Can you keep a secret? I have a confession to make. I have 766 friends on Facebook. True, that’s the latest as of 9.54 pm last night and counting. It’s quite a lot of ‘friends’ really. But many of them are just acquaintances. Some I just met once. And some I have never personally met at all. I’m sure only very few of them I can honestly call my ‘friends’. I’m telling you this, not to brag about this or to discourage you of befriending me on FB, but because today’s gospel challenges me to have a review at the list of friends I have. Today’s gospel can be the answer on ‘how to test a real friend’ or ‘A Test of Real Friendship.’
Mark in our gospel today tells us of Jesus healing the paralysed by forgiving his sins and thus curing him of his physical illness as well. But it is only upon ‘seeing their faith’ that Jesus speaks to the sick man. Jesus saw the great faith of the men carrying the sick. The man was carried by four men ‘assumed’ to be his friends. As friends they didn’t give up. They didn’t go back home immediately when they couldn’t even pass through the door of the house because of the squeezing crowd inside. In fact, they took the extreme measure in order to express their faith in Jesus. They climbed up to the roof, made an opening and lowered the sick man to get closer to Jesus. As friends, they have such faith and confidence in Jesus that they tried all possible means to present their friend to Jesus. And seeing their faith, Jesus forgives and heals the man.
This is a test of real friendship. A true friend is someone who brings us brings us closer to God. A genuine friend is one who takes the risk, no matter how big or how difficult a task it is, just to save his or her friend. A true friend is one who not only give alms to the leper but touches and embraces them as Mother Teresa did. A true friend is one who doesn’t stop doing good for his/ her friend even if he/she is being ridiculed, rejected, frowned upon, or sick and unable to return back the favour.
Now that we heard this, do we have someone we can count on as friends?
Surely, we have. We have a friend in Jesus. He not only said “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” but he really did realize it in himself. And we reflect and hear more of this coming Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. He laid down his life for us. He sacrificed himself for all of us. He even experienced the rejection, the betrayal of his closest and chosen disciples, and the shout of crucifixion from those same people who had welcomed him very warmly on Palm Sunday. But despite all that, He would still call us his friends by trusting us the treasures of the Kingdom of His Father. Despite all our shortcomings, human weaknesses and constant sinning, he would still utter that ever powerful word on the cross interceding for all of us saying ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’ (Lk 23:34).
Because of all that Jesus has done, we became friends of God. Thus, as friends of God in Jesus, we also are to be friends to one another. Our liturgical celebration is always motivated to express this friendship with God and with one another, in worship, in reconciliation, praise and thanksgiving. Thus, our gesture of expressing the sign of peace in the mass is not just there to fill in the gap. That serves to remind us that in God we are all one family and that each one is always ‘someone’ special for God. That is how beautiful our friendship with God is. That must also be the ideal of human friendship: valuing each other. God values us all no matter how small we may feel, or how insignificant we might think we are. In God, no one is more equal than the other. So also must we.
Being our friend, Jesus shows us how to be a real friend to one another. He welcomes the sinner. He appreciates and acknowledges the faith of the four men in the gospel and suggesting that they’ve done the right thing and the good initiative. As a friend, he forgives the fault done to him. Interestingly, the prophet Isaiah has somehow experienced this friendship with God when he wrote of God telling us in our First Reading today: ‘No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before…It is I, who must blot out everything and not remember your sins.’ Is it not a wonderful experience when God himself would tell us in a way: ‘Let’s call it quits, will we?’ St Paul in our Second Reading today would also tell us the same thing: That in Jesus, God has assured us of His power and sustenance through his Spirit dwelling in our hearts.
Now let’s ask ourselves about the test of real friendship: Are we now friends of Jesus? If so, are we expressing this friendship by bringing all our friends closer to him as well? Jesus as a friend, brings us closer to his Father’s heart. How are we as friends? Are we willing to take a big risk or to go through extreme measures just to bring our friend closer to God, and be healed, be forgiven, and become whole again? Or are we taking our friends away from God?
Tags: Catholic sermon for 7th Sunday in Ordinary time year B, Homily about the four men and the paralytic, Homily for 7th Sunday in Ordinary time 2012, Homily for 7th Sunday year B 2012, Homily for February 19 2012
Our Gospel today is one of those gospels that is really not Good News for us when we hear it for the first time. It is seemingly ‘not’ Good News for us who are called Christians because to live out this noble name is to imitate Jesus Christ on what he was doing – to love the unlovable, to give hope to the hopeless. It is not ‘Good News’ for us who are apparently healthy and well-off but are called not only to ‘stretch out our hands’ as Jesus did to the ‘leper’ but also to ‘touch’ the person. ‘Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ’ says St Paul in our Second Reading today.
Jesus loves the unlovable. The people who have leprosy were repugnant in the time and the culture wherein Jesus was living in. We can’t blame them. It has always been the ‘tolerated or even recommended attitude or behaviour’ that the Law of Moses expected of the people. Our First Reading today gives us a glimpse of what was it like before. Once diagnosed with leprosy the leper would have to act or wear some signs distinctive only of lepers, to shout ‘unclean’ as he/she goes out to the streets, and even to live ‘apart’ from the rest of the society. Physically, he/she was really sick. And more so emotionally or psychologically, he/ she was to be rejected systematically. But Jesus in our gospel today ignored the prescribed rituals or laws against the lepers by expressing his great love to the leper. Our Gospel tells us that Jesus was ‘feeling sorry for him.’ According to one Commentary, the original language to describe the attitude of Jesus towards the leper, would point that He felt more than sorry about him. He rather ‘felt compassion’ towards him. It means in latin ‘to suffer with.’ Because He loves the person himself Jesus realizes that the leper was not only physically sick but also psychologically. Because He suffered with the leper, he can understand what was it like to be sick physically and psychologically. And because of this, He stretched out his hand and touched the leper (a thing prohibited in the Jewish law- for the leper should have gone to the priest first and be proclaimed publicly as ‘clean or cured’). Because of love Jesus went beyond the letter of the law. He went across borders or cultural boundaries, because that is just how God loves us- unconditional.
Jesus gives hope to the hopeless. Only in Jesus we can find the real meaning and the assurance that our Christian hope is really pointing to- that something which real and so great a mystery which we are all called to share with in God’s time. The leper in our gospel has started to lose that hope but he made use of the little hope he has. He may have felt he has nothing to lose at all if Jesus wouldn’t cure him. He said:’ If you want to, you can cure me.’ Such a humble and simple statement of hope. He wasn’t demanding of Jesus. He was just stating the facts of his being, of his neediness, of the hopelessness of his situation. Jesus touched him. And that touch cured him not only physically but also psychologically. Because of what Jesus has done unto him, he realized that he is worth more than just a dime. Thus, he couldn’t contain the ‘Good News’ he has personally heard and experienced- that there is still hope for a better and a healthy life despite the ‘hellish’ life he has been experiencing until Jesus came along to his life. He went out and told the people of the Good News as well.
In our time and age, experiencing the love of Jesus and living in hope are tough calls. It is so because we always have excuses not to allow Jesus to touch us. Everyday God wants to touch us in a more personal way. He wishes we would allow him to be part of the solution of the problems we are facing. He wishes we would allow him to speak to us and we listen. But our time now is always trying to compensate this Spiritual drought by bombarding us with all material things that we tend to believe the reasons or the ways to make us live a happy and a contented life. But we cannot cure cancer with just a capsule of antibiotic. In like manner, we cannot end our spiritual drought by having material possessions. It’s the wrong remedy and most of the time, it just doesn’t work alright.
Living in hope is also another tough call for us now because of the many ‘hopeless’ things or events or life’s circumstances we may have experienced or known about. But Jesus today is telling us: There is hope after all this. This is not the end of things. There is much greater and better things than these. Let’s just hang in there and keep our faith and hope going.
What we can do then? Like the leper, let’s be humble, simple and courageous in facing the reality of our situations and bringing them all to Jesus. And as we have heard in the Gospel, Jesus transformed the situation, from the worst to the best. This is not just a wishful thinking. It is true not only because the Gospel says this, but also because Jesus himself has shown us this. He suffered the worst of that agonizing Friday but he has also received the best of that remarkable Easter Sunday.
Like the leper, let’s be humble yet courageous before others and before the Lord. And like Jesus, let’s stretch out our hands and touch others as Jesus touches them. Let’s then be Christ to others. Let’s be the ‘Good News’ for others. Amen.
Tags: 2012, 2012 Catholic homily, Catholic homily for year B 6th Sunday, Christ: the lover of the unlovable, February 12, Homily for 6th Sunday in Ordinary time 2012, Homily for Ordinary time 6th Sunday February 12, Homily for the leper and Jesus year B, homily for year B 2012
If you may have remembered, three Sundays ago, we heard Jesus inviting the disciples of John the Baptist to ‘come and see’ where he lives. Then on the following Sunday, we heard him again as he was walking along the sea of Galilee. This time he was inviting certain fishermen to follow him. And we heard the story, they left everything behind (their nets and even their father) and followed him. The disciples followed Jesus and they saw how Jesus observed the Sabbath day. Last Sunday, the gospel tells us that He went to the Synagogue and there he cured the man possessed by an unclean spirit, in the presence of everyone. Today’s gospel is sort of a continuation of how Jesus spent his day. After the synagogue, he went out with his newly-made friends and even cured the illness of one of his friends’ mother-in-law. Then he attended to the crowds who came to him with all their sick and possessed and he cured ‘many.’ Then later on, early the next morning, he left the house and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.’
This must have been the typical day for him. He’s got time for his friends. He’s got time for the people coming to him. But most importantly he’s got time for himself and for his God. In a way, he knows his priorities and he knows how to balance things out. This is for me, the secret ‘ingredient’ that made Jesus so popular for many (poor and needy) in his time and even for us now.
As followers of him, we also ought to imitate the life of Christ as one classical author -Thomas a Kempis said. This doesn’t mean imitating him in his miracles or in his way of preaching but following him in how he keeps grounded on being with his friends, with the people and with his Father all at the same time.
And thus, because of his firm priorities, He transcends any cultural barrier or standard of ritual purity prevalent in his time and culture. He cured in the Sabbath, which is an ‘illegal’ act to the authorities in the synagogue. He ‘touched’ the sick mother-in-law of Simon Peter and cured her from fever. He allowed her to ‘wait’ on them which is not acceptable in his time. The gesture of Jesus was repugnant for the Jewish authorities for they had a strict rule of ritual purity at the time which allowed ‘no adult woman’ to ‘serve a man at table.’
He maintains his personal relationship with his Father in everything he did or said. When he preached he always notes that ‘He is just doing the will of his Father.’ When he cured or did miracles he would make people realize that the kingdom of his Father is a Kingdom of ‘wholeness and holiness, of perfection and eternal happiness.’ This is the secret of his success if we like to call it that way.
Like Jesus we are to make our priorities right. For Him, doing the will of his Father is the main motive of everything he does and says. It is important to remember always that God has willed each and everyone of us to live our lives to the full in the light of his love and care. We can only realize and accept this truth this if we give time for ourselves. We can only see this if we keep our communication with God open. For it is only in the silence of our hearts that we can hear God speaking to us and guiding us in what we are to do in our lives.
However, in our world wherein ‘getting busy or acting like busy body’ is the ‘seemingly’ motive in doing things, keeping time with God is a tough call. It is difficult to stay still and ponder on how God works in us now because we are in the world wherein ‘rushing’ is the name of the game. The consoling thing is that despite our busy times, we still have time to spend with our friends and relatives and with some people around us. Yet at the end of the day, if we don’t go back to God, if we don’t sit down before Him, if we would listen to ourselves, if we wouldn’t confront our own selves, we would eventually lose the meaning of our life. No wonder, we heard in the News, people who are seemingly well-off, with good circle of friends, rich and famous, who have taken their own lives. This can happen if we are just caught up with what we are doing, and not in who we are representing to. We are called by God to be Christ for others. If we neglect this noble Christian and human responsibility we would eventually end up being alone in the midst of the crowd or being impoverished in the midst of plenty.
It is by giving time for ourselves and by bringing our troubles, problems, and concerns to God that we would come to realize that things are not really that bad as they appear to be. If we look at what we have become now, we will realize that sufferings are just really part of our life, but sufferings are not forever. Unlike Job, in our First Reading today, we would come to realize that there is hope amidst all these troubles we are facing, that we can still see and experience happiness here and now despite the sorrows and sadness we may feel at times. St Paul in our Second Reading today also offers us a consolation. For Him God is not a dominant figure telling you what to do and what not. But for Him God is the Good News to be preached, the Good News that He loves and cares all of us now despite our weaknesses and limitations.
So as we continue our reflection for the Day, let’s ask ourselves: Am I living a balanced life?
Do I spend quality time with myself and God just as I spent good times with my friends?
Tags: 2012 year B, Christ, Galilee, God, Good News, homily for 5th SUnday ordinary time year B, Homily for February 5, homily for fifth Sunday in Ordinary time, Jesus, Sabbath, Saint Peter, SErmon for year B ordinary time 5th Sunday, Sunday
