13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Jesus says to the leader of the synagogue: " 'Do not fear, only believe.' " (Mk 5: 36) This begs the question of each one of us today - what am I afraid of in letting God into my life? Each of us needs healing according to our individual weaknesses and sins. Yet do I turn to God in our need? Do I need to wait until I am truly desperate to avail myself of Jesus' saving power? Why not turn to God now and ask our heavenly Father so that his will may be done in my life? After all he has promised: "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened" (Lk 11: 9-10) and: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Lk 11: 13) If we are afraid and struggle in faith, let us imitate the determination of the leader of the synagogue and the woman with the hemorrhage. Not deterred by the crowd or the laughter of the onlookers these two individuals place their trust on Jesus and strive to come close to him. This opportunity exists for us today in the sacrament we receive today - "Do not fear, only believe."

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 St Paul tells the Corinthians: "From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view. Even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way." (2 Cor 5: 16) Everything we hear in the New Testament is told through the lens of the resurrection. Jesus was vindicated by the heavenly Father, as the Son of God. This informs all the oral traditions which informed the Gospels as well as the New Testament letters. These are all suffused by the knowledge that the subject of these documents, Jesus Christ, is who he said he was. Thus, the lowly son of the virgin from Nazareth is thus present to us as the one who has conquered sin and death: " 'Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of death and of Hades' " (Rev 1: 17-19) This power is manifested in our gospel today: " 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" (Mk 4: 41) Jesus is primarily present to us not in human form but in the Gospel and the sacraments. It is there that we "know" him. Let us therefore not be confined in our thoughts to the historical Jesus, even though that is still relevant, but rather let us encounter Christ in his Church and in the Holy Eucharist above all.