Homily for 28th January 2024
Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 95; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1: 21-28
Listen at https://soundcloud.com/frank-brennan-6/homily-28124
With Australia Day behind us, we now return to the ordinary cycle of life. Most of us are back to work or back to school. And being the fourth Sunday in Ordinary time, we are settling into the usual liturgical rhythm. In the three-year liturgical cycle, this is Year B. So during the course of the year, we will listen to most of Mark’s gospel. In today’s gospel, we hear of Jesus’ first visit to a synagogue during his public ministry. ‘The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.’ All were amazed and asked one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.’
Though Mark is fond of emphasising the strength of Jesus’ authority as a teacher, he gives us far less content of that teaching than do Matthew and Luke. Jesus as teacher is a doer. Jesus as a teacher takes on the power of evil and wrestles with it. In the synagogue on this first Sabbath, we hear nothing of the content of Jesus’ message. But we have a ringside seat at the showdown between Jesus and the man with the unclean spirit who knows who Jesus is – the Holy One of God who has come to fight and destroy evil. The proof of Jesus’ authority in teaching is not so much in the truth of his words but in the power of his actions.
Normally, we don’t take too much notice of the second reading at Sunday mass. At least the first reading is in some way tied in with the theme of the gospel. But the second reading often seems to come from left field. This Sunday in the second reading we hear some of Paul’s teaching on marriage. Paul was writing in the expectation that the end of the world as we know it was coming soon, perhaps even imminently. That being the case, how should we best prepare? It’s in that context that he advises both unmarried men and unmarried women that it is preferable not to marry at this time so as to be free of anxieties and to be able to adhere to the Lord without distraction. That message requires quite some reworking for those of us who have had the benefit of 2,000 years history since Paul wrote. We have good reason to think that the world as we know it is not coming to an end any time soon. Like Paul, we must always hold in mind an eschatological vision that the end times will come. Unlike Paul, we need to live our lives presuming that most of us will see out our lives here and now for the term of our natural lives, and on average that is now 83 years in Australia. In Paul’s time life expectancy was about 30.
The contemporary church controversy about marriage came into sharp focus with the Dubia circulated last year by the 5 conservative cardinals upset by the lack of clarity in Pope Francis’s teaching and pastoral practice. These men, led by Cardinal Raymond Burke, submitted their queries to the pope on 10 July 2023. As quick as a flash, Pope Francis replied the next day. He reaffirmed the traditional teaching on marriage but went on to say: ‘Nevertheless, in our dealings with people, we must not lose pastoral charity, which should permeate all our decisions and attitudes. The defence of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity; it also includes kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot become judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.’[1]
This generated diverse, spirited responses, no less forthright than those described by Mark in today’s gospel. Some said, here is someone who teaches with authority. Others said, ‘What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us?’
Just before Christmas, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Declaration Fiducia Supplicans ‘On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings’. They recalled that ‘ Pope Francis urges us to contemplate, with an attitude of faith and fatherly mercy, the fact that “when one asks for a blessing, one is expressing a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better.’ The Dicastery stated: ‘This request (for a blessing) should, in every way, be valued, accompanied, and received with gratitude. People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations.’[2]
How refreshing to hear the Dicastery, which in the past came down heavy on people who made any concession to those in irregular situations or in same sex relationships, affirm that ‘when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.’
The Dicastery, like Francis, and just like Jesus in the synagogue on that first sabbath of His public ministry, has taught with authority: ‘Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God. The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live. It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.’
Whether married or unmarried, whether gay or straight, we could all do with God’s blessing as we contemplate not only the end times but also the contemporary challenges before us in our relationships and in our troubled world.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
From the start of 2024, Fr Frank Brennan SJ will serve as part of a Jesuit team of priests working within a new configuration of the Toowong, St Lucia and Indooroopilly parishes in Brisbane Archdiocese. Frank Brennan SJ is a former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). Fr Frank’s latest book is An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Considering a Constitutional Bridge, Garratt Publishing, 2023.
[1] See https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_risposta-dubia-2023_en.html
[2] See https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231218_fiducia-supplicans_en.html
