Spirituality

A commentary on Mc 9, 38-48 (XXVI Sunday O.T., September 26th 2015)

The gospels, besides narrating episodes of Jesus’ life and reproducing his parables, contain also collections of “sayings”, small sentences that He surely pronounced in different times and places and the first disciples retained by heart and repeated to the new disciples that were entering the communities. In the verses we read today, we find three of these sayings that I understand as follows:

1.- Goodness has no frontiers. The exact saying of Jesus is “whoever is not against us, is with us” and He pronounces it because somebody wanted to forbid people who did not belong to the group of disciples to act in the name of Jesus. It would be like forbidding someone to help the poor because he or she is not a member of the Church. Any act of goodness belongs to God; it’s a sharing in God’s goodness. We are invited to acknowledge it, be grateful and glad for it.

2.- A glass of water may have an infinite value. Jesus says: “Whoever gives a glass of water in my name, will not lose the reward”. Sometimes, not much is needed to put joy in a persons’ life, to make her or him feel respected, to offer a sign of hope in the middle of difficulties. To give a glass of water is a sign of welcome, respect, availability to “give a hand” if needed. Who gives a glass of water to someone in need, is open to the other and who is open to the other is open to God. What is the “glass of water” that I could offer to the people around me?

3.- Be careful, do not become a stumbling stone for the little ones! Mark puts here three sentences with a common reference to the “scandal”. We know that this word means really “stumbling stone”, trip up somebody who is defenceless, so that he falls down. Jesus, who is full of goodness and tenderness, becomes quite angry when someone lacks respect for the house (temple) of his Father or when somebody wants to trip the little ones, those who have only God to trust. You should not “joke” with the little ones of God. At the same time, Jesus tells us something that to my ears sound like that: “Do not trip up yourself; if something is doing any wrong to you, cut it, do not indulge, choose the way to righteousness with decision and clarity”
Every Sunday, as we celebrate the Eucharist and listen to these words of Jesus, we say to Him: Amen, thank you, I wish these words to illuminate my life. Help me to make them true in me.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Roma

A commentary on Mk 7, 31-37 (XXIII Sunday O.T., September 6^th  2015)

Mark, in today’s reading, portrays Jesus in “pagan” country, where people were not following Jew religion. But, beyond the religious differences between those people and the people of Nazareth or Jerusalem, there it was a concrete, real man with a concrete, human problem,  that is the same for believers and unbelievers, rich and poor, educated and illiterates. That man was deaf and could not speak properly, something that affected his human condition at a very fundamental level.

Moreover, it seems clear that what Mark intends with the narration of this experience is to explain to us what the real mission of Jesus is:

Jesus’ mission consists in using the power-love of God (symbolized by the continuous touching with fingers and hands) to liberate humanity, not so much from our physical deafness, but, more important, from our deep inability to understand God and our neigbours, closed up in  our own sterile pride. From that deafness comes up also our inability to say meaningful words to others.

When I was a young priest, I have known a ten years old  boy, whom everybody thougth he was both deaf and mute, till  young nun started to give attention to him, accompanying him with a great, continuous and constant love. After some time, she discovered that the child had a physical problem with his ear and took him to the doctors. Solved that problem, the child began to hear the words spoken to him and to repeat them, learning how to listen and how to speak. I was then very much impressed by the power of love, able to start off processes of liberation and healing.

Certainly, not always happens that way, rather in most cases deaf people have to learn how to do without spoken words. But, again, as in the Gospel, the reference is not so much the physical deafness, but that close heart that leads us to close the channels of communication  and loving relationship with the members of our family or our community, with people of other cultures, political ideas or religious practices…

Quite often we become “deaf” and “mute” in the deepest side of our personality: we refuse to listen to what other people have to tell us… and for that same reason we are not able to say any “relevant” word to tem or to others: we do not have a sincere, meaningful, liberating word to say, because we do not listen.

We remember the story of Emmaus: Jesus approaches the disciples, walks with them and listen to them. Afterwards he would say clarifying and meaningful words.

Sometimes, it seems that our Christian communities have become deaf and mute: They do not listen to the cries of our humanity (Migrants, refugees, young people, women…, nor to the prophets or our time, those people who can help us to understand God’s ways for today. And because of this deafness they become also “mute”, unable to announce any meaningful message to today’s humanity.

A missionary Church is a church that listens, free from the deafness of his pride and arrogance. Only after that liberation, can it become truly missionary, messenger of the good news of God’s love for people.

In the Eucharistic celebration, Jesus “touches” our body. Let us pray that He heals our deafness and liberates our tongues so that we can become true missionaries, healed and instruments of healing, while we continue walking in life towards a fuller communion with God and our fellow men and women.

Fr. Antonio Villarino

Roma