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13th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

  1. With regard to the weather, the month of June has been a disaster. With regard to the liturgy, however, the month of June has been a delight. At the very beginning we celebrated the great feast of Pentecost, bringing to a close the Easter season. Then followed a series of liturgical solemnities – Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Sacred Heart, the Birthday of John the Baptist, and, tomorrow (Monday) the feast day of the great Apostles Peter and Paul. Peter, our leader in faith, raised up the Church from the faithful flock of Israel. Paul, fearless preacher, brought the Gospel to all the nations and became the teacher of the world. Because we have inherited heaven along with the Apostles, we should give thanks to our heavenly Father for all the gifts and graces he has given us through the ministries of Peter and Paul, through what we call the Apostolic preaching, and so we pray – “Praise be to you, God our Father, for the banquet of Christ’s body and blood given to us through the Apostles; praise be to you, God our Father, for the feast of your word prepared for us by the Apostles; praise be to you, God our Father, for your holy Church founded on the Apostles; praise be to you, God our Father, for the cleansing power of baptism and penance which you have entrusted to your Apostles.” After all, the Jesus we preach and in whom we believe is the Jesus preached by the Apostles; the Catholic faith which we hold and teach has come to us from the Apostles.

  2. Last week, (I won’t ask you if you remember last week,) thanks to the Gospel of Mark, we reflected on the Lord Jesus saving his apostle-friends as they crossed the Sea of Galilee on turbulent waters. We saw this as an apt symbol of the Church. A good study of Mark’s Gospel, along with sufficient study of other periods in Church history, should convince us that the turbulence we experience in the life of the Church today has been, is and always will be a way of life for all who love God and seek to follow Christ. Why is this so? – Because sin, personal and social, in the Church and in society, has been, is and always will be what threatens and disturbs all who love God and seek to follow Christ. In today’s Gospel, St. Mark points to the faith of one of the synagogue officials who told Jesus about his sick daughter and asked him to please come and lay his hands on her that she may get well and live. We see how the Lord Jesus responds to those who are suffering. His mission, of course, was not to cure all little children in danger of death throughout the land of Palestine, but he heals the synagogue official’s daughter in order to show his power to destroy sin and death and to gather all who believe into the peace of his Father’s kingdom.

  3. Today’s gospel finds its full meaning only when we context it in the entire Gospel of Mark. Mark’s Gospel confronts the reader with a suffering Messiah and, consequently, with a suffering discipleship. In Mark’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus moves directly and steadfastly towards Calvary’s cross – not only in terms of his own suffering but as he ministers to the sufferings of others. Mark’s Gospel was written in the sixties of the first Christian century and is addressing a community of persons who were experiencing much suffering. Mark’s message echoes the teaching of 1st Peter – “Christ suffered for you and left you an example to have you follow in his footsteps. In his own body he brought your sins to the cross, so that all of us, dead to sin, could live in accord with God’s will. By his wounds you were healed.” This is true of the little girl in our Gospel today and of her grieving father. It is also true of us and all who are called to stand with Our Lady, Mary Magdalene and the apostle John at the foot of Christ’s cross.

  4. The Gospel of Mark is excellent preparation for reading the Letters of St. Paul. The Letters of St. Paul constitute an excellent preparation for reading the Gospel of Mark. Paul, above all else, is the apostle of the crucified Lord. He writes in I Corinthians – “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God... For Jews demand signs and Gentiles look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Gentiles alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Both St. Paul and St. Mark are telling us, each in his own way, that while we live we’re always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh. We think about the Gospel we have just heard – the synagogue official whose daughter was at the point of death, and the woman suffering for twelve years with hemorrhages, who had spent all her money but her condition only grew worse. Then we think of our own lives filled with various kinds of suffering and sin and even death, and only the Lord Jesus can be of help to us for he is conqueror of sin and death. And then we can think of so many, many people in the world who really do not know the Lord Jesus and are suffering greatly in so many different ways. How, except through us and the grace of the Holy Spirit, are they to come to understand what Saints Mark and Paul are telling us – that we can complete in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s suffering for the sake of his body, which is the Church. Suffering, obviously, is not an end in itself. It was through Christ’s suffering that he opened up for us the way to the Father. As we share in his suffering, so we have the hope of sharing in his resurrection as well.