"Do not fear, only believe."

Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 5:35-43) is very much in keeping with last week’s reading (Mark 4:35-41). Christ is not only revealed to us as the One to whom all things show obedience but also as the One in Whom we have no reason to fear.

Jairus was tempted to fear through the temptation of those who said to him, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” The temptation is this: “Although He is here, there is nothing He can do to deliver you from your suffering.” It is a temptation that leads us to the loss of hope. Fortunately for us, Christ operates from a very different paradigm. This is revealed in his words to Jairus which are meant to counter the words of temptation: “But ignoring what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’” In other words, Jesus is not concerned with the latest thoughts on our present difficulties from the many commentators, talking-heads, and pessimistic family members and friends. His concern is that we do not fall into fear, for fear causes a lack of hope, and a lack of hope leads to a lack of perseverance. Had Jairus given in to the voices of despair surrounding him, he would have failed to lead Christ to his child.

An interesting point in the Gospel was made about Jesus’ treatment of those whose fear led them to doubt His power. In 5:37, Jesus allows only certain followers to continue with Him: “And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James.” One can assume that since the others were left behind, that is, those who spoke only of fear and finality, they were in no condition to bring healing to anyone. Peter, James, and John, on the other hand, followed Him unquestioningly and in silence making them worthy witnesses to the power of Christ. Mark 5:40 reveals to us His reaction to those would mock His power: “And they laughed at Him. But he put them all outside…” I may be looking too deeply into this, but I wonder if there’s a connection between the “other side” to which Jesus invited his followers spoken of in last week’s gospel and the “outside” to which those who mock Him are relegated. The point, I believe, is that as long as we operate through fear, our eyes will always be ones that do not see, our ears ones that do not hear. Fear keeps us bound to the “outside”; faith and hope carry us to the “other side”. What this entails, though, is the trust in Him that allows us to abandon ourselves to His will, whatever it might be with the knowledge that whatever He does is done perfectly. There can be no other way better than His for He is Perfection Itself.

We must be willing to learn lessons in abandonment to Divine Providence if we ever wish to experience His power and glory without fear.

Peace! Be Still!

Today’s gospel taken from Mark 4:35-41 reveals things that are typically difficult for us to accept when we’re in the middle of our “storms”. There are a few elements from this passage that I would like to point out before discussing the inherent difficulties just mentioned:

1) Jesus’ invitation to go “to the other side”.
2) His seeming passivity during this process.
3) The storm itself.
4) His rebuke to those who questioned his love for them.

Jesus invites his disciples to journey to the other side, and the disciples accepted this invitation by “leaving the crowd”. On the purely literal level, there’s not much to see here, but the spiritual sense of scripture, I believe, reveals much. The ideal spiritual life of a Catholic is the constant acceptance of His invitation to both submit to and experience the “other side”, but I do not believe this phrase is only referring to what we understand as heaven, but also to the life of faith here on earth. It is a life in which we live as though we see that which cannot be seen, we believe that which we cannot fully know, we eat that which consumes us. Peter Kreeft says that Heaven haunts earth. Jesus invites us to be haunted in this way, but we must first submit. As the Gospel tells us, accepting His invitation requires leaving the crowd. The crowd represents all that is familiar and “safe” to us. It is those things that keep us mired in the here and now, those things that keep our eyes diverted from the hereafter. It keeps us from “seeing” that which cannot be seen. His invitation is a challenge to reject popular culture in order to be immersed in a whole new world. This is echoed by St. Paul’s epistle today in which he wrote, “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”

While the invitation may be compelling enough for us to accept, what many of us fail to predict is what we might perceive as His passivity, but His passivity should be seen as an act in itself. We read, “They took him with them, just as he was, in the boat.” Acceptance of His invitation is to be understood as an acceptance of Him. If we embark to the other side through faith, we cannot take with us anything else but the real Christ, for as he said in the Old Testament, “There is no other.” The implication of this is that the only ones that must change during the journey are us. We must take Him just as He is, just as He always will be. We cannot turn Him into the teddy-bear Jesus that turns a blind eye to our sins, nor can we turn Him into the distant God that remains aloof while sending people to hell simply because He enjoys it. There is no historical Jesus vs. scriptural Jesus. There is only He Who Is. His “passivity” is, therefore, an act that forces us to act. Are we man enough to take Him as He is? To do so is to allow ourselves to be swept up into the powerful storm that He is.

What of the storm? It is the means by which His power is made evident. From the spiritual vantage point, we know the storm to be the process by which we are made perfect. It forces us to call out to him, humbling ourselves before His power and dominion over all things. But we can call out in two very different ways. We can call out as a son to a father, or we can call out as His disciples did, as one stranger to another. There are some spiritual directors that will say foolish things regarding call out to Him in times of distress, and I used to believe them. What I’m referring to here is the advice, “It’s okay to get angry at God. It’s okay to demand an answer. He’s a big boy. He understands.” Scripture tells us something very different. We learn that to call out as a stranger unsure of His love for us, we invite upon ourselves a rebuke. In fact, the rebuke is a bit of a rhetorical question: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” To call out in such a way is to reveal our lack of belief. His words to the storm may very well have been spoken to us as well. “Peace! Be still!”

Let us be willing to be paid the intolerable compliment of following Him to the other side.

A sign of contradiction

Testimony of Catholic paraplegic helped prevent four suicides

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In much the same way that Simeon prophesied about the mission of Jesus, this woman, too, was and continues to be a sign of contradiction. Her weakness is her power. Her infirmity and death truly meant life for others. This calls to mind the words of St. Paul: "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." And again in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10:

"And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me...for when I am weak, then I am strong."

Ave Verum Corpus

Pope Benedict, in his book God is Near Us, draws out the connection between Christ’s death and the Eucharist, particularly in the second section entitled God’s Yes and His Love are Maintained Even in Death. Tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi; reflection on the meaning of the Eucharist is in order.

Pope Benedict, recalling R. Bultmann’s proposition that Christ’s death may have been a failure, answers this with a rebuttal from scripture. Speaking from the heart of the Church’s Tradition, he holds fast to the fact that Christ’s death was Eucharistic in nature, a fact that can be ascertained by examining Christ’s words at the Last Supper. His Eucharistic prayer reveals the meaning of His death, the Paschal mystery that is the transformation of evil by the outpouring of Himself.

Before He ever institutes the Eucharist, He begins by offering a sign of what is to come. By the washing of the disciples’ feet, He places in bold relief what His Eucharistic prayer and death will accomplish: cleansing from sin by yielding to His love. Although we are dirty and unworthy, He condescends to us taking the form of a slave.

He then reclines with them at table and begins by saying, “This is my body…This is my blood,” whereby He further reveals the purpose of His death: the destruction of His flesh and the outpouring of His blood is the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament sacrifices. It is the perfect offering to the Father of a humble heart on our behalf. By saying also, “which is given for you…which is shed for you and for many,” He takes from Isaiah 53 thereby designating Himself as the Suffering Servant. In this, He fulfills the image of the exiled Israel by offering Himself in His suffering, but where Israel failed with regard to perfection, Jesus succeeded. As Israel was to represent all nations before the Father, Jesus represents all men. The pope writes: “He Himself is, so to speak, the pure representative, the one who does not stand on his own behalf, but stands before God on behalf of all.

Jesus continued: “This is the new covenant in my blood.” This constitutes the fulfillment of the New Covenant prophecy of Jeremiah 31:31. His blood, therefore, seals the New Covenant perfectly and eternally, and because this New Covenant was established for all men, the Eucharist, then, is the Father’s response to the yearnings of all religions. Christ Himself is the answer to all.

Such an answer has implications on the lives of all of us who have entered into Him. Our suffering, in union with Him, takes on a Eucharistic character. It becomes adoration and affirmation. Our bodies become His and this most substantially through reception of the Eucharist.

By examining the Eucharistic words of Christ, we can recognize that His death was not a failure, but was the means by which the greatest act of transformation tool place: in Him, death becomes life, adoration, affirmation, cleansing from sin, fulfillment of old covenants and establishment of new not for a select few but for all.