offering, all other offerings are either eaten by the priest or by the one offering after they have been offered in the altar. Such offerings are a recognition of God's power, a prayer for forgiveness, or a prayer of thanksgiving. Jesus, however, in His institution of the Eucharist, replaced these with one single offering that supersedes all others. The ritual that He performed together with His disciples, while having Jewish roots have taken novel elements.

This sets apart the Christian ritual of the Holy Mass. In the Mass, we do not offer anything to God other than Jesus Himself who said, "this is my body... this is my blood..." The other offerings that we have given during the offertory are but expressions of Christian charity for the Church and the poor. Only Jesus is the offering, strictly speaking, inside the celebration of the Holy Mass. Anything that we offer, taken from the earth, could not satisfy the majesty of God. Jesus is the perfect offering because He is the Father's "beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

This Sunday's celebration then is about Jesus' offering of Himself on the altar. No longer carcasses of animals, but the very Body and Blood of the Son is offered on the altar to the Father. And after being raised up on high and acclaimed by the people with the great "Amen!", the Christian community partakes of the offering in communion. We literally eat Jesus, who by force of His Word spoken by the instrument of the priest's person, has turned the bread and wine into His Flesh and Blood, so that in doing so, we become part of His Body and nourished by His Blood.

Visitation: A Ministry of Presence

As we celebrate today the Feast of the Visitation, my thoughts linger on the joy of today’s readings. Certainly the event of the Visitation was a joyful one. We hear Elizabeth sing. We hear Mary sing. Both women exclaim in song the profound joy that has overwhelmed them. So we have today the first part of the Hail Mary and the Magnificat because of this event.

The visitation was not just the Blessed Mother, now conceiving the child Jesus in her womb, dare to go up the mountains of Judea to visit her expecting relative, Elizabeth. If there was great joy in the event, it was because God has first visited His people. Prior to Mary’s journey, the Angel Gabriel came to her and announced to her that she would become the mother of Jesus. Her assent opened the floodgates of grace, as her womb became the New Temple where the Most High has chosen to dwell. Yahweh, the God worshipped at Sinai is no longer felt through manifestations of cloud, lighting and thunder. The God that worked wonders has chosen to come in flesh.

It was this holy presence inside the Blessed Mother that brought about the joy of the events. It was a presence welcomed by Mary but also moved her to go out of her way to visit a relative in a distant place. God’s presence in us is meant to be shared. If God is truly present in us, He fills us with great joy and peace, so much so that it overflows. Truly, deeply, profoundly happy people emanate a joy that shines through everything.

The Visitation then is the sharing of the presence of God by Mary. The Child in her womb caused John the Baptist, though still in the womb, to move with joy, as if dancing at the presence of his Lord. The Child in her womb overshadowed both women with the Holy Spirit that filled their hearts with joy and their mouths with songs.

The question for us today is how much do we make God present in the very places we live and move, and to the very persons we meet everyday?