5th Week: Feb 5-10:
Feb 5 Monday: Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr:
The context: Gennesaret was a tract of land four
miles long on the western border of the Sea of Galilee, lying between current-day Tabgha and ancient Magdala. Known as the “Paradise of Galilee,” the land
was rich soil for farmers to grow walnuts, dates, olives, figs, and grapes and
it was a fishing center as well. Today’s Gospel passage describes the reaction
of the people of Gennesaret when the healing and preaching miracle worker,
Jesus, unexpectedly landed on their shore. They considered it a golden
opportunity to hear his message and to get all their sick people healed by
bringing them to Jesus with trusting Faith in his Divine power. They were
confident that even touching Jesus’ garment would heal the sick. Actually, they
may have been more interested in using the healer to heal their sick people
than in hearing Jesus’ preaching. Our innate human tendency is to use others to
get something from them. We make use of God when we call Him only when we are
in need or when we are sick or when tragedy strikes us. Some of us make use of
the Church only to get baptized, married and buried. Often, we make use of our
friends to get their company, help and support. Sometimes even grown-up
children make use of their parents’ home for eating and sleeping without
returning anything to their parents, who might rightly expect, but do not ask,
a return, from them.
Life message: 1) A healing greater than physical
healing is available to us especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Hence, we should have a much deeper desire to seek out Jesus in the
confessional than the people of Jesus’ day had for physical healing. 2) Instead
of making use of God, let us learn to live in His presence, and recognize His
presence in others in the community. 2) When we present our needs before Him,
let us do so with expectant Faith and gratitude, and promise Him with the help
of His grace that we will do His will. 4) Let us also hasten (“scurry”) to
Mass, hasten to bring people to Jesus, or hasten to say prayers with your
children at night? Do we hasten to see the face of Jesus in our neighbors?
Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Feb 6 Tuesday: Saint Paul Miki and Companions,
Martyrs:
The context: Today’s Gospel passage describes
Jesus’ confrontation with the Scribes and the Pharisees sent from Jerusalem by
the Jewish religion’s Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, to assess Jesus’ “heretical
teachings.” Their first question to Jesus was why he did not command his
disciples to do the ritual washing of hands before meals or during a banquet.
Ex 30:17ff had laid down rules for how the priests should wash their hands
before offering sacrifice. Jewish tradition had extended this purification to
all Jews before every meal, in an effort to give meals a religious
significance. Ritual purification was a symbol of the moral purity a person
should have when approaching God. One should have a clean conscience and clean
mind. But the Pharisees had focused on the mere external rite. Therefore, Jesus
restored the genuine meaning of these precepts of the Law, the purpose of which
was to teach the right way to render homage to God.
Jesus’ explanation: Jesus shocked his
questioners by accusing them of hypocrisy and giving lip-service to God while
ignoring His teachings, replacing them with man-made interpretations. As an
example, Jesus pointed out how they were cleverly evading God’s commandment to
honor one’s parents by falsely interpreting the precept of Korban.
According to their interpretation, one could be freed from taking care of one’s
parents in their old age by declaring the money or property meant for their
support as “Korban,” or a special offering to God. Jesus told them that
the true source of defilement was a person’s heart and mind. True religion
should not be mere external observances disconnected from the mind and the
intentions.
Life messages: 1) We need to remember that the
essence of religion is a personal relationship with God and with our
fellow-human beings, not merely the external observances of religion. 2) God
expects from us that generosity and good will which urge us to practice more
mercy, offer more kindness, show more willingness to forgive offenses, and
exercise more readiness to serve others lovingly and sacrificially.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Feb 7 Wednesday:
The context: Today’s Gospel passage continues
Jesus’ explanation to the public of his revolutionary views on the ritual
washing of hands before meals. The Law (Ex 30:17ff) had laid down how priests
should wash before offering sacrifice. Jewish tradition had extended this to
all Jews before every meal in an effort to give meals a religious significance.
Ritual purification was a symbol of the moral purity a person should have when
approaching God. But the Pharisees had focused on the mere external rite. For
Jesus, true religion should not be mere external observances disconnected from
the mind and the intentions.
Jesus’ explanation: Jesus shocked the people by
his plain statement: ” … there is nothing outside a man which by going
into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile
him.” In other words, Jesus made the shocking declaration that all the
ritual food laws of the Old Testament about Kosher food were
null and void! For Jesus, those laws were intended to teach the people of the
Old Covenant the importance of offering acceptable sacrifice and worship to God
with a clean conscience and clean mind, with clean thoughts and clean deeds.
Hence, the true source of defilement is a person’s heart and mind because “out
of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery,
coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride,
foolishness.”
Life message: 1) We need to keep our minds
filled with love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness if we want to practice the
true religion of loving God living in others. Hence, let us ask God to help us
cleanse our minds of evil thoughts and desires and free them from jealousy,
envy and pride.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Feb 8 Thursday: [Saint Jerome Emiliani;
Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin]:
The context: In the Gospel, Jesus demonstrates
that salvation is meant for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews by healing the
daughter of a Gentile woman as a reward for the mother’s strong Faith. Thus,
Jesus shows that God’s mercy and love are available to all who call out to Him
in Faith.
This is one of the two miracles of healing Jesus performed
for Gentiles. The other is the healing of the centurion’s servant. (Mt
8:10-12). These miracles foreshadowed the future preaching of the Gospel to the
whole world. Jesus first ignored both the persistent cry of the woman and the
impatient demand of his disciples that the woman be sent away. Jesus then tried
to awaken true Faith in the heart of this woman by an indirect refusal. We
notice that the woman was refused three times by Jesus before he granted her
request. Finally, the fourth time, her persistence was rewarded, and her plea
was answered. She recognized Jesus as the Messiah (the Son of David) and
expressed her need in clear, simple words. She persisted, undismayed by
obstacles, and she expressed her request in all humility: “Have mercy on
me.” (Navarre Bible commentary). Jesus was completely won over by the
depth of her Faith, her confidence and her wit, and responded
exuberantly, “Woman, great is your Faith! Let it be done for you as you
wish.”
Life messages: 1) We need to persist in prayer
with trustful confidence. Christ himself has told us to keep on asking him for
what we need: “Ask and you shall receive.” Asking with fervor and
perseverance proves that we have “great Faith.” We must realize, and remember,
that we do not always get exactly what we have asked for, but rather what God
knows we need and what is really best for us at the most appropriate time.
2) We need to pull down our walls of separation and share in
the universality of God’s love. Today’s Gospel reminds us that God’s love and
mercy are extended to all who call on him in Faith and trust, no matter who
they are. It is therefore fitting that we should pray that the walls which we
raise by our pride, intolerance and prejudice may crumble
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Feb 9 Friday: Mk 7:31-37: 31
The context: Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus, by
healing a deaf and mute man, fulfilled Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy, “The
eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped”(Isaiah
35:5). The Gospel invites us to become humble instruments of healing in
Jesus’ hands by giving a voice to the needy and the marginalized in our
society. It also challenges us to let our ears be opened to hear the word of
God, and to let our tongues be loosened to convey the Good News of God’s love
and salvation to others. Through this miracle story, Mark’s account also
reminds us that no one can be a follower of the Lord without reaching out to
the helpless (“preferential option for the poor”).
The miracle is described in seven ritual-like steps: (1)
Jesus leads the man away from the crowd; (2) puts his fingers into the man’s
ears; (3) spits on his own fingers; (4) touches the man’s tongue with the
spittle; (5) looks up to Heaven; (6) sighs; (7) and speaks the healing command:
“Ephphatha” (“be opened.”). Jesus carries out this elaborate ritual
probably because the dumb man could not hear Jesus’ voice nor express his
needs. Jesus applies a little saliva to the man’s tongue because people in
those days believed that the spittle of holy men had curative properties. The
miracle is about the opening of a person’s ears so that he will be able to hear
the word of God, and the loosening of his tongue so that he will be able to
profess his Faith in Jesus.
Life messages: 1) Jesus desires to give us his
healing touch in order to loosen our tongues so that he may speak to the
spiritually hungry through us. Jesus invites us to give him our hearts so that,
through us, he may touch the lives of people in our day.
2) We must allow Jesus to heal our spiritual deafness and
muteness because otherwise we may find it hard to speak to God in prayer and
harder still to hear Him speaking to us through the Bible and through the
Church.
3) Let us imitate the dumb man in the Gospel by seeking out
Jesus, following him away from the crowd, spending more of our time in getting
to know him intimately through studying the Holy Scriptures and experiencing
him personally in our lives through prayer. The growing awareness of the
healing presence of Jesus in our lives will open our ears and loosen our
tongues. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Feb 10 Saturday: Saint Scholastica, Virgin:
The context: The miraculous feeding described in
today’s Gospel took place on a hill near the Sea of Galilee after Jesus’ return
from the Decapolis. A large crowd remained with Jesus for three days,
participating in his preaching and healing ministry till all the food they had
carried with them was gone.
Jesus felt pity for the hungry multitude and instructed his
Apostles to feed them with what they had, namely, seven loaves of bread and a
few small fish. They brought these to Jesus who said a prayer of thanksgiving
over them and instructed them to distribute the bread and fish to the people.
After the crowd had eaten their fill, the Apostles filled seven baskets with
leftover broken pieces. This passage appears to be a repetition of Mk 6:34-44.
But there are two differences: the first account shows the miracle performed
for the benefit of Jews, the second for Gentiles. In the first account there
are twelve basketfuls of scraps left over, in the second only seven. The
language is “Eucharistic”: Jesus “took the loaves and giving thanks he broke
them and handed them to his disciples to distribute.”
Life messages: 1) We need to help Jesus to feed
the hungry today. Jesus invites us to give him our hearts so that he may touch
the lives of people in our day through us, just as he touched the lives of
millions through saintly souls like Francis of Assisi, Fr. Damien, Vincent de
Paul and Mother Teresa. Let us feed the spiritually hungry with words and deeds
of kindness, mercy, and sharing love.
2) We need to be fed by Jesus so that we may feed others. Jesus continues to feed us in His Church with His own Body and Blood in Holy Communion and with the word of God through the Holy Bible. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
