20190130
UNDERSTANDING
CHRIST FROM THE INSIDE
30 JANUARY,
2019, Wednesday, 3rd Week, Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Green.
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First reading
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Hebrews 10:11-18 ©
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Jesus achieved the eternal perfection of
all whom he is sanctifying
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All the priests stand at their duties
every day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices which are quite
incapable of taking sins away. He, on the other hand, has offered one single
sacrifice for sins, and then taken his place forever, at the right hand
of God, where he is now waiting until his enemies are made
into a footstool for him.By virtue of that one single offering, he has
achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. The Holy Spirit
assures us of this; for he says, first:
This is the covenant I
will make with them
when those days arrive;
and the Lord then goes on to say:
I will put my laws into
their hearts
and write them on their
minds.
I will never call their
sins to mind,
or their offences.
When all sins have been forgiven, there
can be no more sin offerings.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 109(110):1-4 ©
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You are a priest for
ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
The Lord’s revelation to my Master:
‘Sit on my right:
your foes I will put beneath
your feet.’
You are a priest for
ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
The Lord will wield from Zion
your sceptre of power:
rule in the midst of all your
foes.
You are a priest for
ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
A prince from the day of your birth
on the holy mountains;
from the womb before the dawn
I begot you.
You are a priest for
ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
The Lord has sworn an oath he will not
change.
‘You are a priest for ever,
a priest like Melchizedek of
old.’
You are a priest for
ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.
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Gospel Acclamation
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1S3:9,Jn6:68
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Speak, Lord, your servant is listening:
you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The seed is the word of God, Christ the
sower;
whoever finds this seed will remain for
ever.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 4:1-20 ©
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The parable of the sower
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Jesus began to teach by the lakeside, but
such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the lake and
sat there. The people were all along the shore, at the water’s edge. He taught
them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to
them, ‘Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he
sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and
ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and sprang
up straightaway, because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up
it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some seed fell
into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop. And
some seeds fell into rich soil and, growing tall and strong, produced crop; and
yielded thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Listen, anyone who
has ears to hear!’
When
he was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company,
asked what the parables meant. He told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God
is given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables, so
that they may see and see again, but not perceive; may hear and hear again, but
not understand; otherwise they might be converted and be forgiven.’
He
said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand
any of the parables? What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of
the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than
Satan comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those
who receive the seed on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear
the word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root in them, they do
not last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word,
they fall away at once. Then there are others who receive the seed in thorns.
These have heard the word, but the worries of this world, the lure of riches
and all the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces
nothing. And there are those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear
the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a
hundredfold.’
UNDERSTANDING
CHRIST FROM THE INSIDE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Heb 10:11-18; Ps 110:1-4; Mark 4:1-20 ]
Why was it that the
sacrifice of the Old Testament could not take away the peoples’ sins? This is what the letter of Hebrews says,
“Every priest stands at his duties every day, offering over and over again the
same sacrifices which are quite incapable of taking away sins.” This is
because the sacrifices remained extraneous to the priest who was offering the
sacrifice. The sacrifices offered were those of the blood of animals.
At most, they represented a token sacrifice of the people because it was costly
to offer the sacrifice of an animal. Yet, in the final analysis, it is
less of a sacrifice to offer something outside of ourselves than to offer
something of ourselves, our time, resources, pain and hands. Indeed, it
is easier to donate money to the poor than to be with the poor, helping them in
their needs. It is also easier to chair a meeting in a charitable
organization than to be hands-on in serving the poor directly. That is
why St Francis told his disciples to preach the good news and only if
necessary, use words.
This is true with
respect to entering into the heart of God. Many of us cannot encounter God deeply
because we are outside of Him. Unless our hearts beat with the heart of
God, we will not be able to have the same passion and love of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It was Jesus’ personal experience of the Father’s love that gave
Him His mission to proclaim the Good News to the poor. Twice in His
ministry, at His baptism and near to the end of His life at the
Transfiguration, He heard the Father saying to Him, “This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased.” (cf Mt 3:17; 17:5) Unless we share the heart of God,
we cannot feel Him in our lives. “Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Mt 12:30) St Paul said, “Let the same
mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.’ (Phil 2:5)
So how can we enter the
heart and mind of God? What other way than to begin by contemplating on
the Word of God! Through
a greater understanding and appreciation of the Word of God, we come to
understand the mind of Jesus. We cannot grow in knowledge of Christ
without the Word of God. Catholics must develop a love for the Word of
God. More so we are living at a time when every Catholic knows how to
read and write. There is no excuse for Catholics not to read and pray the
Word of God every day. The fact that they are not prayerfully reading the
Word of God means to say that they are paying lip service to their faith in the
Bible as the Word of God. If the bible is truly the Word of God, then we
would read it daily.
But it is not enough
just to read the Word of God. We need to feel the heart of Jesus.
This is where devotions in the Church have its place. But devotions to Christ, Mary and
the saints and pilgrimages alone cannot suffice in helping us understand the
mind of God. This is not to say that devotions are unimportant because
they help us to feel with the heart of Jesus. Devotions to the Divine
Mercy, the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary help us to
beat with the hearts of Jesus and Mary. But mere devotions alone lack
depth as the gospel tells us. This was what the Lord said, “Listen!
Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of
the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some
seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up,
because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched
and, not having any roots, it withered away.” In the final
analysis, true devotions must be rooted in the liturgy and in the scriptures
and flow out of the liturgy as an expression of our love for the Lord, His
mother and all the saints. Devotions seem to be more attractive to
Catholics than reading the Word of God, as compared to Protestants. In
truth, whether it is love for the Word of God or love for devotions, unless the
heart is moved and convicted, no Catholic or Christian would be imbued with
passion for the Lord and for the gospel. But when they fall in love with
Jesus and come to know the heart of Jesus, they would give their entire life to
the Lord.
Hence, through the
reading of the Word of God and through the celebration of the liturgy and the
pious devotions of the Church, we come to appreciate the inner life of our
Lord, sharing in His mind and heart.
What is of utmost importance is whether the reading of the Word of God or our pious
devotions help us to enter the mind and heart of our Lord, not just the mind or
the heart, but both. There is a real danger that some Catholics read the
Word of God a lot and go for bible studies but they do not make time to
interiorize the Word of God in prayer. So they grow in intellectual
knowledge of the Word but they lack the experience of affectivity with the
Lord. Unless we read the Word of God as if they are from the Lord, we
will not be changed or transformed. This is what St Paul wrote to the
Thessalonians, “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you
received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human
word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you
believers.” (1 Th 2:13)
This was why the Lord
taught us in parables. Jesus
told His disciples, “To you is granted the secret of the kingdom of God, but to
those who are outside everything comes in parables, so that they may look
and look, but never perceive; listen and listen, but never understand; to avoid
changing their ways and being healed.” Parables are the means for us to
enter into the depths of the experience of our Lord. For the disciples,
Jesus did not teach them with parables because they were always with Him,
watching Him, living with Him and being with Him. So they had the first hand
encounter with the Lord. The disciples were always sharing in the
intimacy of His life. Being with Jesus was the real transforming
experience, not just hearing Him alone.
For the public, they
only heard Him and at times saw Him performing miracles and
healings. For
this reason, the Lord used parables to engage them, not just to what He was
saying but to help them connect His words with their own life
experiences. The parables that Jesus used were taken from daily life
encounters and therefore resonated with the listeners. No other
explanation was needed. The purpose of the parables is not to help the
people to understand, but it is to lead a person to identify with the inner
experience of our Lord in His relationship with His Father. Parables
help us to enter into the inside of the mind and heart of Jesus, His intimacy
with God and Abba experience. Parables seek to engage the listeners
through identification with similar experiences, through analogies of daily
life and objects. By identifying our experience with the Lord, we get a
grasp of what the Lord is seeking to mediate to us.
The truth is that God
and love cannot be taught, logically explained or proven, but it must be an
encounter and an experience.
Truth is love. Truth is a person, not a word. This is what Pope
Benedict wrote, “Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian
life: ‘We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us’.
We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express
the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an
ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person,
which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” (Deus Caritas
Est, 1) Intellectual knowledge of God alone cannot change us radically.
It is not the understanding of the mind but the heart that matters. The
heart knows more than what the mind knows. The mind prepares the heart to
receive Him personally.
When we enter into the
heart of Christ, then we will come to appreciate the sacrifice He has made for
us. “He, on the other
hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his seat for
ever, at the right hand of God, where he is now waiting till his enemies are
made his footstool.” Jesus’ sacrifice is efficacious because He offered
nothing less than Himself. He is not just the Way, the Truth and the Life
but He shows us the Way through His life and demonstrates His love for us
through His passion and death on the cross, and finally revealing the Truth for
us by His teaching and most of all His conquest of sin, hatred and death won by
His resurrection. But this is not the only reason for the efficacy of His
sacrifice.
His death and
resurrection was necessary so that He could also pass on His Spirit that
empowered Him throughout His ministry to us as well. Only with the Spirit of Jesus can we
enter into His mind and heart. This is the fulfillment of the Old
Testament prophecy, “The Holy Spirit attests this to us, for after saying: No,
this is the covenant I will make with them, when those days have come. The Lord
says: In their minds I will plant my Laws writing them on their hearts, and I
shall never more call their sins to mind, or their offences. When these have
been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.” Unless the laws of
God, that is, the Word of God is written in our hearts, we will not have that
conviction to live the life of Christ. But if we do, then like St Paul we
would too say, “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced
that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all,
so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who
died and was raised for them.” (2 Cor 5:14)
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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