July 2018

XVI Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 22, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Today, in the Gospel, Jesus seeks to take His little group away to a quiet place and rest, only to find when their boat puts in to shore that a crowd of people are already there before them and are waiting for them. The planned holiday now give way to the needs of this hungry people, who are hungry for more of what Jesus has to offer them. The sight of these people has a profound effect on Jesus. He is deeply moved by what He sees – people who seem lost and directionless, people who seem vulnerable to every wind that blows. St. Mark, writing this Gospel story, says the people were like sheep without a shepherd. Shepherds, as we know, provide leadership and good guidance for sheep, finding new pastures for them and keeping guard over them in the watches of the night, so that predators may not attack and kill them. Everyone deserves to be loved and cared for, but the world is full of sorrow.

The world needs shepherds. Everyone needs a shepherd. Without the care and love and protection of a shepherd we will all be lost. Sometimes people fall through the cracks in society. No one seems to be responsible, and young people and poor are left to die by the wayside. But we are all involved. Jesus could have turned that boat around and gone off in search of another place for peace and quiet. But to do that is to close your heart to human need. Jesus, the good shepherd, tells us differently.

XVI Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 22, 2018 Read More »

XV Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 15, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

The first reading from Amos and the Gospel passage from St. Mark have an important message for us, the Christian community today. In Amos we are presented with the prophet being lambasted by a crowd and told that he is never to speak in the way he has been doing. Poor Amos, we may think. However, he does not need our pity; he is a man who utterly believes that what he says and does is just what he was told to say and do by the Lord. In the Gospel we witness how the disciples are given the power to anoint sick people and drive out demons from those who find themselves possessed. This power has come from Jesus and has been gifted to the apostles. These are people who can now minister as they have seen the Lord minister.

It can often seem today that there is a rising intolerance towards Christianity and its message. In our society we are unlikely to meet the kind of persecution that is faced by people of faith in some other countries of the world. We are people who have been given a call, a vocation by the Lord. We know our identity as sons and daughters of God. We have been chosen and made holy bur our God. The more we recognize these truths, the more we should not care what the “crowd” thinks about us. Being Christians today, as it always has been, is about being people of love, people of truth, people of justice, people of integrity, people of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us never give up living the life that we have been called to live.

XV Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 15, 2018 Read More »

XIV Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 8, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Jesus encountered opposition and unpopularity in His own country. We see in today’s Gospel that the people in His home town of Nazareth would not accept Him, and that their lack of faith prevented Him from performing any great miracle there. He remarked, “A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house.” People of His home town were so enraged with Him and His teaching that they tried to throw Him over a cliff, but He faced them down and escaped. On the other hand, Jesus sometimes found great faith among people who were not of His own country or race or religion, such as the Samaritan leper whom He cured, or the Roman centurion of whom He said, “I tell you solemnly, nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this”; or again, the Canaanite woman whose daughter healed, telling her, “Woman, you have great faith.”

We might do well to keep some examples in mind in our attempts to proclaim the Gospel today. Many of us are glad to support the missions in faraway countries, but closer to home, if we attempt to spread the Gospel outside the doors of our churches at all, we tend to address our message to what we might call the fringes of our own church community: those who come to Mass at Christmas and Easter, those who send their children to our schools, those who have fallen away from the regular practice of the faith.

XIV Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 8, 2018 Read More »

XIII Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – June 24, 2018

From the Pastor /

Does God care about us? It seems like a question that is unanswerable. But God has already answered it. God answered it by coming into our in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus came not only into our world, to rub shoulders with us, but also int the lives of individual human beings, to show His loving concern for them. There’s the unhappy woman who for 12 long years has suffered from a haemorrhage. Perhaps it’s nature of her condition that leads her to approach Jesus unobtrusively from behind. She stretches out and touches His cloak. Immediately she feels power coursing through her body and knows that her complaint is no more. It is her faith, He explains, that has won the cure and now she can go forth “in peace”. Then there’s the little girl. She’s just 12 years old when she become grievously sick. Her distraught father seeks Jesus’ help. He casts himself down before Jesus and begs for His help. Jesus promises to come to the child. But He delays, diverted by the healing of the woman; then it’s reported to him that the child is already dead. The official patiently waits for Jesus. And he is wonderfully rewarded. Taking the child by the hand, Jesus says – the very words He speaks in His native tongue are recorded – “Talitha, kum!”, “Little girl, get up.” He restores the youngster alive to her rejoicing parents. In each case Jesus knows that His actions – His touching of an outcast woman, His touching of a corpse, even that of a child make Him ritually unclean in other people’s eyes, yet it does not deter Hims from His mission of mercy. Jesus in conqueror not only of sickness but even of death itself.

There are times when we all feel that God is far away, hardly interested in the likes of us. Today’s Gospel shows how mistaken we are. The Lord touches, and is touched by, a woman who is regarded as untouchable. The Lord approaches a little girl when people are saying, “She’s already dead, don’t trouble Jesus any further” and, by implication, “there’s nothing he can do now”. Each time He works a miracle, it’s a sign of His mighty power. It is a demonstration of His deep love for ordinary people, little people like ourselves. Miracles are of their nature rare events, but what they reveal is something permanent and unconditional – God’s loving concern for each of us. So important that we are deeply loved and cared for by our great heavenly Father. His care is not merely for a day or a year, not even for a lifetime. It’s forever.

XIII Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – June 24, 2018 Read More »