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31st Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

This Sunday the Thirty First Sunday of Ordinary time, provides those preparing the liturgy something of a conundrum – namely, do we choose readings specific to Mission Sunday, or do stay with the readings set down for the Sunday? (of course, in truth, any reading chosen is a reading about Mission!)

The Gospel for Sunday, 31st is from Mark (12:28 – 34).

In this Gospel Jesus is asked, ‘which commandment is first.’

A question, in fact, that at the time was quite pointed.

It required of Jesus a response that meant that he knew both his Torah (the First Testament which we call “Old”) and that he had been properly taught by his parents.

In the Torah there were some 600+ commandments, however, one, known as the Shema was preeminent and was recited morning and evening and still is to this day by Orthodox Jews “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Mary and Joseph had indeed taught him well.

There is little doubt that Jesus would have prayed this prayer with his Mum and Dad (remember those nights on your knees in the front room praying the Rosary).

However, Jesus goes on to add, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Where did he learn this?

Remember all those add-ons after the Rosary had finished, were in fact of equal importance.

The two became one, as Jesus says, ‘there is no other commandment (singular) greater than these (plural).

Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907 –1991) was a Spanish priest who served as the 28th Superior General of the Society Of Jesus (Jesuits) from 1965 to 1983.

One of his mottos suggest to me he had spent quite a deal of time on his knees in the front room of a certain residence in a small village by the name of Nazareth.

Arrupe writes, “Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is than falling in love in a quite absolute final way.

“What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

“It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

“Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

 

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30th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

This Sunday’s responsorial psalm contains these beautiful words: ‘Those who are sowing in tears will sing when they reap. They go out full of tears carrying seed for the sowing; they come back full of song, carrying their sheaves.’

Anyone who has done, and who still does, any gardening, knows that the antithesis of tears and song is not so far off the mark. When I was in ministry in Hastings, I started a vegetable garden. The soil is so rich in the area they would say, ‘if you plant an ice block stick, it will grow!’

They neglected to mention oxalis and convolvulus also grow.

Sowing is a beautiful occupation, but it calls for hard work: the ground needs be prepared, the seed sown, then there is regular watering and aftercare.

The first green shoots bring an up-tempo beat of the heart (and if you are like me, a moistening of the eye!)

Then, after time, there is the delight in digging the new season’s potatoes, or a lettuce, cabbage, carrot, whatever.

The Sower
The image is a pencil, brush and ink drawing by Van Gogh, with the title “The Sower”, 1882. It hangs in The Hague, Netherlands.

Many of the great artists we admire know well the tears of sowing.

Once such artist is Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890).

During his life, Vincent experienced poverty, loneliness, and much illness. At times life was so difficult for him that he felt he couldn’t go on.

Once he said, ‘It is getting too lonesome, too cold, to empty.’ Van Gogh’s greatest heartbreak was a failure to win recognition as an artist.

Most people who knew him considered him a failure.

He was only thirty-seven when he died and by then he had sold only one of his paintings. It was sold for a few hundred Francs.

He said, ‘Painting requires a lot of faith because one cannot prove at the outset that it will succeed.

“In the first years of hard struggling, it may even be a sowing in tears. But we shall check them because in the far distance we have a quiet hope of the harvest.’

In spite of everything, he persevered. And the harvest did come, though too late for him.

The day after his death a few of his friends came and decked out the small room where his coffin lay with some of his paintings. It was only then that they realized how beautiful those paintings were. Today his canvasses are almost beyond price.

May the words of Vincent van Gogh, ‘Life is only a kind of sowing; the harvest is not here,’ echoing the words of today’s Psalm, ‘sowing in tears, they will sing when they reap’ fall on rich soil.

Footnote: Van Gogh had a special interest in sowers throughout his artistic career. All in all, he made more than 30 drawings and paintings on this theme.

For more information on Vincent Van Gogh there is a worthwhile book titled, Van Gogh’s Untold Journey, Revelations of Faith, Family, & Artistic Inspiration – William J Havlicek, PhD.

 

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29th Sunday Of Ordinary Time Year B

One of my favourite TV programmes is called “A Touch Of Frost”.

The programme is a detective series initially based on the Frost novels by R.D.Wingfield.

The series stars David Jason (of Open All Hours fame) as Detective Inspector Jack Frost an experienced and dedicated detective who frequently clashes with his superiors.

In his cases, Frost is usually assisted by a variety of different detective sergeants or constables.

Comic relief is provided by Frost’s interactions with the bureaucratically-minded Superintendent “Horn-rimmed Harry” Mullett.

While each episode deals with happenings like, murder, abduction, robbery, missing persons and the like, there is a minor motif at play in each episode and indeed throughout the series – Jack Frost pinches a sip from or the entire cups/mugs of drink of others!

Whether it be the desk sergeant, the police archivist, or the fellow detectives working immediately with Detective Inspector Frost having a drink nearby is not a sensible option.

The viewer decides for themselves what is in the cup/mug – is it tea, coffee, Milo, Bovril, fruit juice, cold water, hot water?

In Sunday Mark 10: 35 – 45, Jesus asks of James and John, “ Are you able to drink the cup that I must drink?”

We also make all sorts of assumptions, pain, agony, suffering, joy, happiness, wealth, health and wellbeing, a measure of grace, long life, heaven.

And, like Jack Frost one becomes aware of the contents of the cup/mug only when we have taken a sip!

By then it is too late! We have supped!

    • Mark 10: 35 – 45
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28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The old city of Jerusalem has been surrounded by walls for its defence since ancient times.

These walls have been destroyed and rebuilt countless times. A journey to the old city of Jerusalem often involves a walk along the much-excavated walls.

In 16th century, during the reign of the Ottoman Empire in the region, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent decided to fully rebuild the city walls on the remains of the ancient walls.

The construction lasted from 1535-1538 and these are the walls that exist today.

The “eye of a needle” referred to by Jesus in the Gospel has been claimed, by some commentators, to be a gate in the wall of Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night.

A camel could only pass through this smaller gate if it was stooped and had its baggage removed.

So a travelling merchant wishing to enter the city to trade the following day would have to leave his precious cargo outside the gate, or remove the cargo from the camel and carry it in himself!

This story has been put forth since at least the 15th century, and possibly as far back as the 9th century.

However, there is no reliable evidence for the existence of such a gate.

Whether there was or was not such a gate we may never know for sure, however, it does provide us with a worthwhile metaphor to sit and reflect with.

Am I carrying something that prevents me from entering through the gate?

    • An unresolved hurt?
    • An unreconciled relationship?
    • Anger taking up space?
    • A physical or mental illness yet to be integrated as a part of who I am?
    • Blame for the unexpected and unwanted death of a family member or close friend?

The wonderful experience is that healing is found at the gate!

Jesus says, “I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: they will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture.” (John 10:9)