February 12 – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In this remarkable passage from the Gospel we see the depth of Christ’s humanity.  His first reaction towards the leper is pity. This disfigured individual, beyond the pale, in the first instance evokes pity, tenderness in Christ. Before he operates the miracle, he is moved by this man.

What is striking is how two freedoms meet each other in this account: the leper has nothing to lose and is there before Christ with all his humanity, on his knees, pleading for a cure.  Christ allows his heart to be moved and to answer spontaneously, saying that he wants to cure the leper and then heals him. Jesus warns him “sternly” not to tell anyone about the miracle.  The leper runs out and tells everyone.  Is he wrong to do so?  No.  When you encounter something great or better still, someone great in whom you have a glimpse of the divine, you cannot hold it in. You want to tell the world.

The passage gives us an insight into Christ’s disposition before the world as his Father reveals it to him. He too is pleading for his Father to reveal His will and thus allows himself to be“ corrected” by the leper. Christ does not want to be assailed by crowds and tells the leper not to tell anyone. He knows the leper will not be able to keep the miracle to himself, yet he heals him anyway. Christ allows his plans to be changed: he follows the circumstances before him and as a consequence has to go into hiding as his fame grows.  What is significant here is not that the leper “disobeys” Christ but that Christ obeys his Father by following his circumstances, by submitting himself to that leper’s freedom.

This beautiful episode in the Gospel exemplifies what Luigi Giussani was getting at when he said that “the real protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man’s heart, and man’s heart that begs for Christ.”  This is the stature to which we are called, to be protagonists, to identify with that beggar. Our relationship with Christ is true when our heart begs for him.  And only then do we truly begin to savour our humanity.

 

 

John Zucchi

February 5 – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When sunset came at the end of that long day, Jesus’ work had just begun. He spent hours healing and comforting, and liberating the townsfolk from their shackles of body and soul. He neither vaunted nor felt sorry for Himself at these demands on His energy, but merely observed: “For this purpose have I come.”

“For this purpose have I come” – don’t we all want to say this confidently concerning ourselves, concerning our lives, concerning our talents – “for this purpose have I come”! One of the reasons we are so deeply moved by obviously holy people like Mother Teresa, or Jean Vanier, or Brother André is that they radiate the peace and joy that comes from having a clear answer to the question that bugs all of us at one time or another – “what am I supposed to do with my life?” The answer to that question may not turn out to be anything heroic : Brother André spent his life answering the door and giving haircuts to small boys, Jean Vanier (for all his academic and military accomplishments) lives with a handful of very vulnerable men and women, cooking and cleaning for them, and Mother Teresa’s magnificent life was a mosaic of very little gestures, comforting this man, cradling that child. Then again, the purpose may turn out to be very heroic indeed; think of Wilberforce and Lincoln emancipating the slaves. But heroic or mundane, the purpose must be meaningful, or it would hold no importance for us.

Why did Jesus come at all? “When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons.” Jesus came to set us free from what suffocates us – to set us free from sickness, sadness, sin, and Satan. Sometimes with only a word, sometimes with terrific convulsions, Jesus sets us free from all that binds us and chokes our life and our compassion. Jesus had a purpose that we could describe simply as bringing hope: The purpose for which Jesus came is to cast out our demons, to heal our sicknesses, to lift up our hearts.

As Jesus’ followers, these must be our purposes too.

Jesus did not resent the demands on his time, energy and compassion, though they must have wearied him; he did not put healing and deliverance on the margins of his life, peripheral to more obviously important things like meeting heads of state, marshalling armies, or cultivating a brand; Jesus devoted his public ministry to encouraging, healing, and setting people free, starting with the poor and marginal, not the movers and the shakers, but the moved and the shaken.

Today, Jesus has no hands but yours; today, Jesus has no eyes and no feet but yours. Since you and I are the Body of Christ in the world today, let ask ourselves – “for what purpose have I come?” How shall I heal, and how shall I give hope, and how shall I set people free – beginning this very evening, at sunset?

Richard Bernier

Sunday, January 22nd – 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today in the Gospel, Jesus begins to call his disciples into ministry with him. When Jesus asked the disciples to follow Him, the Gospel says “And immediately, they left their nets …”. Jesus’ call was so strong to his disciples, that without questioning, without knowing, without hesitating, they stopped what they were doing and followed Him.  Since we too are all called to be disciples of Christ, we must wonder, do we hear God’s call in our lives? And if we hear it, do we stop what we are doing and follow it?

To hear God may seem obvious; we can hear God in prayer, through the Gospels, through other people – basically all around us. The second part, the following without hesitation, tends to be more difficult. It reminds us that the most important part of being a disciple of God’s is to not only hear His message, but to get up and act on it. It is one thing to profess to be a Christian, it is another thing to act as one. Let us ask God that during the week ahead, instead of just hearing His message, that we have the courage to act on His message as well.

– Eric Mauser

Sunday, January 15 – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s Gospel passage is perhaps the most beautiful and striking in all the gospels, in the entire history of Christianity.  John and Andrew, for who knows what reason (this is a mystery), look over where John the Baptist is staring and begin to follow Jesus.

The passage is striking for its economy of words.  St John relates the essential. “We followed him. He asked us what we wanted. We asked him where he lived. He asked us to come and see. It was about the tenth hour”.  It was about the tenth hour: that little fact thrown in there almost as an afterthought shows how crucial that great fact was to the lives of John and Andrew.  What were you doing when such and such a momentous event took place, we are often asked: it might be about the destruction of the World Trade Centre.  We can remember the precise hour this happened and where we were.  So does John, at a very old age, remember that instant that changed his life and the history of the world.

What did he and Andrew see?  This is the question for each one of us. They saw a fact that did not simply remain in the historical past.  That past accompanied them throughout their lives and is still with us.  It is still possible for us to enter their gaze, to see the fact of a person or persons before us, but also something that goes beyond them, something exceptional, mysterious, divine.  Father Luigi Giussani would always say that the question that John and Andrew posed, “Rabbi, where do you live?”, which is tantamount to asking “who are you?”, is the beginning of faith.  “Who are you?” launches us on that wonderful adventure where we see reality for what it is, pregnant with a Mystery that we can neither seize nor possess. Rather it is the Mystery who invites us and accompanies us: “Come and see!”

– by Prof. John Zucchi, History, McGill University