1 Sunday Lent, 26 February 2012, Mark 1:12-15

Crisis

A crisis is a time of opportunity.
When we are in the middle of a crisis, it is very difficult to see the opportunity that it presents. But, nonetheless, the wisdom goes: A crisis is a time of opportunity.

We are burnt out with 'crisis'.
Economic Crisis; Crisis in the Middle East; Crisis of Faith; Crisis of Vocations; Personal Crisis; Family Crisis.

A desert time is a time of opportunity.
When we go on retreat we consciously place ourselves in the way of a crisis encounter with God, a desert encounter with God. When something painful happens in our life, we may not have chosen it for ourselves and yet the painful, suffering moment can be an opportunity to encounter God in a way that I could not encounter God before the suffering became part of my life.

"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness ..."
Jesus does not voluntarily walk out into the crisis, wilderness, desert place. But he knows that he is beloved of God: "You are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased." If we know that God loves us – loves us so much that he would give his own Son for us – then like Jesus we can trust God, even as God leads us into a difficult or painful chapter on our life's journey.

Then: "Jesus entered Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God"
The Son is affirmed in love, led into crisis, and in this way is prepared to proclaim the Good News of God. If we do not know that we are beloved of God, then we have not heard the Good News and we will not be able to share it with others: you cannot give what you have not got. If we realise that we are be-loved of God, then we cannot help but share this Good News with others. In fact, it will bubble up and overflow out of us!

The desert is a strengthening moment in the life of Jesus,
and so the desert is a strengthening moment in the life of the follower of Jesus. If we know that we are beloved, then we know that we can trust God. If we trust God then we have nothing to be afraid of. And without fear, we will be free to be evangelised, touched and changed by the Good News of God. And, immersed in the Good News we will become the best version of ourselves that God wishes us to be.

New Life

A crisis is a time of new life.
Sometimes we may wish that we didn't live at a time in Ireland when being a Christian and in particular being a Catholic could be so problematic. We could wish for a bygone era to come back. We may feel that we have the answers to where it all went wrong. Naturally, we would rather not enter into the wilderness at the urgings of the holy Spirit. It is a time of deep crisis in the Church. But a crisis is a sign that we are deeply be-loved of God. And a crisis is also a sign of hope for the future, but only if we enter into the crisis willingly and allow God to transform us into the people he wants us to be, into the New Evangelisation that is possible.

Lent is the time in the Church's liturgical year when we re-focus and re-prioritise.
We get an opportunity to be spiritually re-newed in our personal and communal commitment to Christ. The spiritual disciplines of Lent: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving, are all ways for us to consciously enter into the desert place that God has prepared for us because of his love for us in Christ Jesus.

7 Sunday Ordinary Time, B, 19 February 2012, Mark 2:1-12

Star of Life

"Medical Priority". I think that many of you will understand the term much better than I do. I understand it to mean that the patient with the greatest medical need gets the priority in hospital, and in particular the Emergency area. Many patients with relatively mild injuries have found themselves frustrated, waiting around because of the 'Medical Priority' system. It means that another patient can arrive just as I am about to be seen by the medical team and just like that I can find myself back in the waiting area. 'Medical Priority' is frustrating for some patients but it is very necessary to save lives.

The paralytic in this morning's gospel is first on the medical priority list. He needs The Physician, and quickly! There has to be a way around the queue, around the crowd of people that have gathered to greet the Powerful One who has returned to Capernaum. The crowd are a hindrance in getting the person with the most need to Jesus. The crowd are selfish, crowding out the needy, paralysed one.

What is it that has paralysed this man? We can easily jump to  conclusions. We might assume the paralysis to be physical in nature and it may well have been. But, it takes courage to hear the Good News of the gospel addressed to me and you personally: what is it that paralyses you? What paralyses me?

It may seem strange to you but a short while ago we were all paralysed! Well, at least those of us who were asleep were! During some of our sleep state our brain temporarily paralyses our body so that we don't act out whats happening in our dreams!

(You may have seen this happen to a dog who is in deep sleep: they may give partial yelps or growls and even you can watch their paws twitch as if they were running in their sleep!)

So, waking from sleep is a coming around from a form of paralysis. Sometimes we can hear the gospel in a new way that wakes us up from our slumber: indeed some have commented that the vast majority of Christians are in a kind of 'sleep-state' in regard to their faith – they are duped into a kind of paralysis. Sometimes this paralysis can lead us into the darkness of sin, walking along with blinkers on. Sometimes it is other people, sharing their faith with us that can wake us up to the reality of God.

Maybe you can think of four people who have carried you to the Lord in some way, just like the four people in the gospel who went to great lengths to get the paralytic to Jesus. Think of those who have shared their faith with you, especially those who were gently encouraging and not forceful. Think of those who have had a Mass celebrated for you, or offered to pray for you. Maybe someone who has listened to you and shared some problem or burden. Those who may have sympathised with you in your grief at the death of a loved one.

The wisdom of the gospel today is to not so much be cured in the medical sense as to be healed in the heart sense: 'My child, your sins are forgiven.' Sometimes we don't even know we have sinned until it is revealed to us afterwards. Sometimes we don't even recognise that we are paralysed. Today is a day to allow our hearts to be healed by the Lord, to be set free from whatever paralysis affects us.

6 Sunday Ordinary Time, B, 12 February 2012, Mark 1:40-45

Trocaire Sign, Kampala, capital of Uganda

As many of you know, a month ago I had the privilege of travelling to Uganda with Trocaire (the Irish Church's outreach to developing countries) . There are many things that I would like to tell you about the trip and I will share much of it with you during Lent. Today, however, I would like to tell you about a particular group of people that we met during our trip.

The focus of Trocaire's work in Uganda is in the North of the country. One of the main towns in that area, with a population of about 200,000 people, is the town of Gulu. We met the Archbishop of Gulu, Most Rev John Baptist Odama, when we were there. He is famous for being instrumental in uniting all the Churches and other faith groups together in the face of the war that was going on there from 1986 to 2006. Archbishop Odama was highly instrumental in beginning the peace process between the rebels and the national government. He was also involved as a mediator between the various parties to the peace process when the talks were difficult.

Sean Farrell, Trocaire, Archbishop Odama, & Yours Truly!

One of the most destructive aspects of the war in Uganda was that very soon after it began the rebels began to abduct children and force them to become child-soldiers. This happened to both boys and girls. One of the horrific ways that the rebels would initiate these young children was by forcing them to return to their families and communities to murder, rape and pillage. By forcing these young children to do this the rebels ensured that in the child's mind they could never return home to whatever was left of their family or community. You can imagine how devastating and de-humanising this was for the children and for the communities concerned.

In Uganda, many of the dioceses have radio stations. It is a way for bishops and priests to preach the gospel to far-flung chapels and parishes that may only see a priest once every few months. One of the ingenius uses of these Church radio stations in areas affected by the abduction of children was to invite families and communities to broadcast a welcome back to those children who had been abducted and forced to do horrendous things to their own people.

The child soldiers out in the bush often had small transistor radios and they would listen to the broadcasts. The message being sent was very clear: even though you have done the most terrible of things, the most horrendous of crimes, you are still loved and you are welcome to come home.

We met a group of young people in their twenties, all of whom had been child-soldiers, all of whom had made their way home. There stories were amazing and wonderful, terrible and beautiful.

They had a phrase that they used for when a child would return back to the community after having committed desperate crimes against the community. The phrase was 'reconciliation without justice'. They knew that there was nothing that any of these children could do to make amends for what they had done. They recovered the traditions of their tribe which acknowledged that horrible things happen in war and that there is no way of putting that right. And so, they have a ritual where the offending person is reconciled to the community, without justice, because there can be no justice in the situation that the child finds himself or herself in.

Daniel Okweng - on this year's Trocaire Box

Leprosy, as described in the Old Testament reading from Leviticus today, was known as the 'living death'. This was for two reasons: firstly, the colour of the affected person was kind of jaundiced and reminded the onlooker of a dead person, and secondly, the leper was banished from the community until such time as the leprosy might leave them.

In biblical times, leprosy was seen as a sign of sin, although we must be careful not to interpret any kind of sickness in this way today.

The leper had to stay outside of the community. As such, a healing from leprosy was seen as being on the same level as a raising from the dead. This was because there was no known cure for leprosy. Therefore if someone was cured of it, it was interpreted as an act of God. Interestingly, the cure of leprosy allowed the former leper to be admitted back into the community. For Christians, this echoes the action of forgiveness of sins: it is an action that can only be done by God and it restores the person to full relationship with the community and full relationship with God.

The work and ministry of priests, and of the Church in general, is profoundly connected to the ministry of Jesus in the gospel. It is a ministry of reconciliation: reconciliation to the community and reconciliation to God. There can be no separation of these two types of reconciliation. If I am reconciled to God, then I am reconciled to the community. If I am not reconciled to the community, then I am not reconciled to God either. This profound ministry, that priests share in in a particular way in the Sacrament of Confession, is a ministry of God alone. Only God can forgive us our sins and restore us to full communion, full relationship again.

5 Sunday Ordinary Time, B, 5 February 2012, Mark 1:29-39

Busy, Busy, Busy!

We live very busy lives. There are many demands on our time. Not enough hours in the day. Sometimes we can wonder 'how the other half live'. We imagine the lives of celebrities and important people as being completely different to our own; a kind of semi-paradise, heaven-on-earth kind of existence. The gossip pages of any tabloid paper or glossy magazine confirms the endless fascination we have with how celebrities live their lives.

The gospel this morning is like a "Day in the Life" snapshot of how Jesus lives. It begins in the synagogue, leaving there Jesus, accompanied by two of the most important disciples, James and John, goes and visits the house of another two important disciples, Simon and Andrew.

When this very important, Spirit-filled and powerful visitor arrives, the first thing that happens is that they tell Jesus that Simon's Mother-in-Law had gone to bed with fever. And Jesus' reason for being comes into focus. He immediately 'went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her ...' There is a clear allusion here to the 'raising up' work that Jesus does. Immediately, having experienced the healing and raising by Jesus, 'she began to wait on them.' This is specifically a way of speaking about the service that a disciple does rather than being any kind of a chauvinistic, male-dominated statement. Simon's Mother-in-Law becomes a disciple, a follower of Jesus and exhibits the true characteristic of the Christian disciple: service (diakonia, from which we get the word: Deacon).

http://www.diakonia.se

This "Day in the Life" of Jesus has just begun, but already we can see how busy it is for him. He has been to two places already, the public worship space of the Synagogue and the more private House of Simon and Andrew. In both places he has met people and been busy. Already, in a pithy way, Mark has given testimony to the evangelisation of an important woman – Simon-Peter's Mother-in-Law.

Just in case it hasn't been busy enough, 'That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils. ...' And then '... The whole town came crowding round the door, ...' Jesus is in high demand as an exorcist-Doctor. The tension builds when Jesus refuses to allow the 'many devils,' from identifying him. What is clear from this is that Jesus is a people-centred person. People are more important to him than devils or evil-spirits. He drives out evil and heals the sick so that they might be able to follow him just as Simon, his Mother-in-Law, Andrew, James, John and all the other disciples are trying to follow him.

And then, the following morning, early, way before dawn, Jesus rises to go away by himself to pray. Having been crowded out the day before, he needs time alone in prayer to become focused again on his mission. In contemporary terms, Jesus is managing his 'work-life' balance. He has to tune in again to God the Father to remember that his primary mission is not exorcisms or healing the sick, his primary mission is to '... preach ..., because that is why I came.'

The role of Jesus in our lives is to reconcile us to God. Jesus' role is not to cure our bodies, but rather to heal our souls. That is why the healing and exorcism ministry is always a core temptation, both for Jesus and for those who minister in his name. Like Jesus, we must pray, centre ourselves again on God and God's Way, rather than our own way which is always influenced by ourselves, others and even the evil spirit to drift away from the path of life that is found in following God, through Jesus, in Word and Sacrament.