The Pharisees were known in the Jewish society at that time of Jesus to observe strictly the traditional and written law of Moses. They too were known to follow the law up to its most trivial like practices of washing before meal, washing the dishes and even the beds. With such strict observance of the laws, these people seemed to be filled with pretentions and feeling of superiority.
However, the integrity of their faith was in question. The sincerity of their action was doubtful. This was something that Jesus wanted them to realize. Jesus wanted this people to see that our relationship with God is not tied up in following the minutest detail of the law. Having faith is not about making others look us up because of the many rituals we do. To have faith is never about becoming self-righteous and superior from others.
Hence, Jesus confronted the Pharisees and some of those scribes with them because Jesus knew their hearts. Citing Prophet Isaiah, Jesus said referring to them, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.”
This was how Jesus pointed out the plunder and evil in the heart of these people. This means that what they were really after was not to please and worship God but to make people worship them. Again, Jesus said about them, “You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
Thus, what is more important, then, is not our good image before the public or the praise that we get by being righteous and upright in front of the people but our heart that expresses our goodness, generosity and love.
This is what our first reading reminds us today. As God created every creature on earth, God created us in his own image and likeness. We, certainly, possess the divine image of God. Hence, suppressing or hiding those qualities given to us would be a form of injustice to the giver.
Therefore, Jesus calls us today to express the divine image in us by participating in the on-going work of God in us and in the world. Express freely the divine image in us that gives life, inspires life and creates life. In this way, we will be able to worship God truly and every day. Hinaut pa.
“Let there be light.” This was the first command of God in order to bring light to earth covered with darkness. Even until now, there are also dark spots in our life that need to be lightened. We experience pain of loss and rejection, of sickness and fear, of injustice and oppression. These areas are what we seek to be illuminated. This is the reason why we do things to overcome the pain of loss and rejection. We seek the comfort of friends when we are afraid. We seek the expertise of doctors to bring us into health. We fight and confront the unjust and oppressive to bring justice and compassion.
These desires to be in the light, to be illumined and to experience that grace of God, are being portrayed to us also in the Gospel of Mark. People followed Jesus wherever he went because they have recognized him to be that person who can bring light into the darkness they experienced in life.
That desire gave them the hope that there was something better for them that God offers to them. People wanted to touch Jesus, then, even just the tassel of his cloak. They believed that even in that small way, God shall bring them the hope they have been waiting for. True, indeed, all those who were sick who touched it were healed. At last, the darkness in their heart and soul disappeared because of God’s creative work in the world.
In the same way, Jesus invites us today to also have that desire in our heart, that we may always recognize his presence and seek to touch God. Jesus as well calls us today to become his tassels in our homes and communities where those who are in need shall also experience light and healing through our kindness and generosity, through our words that bring consolation and encouragement, through our presence that gives assurance and confidence. Hinaut pa.
Who among us here who experienced pain and suffering? Or a failure or a heartbreak? I am certain each of us has these experiences in one way or another. There might be some of us here who have also experienced being humiliated, oppressed or abused. Perhaps there are those who are ill at the moment, or in trouble at work, have lost a job, failed in a business or in a relationship or who are in great sorrow for losing a loved one.
It has been a year when the first report of death from Covid-19 has been revealed. Since then, the outbreak of the virus brought so much difficulty to many of us particularly those who have health issues and those whose source of income are already unstable even before the pandemic. Aside from these, there are also others who suffered very much because of the surrounding circumstances in their life.
This happened to Joy (not her real name). She was working in a big hospital and when Covid-19 Pandemic made the first infection in the City, the hospital became busier. All medical staff felt the pressure as well as the fear and anxiety in working in a very toxic environment.
Joy has a boyfriend. She was happy with him and he too was happy with her. They have been together for several years and thought that the relationship was going to the stage of a life-long commitment. One day, Joy found that she was pregnant. At first, she was surprised and at the same time felt afraid. Though she was happy with her boyfriend, but, she felt not sure after all. Few weeks later, when she was ready to inform her boyfriend, the relationship suddenly became unstable. As she expected it, the relationship was broken and Joy was not able to tell her boyfriend that she was pregnant. Her boyfriend broke-up with her and left her. And she kept her pregnancy to herself.
But, the New Corona Virus came, and the national government declared lockdown in major cities. People were advised to stay home. Hospitals became busier. Herself and her colleagues felt not only the pressure of work but also the emotional burden. With this, the more Joy decided to keep her pregnancy a secret.
For Joy, the situations surrounding her pregnancy, the recent break-up, the pandemic, the pressures at work, the emotional stress brought so much confusion to her. Her heart and mind now filled with darkness. She could not understand herself and her situation anymore. She felt not ready too to become a mother. She was afraid. She was terrified of raising the child alone and bringing the child in the midst of this pandemic and broken-relationship.
With so much emotional/psychological stress from all aspects of her life, Joy aborted the baby after her third month of pregnancy. She thought it would solve the problem, end her troubles, her fears and anxieties, her pain and anguish. However, that was just the beginning of more pain and guilt, of shame and deep sorrow in the heart of Joy.
She could not sleep anymore. Her colleagues began to notice changes in her attitude. She would break-down and sob even at work and even in public places. Joy was lost. She has been carrying a truck of guilt in her heart. She was searching for forgiveness, looking for God, yet, she could not forgive herself. Yet, deep within, Joy desired to find comfort and peace, light and hope in her heart.
Joy has been keeping all those painful experiences in her heart alone. Joy needed a listening ear and heart that will only keep listening to her story without judgment and without any biases. Joy needed a big amount of understanding and it can only be given to her by listening fully to her story, to her anxieties and fears, to her broken-relationship and pregnancy, to her struggles at work and to her sins. And at some point of her life, she began to open up and allowed herself to be touched by the presence of those around her. She took the risk and let herself be embraced by her friends
As Joy was assisted to recognize all of those circumstances that have happened in her life, this paved the way to forgiveness, to the road of healing and freedom.
A reality such as this reminds me of today’s readings. So, allow me to bring you a bit deeper into our readings and let us discover how God unfolds His invitations for us today.
Our first reading tells us about the misery and hopelessness of Job who lost everything, not just his material possessions but especially his family and health. But what was intriguing was that Job seemed to be a good and righteous man. He never oppressed anybody. He had been honest to God. However, being good and righteous did not make him immune to human pain and suffering, to misery and hopelessness. With that horrible experience of Job, he said, “I shall not see happinness again.” This is Job’s testimony of that bitterness in a life filled with so much pain and darkness.
Nevertheless, Job’s story did not end there. He actually saw and experienced joy again in his life because God showed mercy to him. This mercy is what we find in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus, as he began his public ministry, went from one town to another in order to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the diseases that plagued the people of his time and freed those who were possessed by demons. Jesus came in order to let the people know that God has come and is not blind to our suffering and difficulties. God wants to free us from those that enslaved us, that make us suffer and hopeless.
This is what Jesus did to the mother-in-law of Peter and to those people who have been brought to Jesus. Jesus healed and freed them by touching them. This is what our Psalm proclaimed to us, “The Lord heals the broken-hearted.” Our Psalm testifies that God is a healer. God brings completeness, wholeness and healing to the broken-hearted, to the wounded and to the miserable. God brings hope and light to us who find life hopeless, bitter and dark.
Indeed, it is when we allow God to touch us that God also brings healing into our life. God’s touch is showed to us in many ways. And this is what I realized in the life of Joy. God touched her through her friends who showed concern to her. God also touched her through the sacraments that Joy received. Peter’s mother-in-law was touched by Jesus through Peter himself who brought Jesus to their home. The sick and the possessed were touched by Jesus and were healed through the people who brought them to Jesus.
It is in this way that God works wonders in us and also through us. This is the invitation for us today which I summed in two points.
First, God wants to heal us, to make us complete and joyful. Jesus is letting us know that our God is for us the wounded, for the broken, for the sick and for the hopeless. We might be like Job who find life miserable – come closer to the Lord, then, do not lose hope but rather seek healing and ask what you need from God because our God is, indeed, a God of healing.
Second, each of us can be an instrument of healing too. We can be a friend who will be able to bring healing to others by bringing them closer to God. We can show it by being generous of ourselves to others, that is, by offering a helping hand to those in need, by making our ears available to a person who wants to be heard, by assuring a sick friend of our prayers and company, by letting a person know that you are there to support and give comfort. Yes, we don’t have to look far, just be aware of those people around us because he or she might just be one of our friends who has been hiding his/her suffering from a smiling façade, or could just be a family member who has been making himself/herself busy with work or worst indulging themselves in their own rooms with their gadgets or with chemical substances. Let us be instruments of God’s healing presence today. Hinaut pa.
Take a deep breath and begin to take this short exercise for today. Inhale God’s Spirit. Exhale your fear and negative emotions. Inhale God’s assurance of love. Exhale your doubts and anxieties of tomorrow. Inhale the gift of the present moment. Exhale the pains of the past.
To do this would be very helpful in order to gather our mind, see clearly things in life and re-balance ourselves. There could be many things going on in our mind and heart from the concerns at home that we carry in our work that we also bring into our relationships. Things can be complicated when we do not see the direction of each aspect of our life. Home, work, friendship, love-life and other extra-curricular activities when they come together, our hands will be full. When one or two aspects become overwhelming, others will be affected. From all the stress and burdens that one experience every day, there is really a need to take a break, to take a deep breath and re-balance life.
Such invitation and to dwell into that call is as much as important as eating and taking exercise. To take a break or to take a rest is a human need that must be taken into consideration and given much importance. For the sake of wellness not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually, we are called to come away by ourselves and rest a while.
This is what we have heard in today’s Gospel of Mark. Jesus said to his apostles after all they had done and taught, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” The work that they have done must have been not just tiring physically but also in other aspects of their life. The apostles, when they faced sick people must have also encountered rejections and angry reactions from Jewish authorities and other people who refused to accept Jesus’ message and call to repentance.
Jesus was very aware on how work for the kingdom of God can also be straining and draining to a person. Even the most energetic and most joyful person will also feel tired and need to rest.
With that awareness, Jesus invited the apostles to grab that opportunity to rest, to pray, to relax, to take a deep breath and re-balance life according to God’s desire for them. Jesus himself would even take this opportunity. In all Gospels, Jesus would take time to go to a deserted place alone and pray in order to commune with his Father in heaven.
In fact, our Psalm today also proclaims to us how God desires to lead us to a place of rest and renewal. It says wonderfully, “the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. In verdant pastures he gives me repose. Beside restful waters he leads me, he refreshes my soul.”
This attitude allows us to be in touched with ourselves and in touched with God’s daily invitations for us. As we find our personal deserted places to be alone, spend it with quality by devoting that time to be enmeshed in God’s assuring presence that we may be refreshed, renewed, recharged and once again find balance and peace in life. Hinaut pa.
A group of barangay leaders once went to attend a week-long seminar on leadership and public service. Since they have heard a lot about the speaker of their seminar, they looked forward meeting him hoping that they could learn some new wisdom about leadership and service. As they arrived at the venue, they happen to see a simple man around, and ordered him to bring their luggage to their respective rooms. The man obligingly obeyed their order. And off they went visiting other sites since they still have more time to spend before the seminar. As the seminar begins, much to their dismay, they were all ashamed of themselves because the man whom they asked to bring their luggage to their rooms is the very guest speaker himself.
We hear from our gospel today Jesus responding to the immediate needs of the people. As he arrived in Peter’s house, Jesus healed the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law, and until nighttime he cured all the sick people of the community. Yes, Jesus is indeed a compassionate healer, who reaches out and responds to the needs of the people. But we must also know that in responding to people’s need, Jesus also have to stop and leave them, so that he can continue his mission. Though he is a frontline healer, for Jesus, His main mission is to preach and spread the Good News and to build God’s Kingdom, rather than just responding to the immediate needs of the people.
Jesus is more than just a healer of life but he is The Giver of life. He is more than just trouble-shooter or mechanics but he is the engineer or builder. He is more than just our “kargador” but he is the guest speaker himself. Jesus is the Life-giver Himself, more than just our frontline healer. He is God’s offer of Life than mere health to us.
Like the people of his time, sometimes we only recognize Jesus as he heals and responds to our immediate need. So that we may be happy, we only want Jesus to satisfy our urgent needs. We want Jesus to create miracles or magics, to ease our pain and free us from our life’s loads and burdens. Like those baranggay leaders, at times we may have considered Jesus only as our “Kargador” baggage-carrier to lighten our loads, serve our needs and ease our pains. Sometime in life, we see Jesus as a mere gasoline station – we recognize Him only whenever we need Him, when we run out of gas. Sometimes, we need Jesus to be just our caregiver who should readily respond to our immediate needs – without caring about the message He preached, story to tell, role to play in our lives as well as His life and mission to partake & live with us.
Well, surely Jesus will respond hands-on and on-hand to our needs and hope, for He do know what we need & what we are going through in life. But Jesus can offer us more than just carrying our burden. He is the guest speaker who offers us more than just lightening our loads, cure our sicknesses, free us from our problems or filling-up our gasoline tank. Jesus comes to us to renew our lives and offer us God’s kingdom. His mission is to preach the Good News of Salvation. He came not only to respond to our immediate petty needs but to heal and recreate our land and the world now. He comes so that we may have life – life to its fullness, and not just life to our satisfaction.
Be reminded then of what Jesus say to us in our gospel today, “Let us move on to the neighboring villages so that I may proclaim the good there also. That is what I have come to do.”
In this Eucharist, we pray that our faith in Jesus moves us not to limit & abuse God’s graces for us, but rather move us to be more open & trusting to God’s plans & will for us now during these pandemic times, and thus participate fully in the Mission of Jesus of sharing God’s offer of Life & Salvation to all in our world now & always. Amen.
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 