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Commentary on Revelation 7:13-17; Ps 31; Matthew 10:16-22 Read Saint Stephen Pongracz, Melchior Grodziecki – Readings »

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SS Stephen Pongracz, Melchior Grodziecki, Priests, SJ, and Mark Krizevcanin, Canon of Estergom (memorial)

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Commentary on Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

With today’s Gospel reading we enter into a central part of Mark’s Gospel. The section begins with the healing of a deaf man and ends with the healing of a blind man. These are not just miracle stories about Jesus’ power; rather, they have a teaching purpose.

Jesus has just been in the gentile area of Tyre and Sidon (on the Mediterranean coast in modern Lebanon) and has moved on to the area of the Decapolis (Ten Towns) on the east bank of the Jordan River. It was basically a gentile, non-Jewish area. There a man is brought for Jesus to heal. He was deaf and he had an impediment in his speech. It does not say he was like that from birth.

Hearing restored
The healing process Jesus uses is almost like a ritual and, in fact, it was. Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ear and puts spittle on his tongue. (At that time, spittle was believed to have healing properties and today we know there is some truth to this.) At the same time Jesus looked heavenward—to his Father—and said, in Aramaic, Ephphatha meaning “Be opened”.

Immediately the man was healed: he could hear and speak perfectly. The people around were astounded. They cried out almost in chorus:

He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.

They were echoing the lovely words from Isaiah in the First Reading:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

The future promised by the prophet has now arrived.

Model of baptism
The way Jesus heals the man reminds us of the Sacrament of Baptism. Through the gift of faith which precedes adult Baptism, our ears are opened to hear the Word of God and our tongues are loosened to speak about Christ to others. Before we became germ-conscious, it was part of the baptism ceremony for the priest to touch the ears of the person being baptised and to put spittle on the tongue.

Baptism is a sign of our full incorporation into the Body of Christ, his Church. It involves a total commitment on our part to the way of life that Jesus calls us to follow. A constituent part of that commitment is a growing openness to hear what Jesus says to us and a growing ability to be able to share our faith with others. Unlike the man in the Gospel story, we don’t normally find ourselves immediately endowed with these gifts.

Poor listeners? Poor speakers?
If we are honest, many of us are not very good at either listening or speaking, where God is concerned. Some have even stopped hearing. In catechism class they heard all about the 7 Sacraments, the 10 Commandments of God, the 6 Commandments of the Church, the 7 deadly sins and they now feel there is nothing more to learn.

They may not realise it, but they have become deaf! And, being deaf, they cannot speak either. They have nothing to say, nothing to share. Alas, it is not infrequent to meet Catholics who are highly qualified in their secular profession, but are basically illiterate in their faith. What really is distressing is that, in their ignorance, they are often happy to pontificate and tell others what Christianity is about.

Others, though, are good at listening. They want to know more about the meaning of Jesus and his Gospel in the changing circumstances of their lives. But they, though good at hearing, may do very little speaking or sharing. Yet, to hear the Word of God and not to proclaim it is, in the context of the Gospel, a contradiction. As Jesus said once, there is not much point in lighting a lamp and then hiding it away. A lamp’s nature is to share its light.

In the Gospel, really to hear the Word of God is to carry it out. ‘Hearing’ implies listening, understanding, making the message one’s own and living it out in word and action.

A committed evangelist
Although Jesus tried to restrain the man in today’s Gospel, the cured man and all those around proclaimed what had happened everywhere they went. Really, the man just had to do it. After all, he was now hearing and he was now able to share with others what he had heard and experienced. If we were really excited about the Good News of Jesus Christ, if we were really excited about the experience of having the Christian vision of life, we would have to do exactly the same. If we were like the disciples after Pentecost, if our being Christian was truly a deep and liberating experience and not just a set of doctrines to be conformed to, we too could not keep ourselves from letting other people know.

Private religion
The problem is, that for a long time now, we may have seen our religion as something personal between ourselves and God: being morally good, keeping in the state of grace, going to Church at fixed times and receiving the Sacraments. The rich man in the Gospel told Jesus he had kept all the commandments. Do I need to do more? he asked. Yes, he was told, let go of everything you have, share it with the poor and needy, and then come and follow me.

Have we heard that message yet? Have we, for instance, heard today’s Second Reading? How do we treat different kinds of people in our society? If we are honest, we know that there have been times when we have treated people in exactly the way James describes: obsequious to our well-heeled friends or people we think are important and off-hand and even rude to strangers, especially those who are obviously at the lower rung of society.

What are our attitudes to wealth and poverty? Which people do we regard as really rich and enriching? What kind of wealth are we in pursuit of? Are we totally free of discrimination in areas of sex, race, religion, class, occupation and such? Our answers to these questions will tell us how much we have really heard the Word of God. They will also tell us how we communicate to others by our words and our actions and attitudes.

Yes, we are often deaf and we are often without words. We have lost the capacity both to hear and to speak. We have lost the ability to recognise the voice of God calling to us in the many changing situations, both good and bad, of our society. God is shouting at us through the happenings described in our newspapers and our media. When we see something we don’t like we say, “Tut, tut” or “What is the world coming to?” and just switch channels to the never-never world of movies or sports.

So, let us pray today for the gift of hearing—to hear the voice of God calling to us in everything that will happen this day. Let us pray for the gift of speech—to be so filled with the liberating experience of knowing Jesus that we simply cannot refrain from sharing that experience with all those around us.

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Commentary on Luke 6:1-5

Yet another confrontation between Jesus and some Pharisees is described in today’s Gospel. Following immediately, as it does, after the parable about the patch and the wineskins (Luke 5:33-39), it confirms what Jesus said about the gap between the traditionalists and his vision.

He and his disciples were walking through a cornfield and it was a Sabbath day. The disciples were plucking heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands and eating them. The Sabbath did not forbid walking short distances. And custom did not forbid “gleaning”, that is, taking grain left over by reapers. It did forbid reaping and threshing. Only a very narrow-minded interpretation could have described plucking as reaping and rubbing between the hands as threshing, but that seems to be what is happening here.

The disciples are asked:

Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

Jesus answers very quickly and to the point. He makes no reference to the narrow-minded legalism that his critics reveal, the “old wineskin” mentality. Instead, he throws at them an incident from the past. David and his men were hungry so they went into the house of God and, with his approval, ate the holy bread of the Presence which only the priests were allowed to eat (1 Sam 21:6). Each Sabbath, 12 loaves of fresh bread were set on a table in the Holy Place. The stale bread was eaten by the priests.

As king, David put himself above the law. Both David’s and the disciples’ actions involved godly men doing something forbidden by law. However, it is never a violation of a law to do what is good and to save life (eating for survival). In that sense both David and the disciples were within the spirit, though not the letter, of the law.

And Jesus, too, is above the law:

The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus has the authority to overrule man-made laws concerning the Sabbath, particularly as interpreted by the Pharisees. This does not mean, of course, that Jesus (or even God for that matter) will do anything he feels like doing. Jesus will never go against anything that involves the True or the Good; with his Father he is the Source of all that is true and good.

But many of the Jewish laws (like civil laws) are positive law. In themselves, they involve matters which are neither good nor bad. In itself, it is neither good nor bad to stop at a green light or go through a red one. It is neither good nor bad of itself to abstain from work on the Sabbath. What makes these acts good or bad is the deeper good of which they are a sign. That deeper good may sometimes involve their non-observance. Hunger and survival may over-ride a rule to fast. In a matter of extreme urgency it may be necessary to drive (safely) through a red light. The letter of the law is violated, but not the good it intends.

As noted in the Jerusalem Bible, “some manuscripts of Luke contain a very pertinent (but likely spurious) saying at this point”:

“On the same day, seeing a man working on the Sabbath day, Jesus said to him: ‘Friend, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you do not know, you are accursed as a breaker of the Law’.”

That is a sentiment that goes with new wine and new wineskins. If truth and goodness are not violated by doing or not doing something, can we say there is sin or evil there?

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Commentary on Colossians 1:21-23

This brief reading follows immediately on the triumphant hymn in praise of Christ, head of all creation and head of his body, the Church (see Col 1:15-20).

Having said that Christ had reconciled the whole world to himself and brought peace by his death on the cross, Paul reminds the Colossians that they themselves have experienced the reconciling effect of Christ’s death, and appeals to them to adhere firmly to him as their only mediator with God:

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him…

Paul rejoices that the Colossians are among those who, once alienated from God by a pagan and sinful life, have now been reconciled and united with him through the death of Jesus. The “fleshly body” is that of his Son. This provides the locus where reconciliation takes place. Into this body the entire human race is effectively gathered. This is beautifully put in the Letter to the Ephesians where it says that Jesus, through his death, broke down the divisions and brought peace and reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles, creating a single new Person (see Eph 2:14). This work has to continue between peoples everywhere. Our world today is riven with divisions.

This state of peace and reconciliation will only continue:

provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith…

They can now stand before God “holy and blameless and irreproachable”, provided they remain true to the foundation of their faith and keep close to the hope engendered by the Gospel message. It is a message that is extended to the whole world and Paul is its servant.

We, too, need to remain faithful to the Gospel message we have received through Christ and his Church. We, too, are called, like Paul, to be its servant and to be agents of peace and reconciliation in every area where we discern harmful divisions between peoples and groups. As the popular song says:

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

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Commentary on Luke 5:33-39

The call of the first disciples is followed in Luke by the cure of a leper and then of a paralytic. Then there is the call of Levi (who is called Matthew in Matthew’s Gospel) and the discussion with Jesus about his mixing with sinful and unclean people. It is the first of many confrontations between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.

We then come to today’s reading. Some scribes and Pharisees want to know why, when their disciples and those of John the Baptist regularly fast, Jesus’ disciples freely eat and drink. We know that John grew up in the desert and lived on an austere diet of locusts and wild honey. He also preached an austere penitential message and lived a highly disciplined life. The Pharisees also led a highly regimented and strict lifestyle. Jesus, however, together with his disciples, is frequently seen eating at the tables of Pharisees, tax collectors, and in the houses of friends. But while Jesus rejected ostentatious fasting, we know he fasted (once for 40 days) and praised it together with prayer and almsgiving, provided it was done discreetly and not for display.

Jesus gives two answers to the question. First, he says that it is not appropriate for guests to fast when the bridegroom is still around. A Jewish wedding was and is a specially joyous occasion (plenty of wine needed, as we saw in Cana) and it could last for a week. It would be unthinkable to fast at such a time. Here Jesus is the bridegroom. There will come a time when he is not physically with his disciples, and then they will fast.

The second reason goes deeper and is presented in the form of a parable. One does not use a new piece of cloth to patch an old garment. At the first sign of stress, the new cloth will be stronger and the old cloth will tear out. Nor does one put new wine into old wineskins. The new wine is still fermenting and expanding. The old wineskins, made of goatskins, are already stretched and no longer flexible. When the new wine expands, the old wineskins will not be able to stretch any more and will burst. The result is lost wine and ruined wineskins. So new wine has to be poured into new wineskins.

In this Jesus is clearly saying that his whole vision of religion is new, and that it can only be accepted and adopted by people who are prepared to see things in a new way. His teaching, his vision cannot be grafted on to the old religion. The old religion emphasised externals like observance of legal and ritual regulations and fasting; Jesus emphasises the interior spirit, which is the real measure of a person’s value.

This parable may also be read in conjunction with John’s account of the wedding feast at Cana, where Jesus produced new and better wine from the water in the ritual washing jars.

Jesus knows the difficulties his adversaries face:

No one after drinking old wine desires new wine but says, ‘The old is good.’

Those who had grown up with the ‘old wine’ of the Mosaic Law would find it difficult to switch to the ‘new wine’ that Jesus was offering.

Even in our Church today there are some who still hanker for the ‘old wine’ of the pre-Vatican II days. They have not made the inner shift which is necessary. They have not understood that Vatican II was much more than a change of external practices (such as have taken place in the liturgy). They nostalgically long for the Tridentine Mass in Latin and proclaim it preferable to the ‘new’ liturgy which they find superficial and lacking in reverence. But they do not seem to have grasped the thinking which is behind the liturgical changes. The new patch does not fit their old cloth. “The old wine is better,” they say.

Going forward, this thinking will not likely disappear because “the world writes the agenda for the church” and there will no doubt be other changes. The new wine will not be appreciated until the wineskins are also changed; otherwise we are in the same situation as the Pharisees were with Jesus.

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Commentary on Colossians 1:15-20

One of the main problems Paul was dealing with in writing to the Colossians concerned their ideas about angelic powers in the cosmos which threatened to push Christ into second place. Today we have Paul’s magnificent response, one of the most inspired passages in the New Testament which, as we shall see, has many echoes of John’s magisterial prologue on Jesus as the Word.

Originally, it was perhaps an early Christian hymn on the supremacy of Christ, and was used here by Paul to counteract the false teachings at Colossae. It is divided into two parts:

1. Christ’s supremacy in creation (vv 15-17)
2. Christ’s supremacy in redemption (vv 18-20)

The New American Bible gives the following analysis of the passage:

“Scholars raise the question whether Paul may not have adapted these verses from a Christian hymn or a Hellenistic wisdom poem. Whatever the case, the passage with all it lyricism is probably Paul’s. Its exalted Christology synthesises the growing awareness in New Testament times of Christ as man, Son of God, king and judge of the world, endowed with divine redemptive power, and containing in himself the fullness of that effective presence of God among humans which was first manifested in the Old Testament (see John 1:1-18). Whereas the human person is patterned after the image of God, being given a certain likeness to him (Gen 1:26), Christ is the actual likeness of God. Through faith, the remote reality of the Deity is rendered discernibly present in him and comprehensible to humans. He is the image of the invisible God (v 15), in the sense that as a person he is supreme in every way over all creation. Christ’s supremacy requires not only that nothing appear in creation except in relation to him but also that he himself share in the creation of all things (v 16). Such is his supremacy that he existed before creation came into being. It is to him that creation owes all that it has been, is, and will be (v 17).

Christ cannot be anything but supreme over the whole church, which in any case is unthinkable and unrealisable without him (his body). Furthermore, because of his supremacy he was the first to be raised by God from the dead; and his resurrection placed him in full possession of headship over the community which he brought into being (v 18). Since, as is clear from Christ’s role in creation (v 16), the cosmos is dependent on him (v 19), his death upon the cross has its effect on the whole of creation without exception, bringing it peace and uniting it to God (v 20). Paul’s clear exposition of the supremacy of Christ was occasioned by the Colossians’ difficulties concerning the relationship of angelic spirits to the world.” (edited)

Paul introduces two ways in which Christ can claim to be the ‘head’ of everything that exists:

1. He is the head of creation, of all that exists naturally, vv 15-17.
2. He is head of the new creation and of all that exists supernaturally through having been saved, vv 18-20.

The subject of the poem is the pre-existing Christ, but considered only in so far as he was manifest in the unique historic person that is the Son of God made man (see Ph 2:5). It is as the incarnate God that Jesus is the ‘image of God’, i.e. his human nature was the visible manifestation of God who is invisible, (see Rom 8:29), and it is as such, in his concrete human nature, and as part of creation, that Jesus is called the ‘first-born of creation’ – not in the temporal sense of having been born first, but in the sense of having been given the first place of honour.

Let us now go to the text of the reading from Paul.

Christ’s supremacy in creation (vv 15-17):
Jesus is the image of the invisible God: When we see and hear him, we see and hear God, though veiled in the limitations of human form. The full glory of God cannot be seen in the humanity of Jesus.

In Heb 1:3 he is described as the:

…reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.

This figure of the image suggests two truths:

1. God is invisible (“no one has ever seen God”, John 1:18)
2. Christ, who is the eternal Son of God and who became the God-man, reflects and reveals him to us (see John 1:18; 14:9).

Just as Moses had to veil his face when speaking to the Hebrews after conversing with Yahweh, so Jesus needs to veil his divine nature by his humanity so that we may have access to him. During the experience of the Transfiguration, the three disciples got a glimpse of the veil being briefly removed.

Jesus is the first-born of all creatures:

He was in the beginning with God. (John 1:2)

As a member of the human race, he is first-born in dignity, but not in time. Just as the firstborn son had certain privileges and rights in the biblical world, so also Christ has certain rights in relation to all creation – priority, preeminence and sovereignty (vv 16-18).

…in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers…

As John (1:3) also said:

All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

In the reading, we have Paul’s refutation of the Colossians’ belief in cosmic powers. Everything that exists, however lofty and powerful, comes into being through Christ and goes back to God through him.

Seven times in six verses Paul mentions “all creation”, “all things” and “everything”, thus stressing that Christ is supreme over all. “Thrones, dominions, rulers or powers” refers to angels, and a hierarchy of angels figured prominently in the heretical beliefs of some Colossians. Here Paul clearly asserts that the angels have their origin from Christ as the Creative Word of God. They were created through him and for him. They bow down in worship before him.

Christ exists is before all else that is:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. (John 1:1-2)

and

Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM. (John 8:58)

In him all things hold together:

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (John 1:3-4)

The continuing existence of every created thing totally depends on his creative and conserving power.

Christ’s supremacy in redemption (vv 18-20)

He has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Eph 1:22-23)

For Paul’s description of the church as Christ’s Body we may read 1 Cor 12:12-16. The church is the Body of the Risen Christ, in other words, it is through his Body that Christ remains visible to the world. It is through his Body that he continues to communicate his Good News of the Kingdom. For each one of us, both individually and especially collectively, it is a huge responsibility. And we can only fulfil our mission effectively in so far as we are totally united in mind, heart and spirit with the Head of the Body, Christ Jesus our Lord and with the Word he brought for the world.

Christ is is the Beginning, the first-born of the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way. Jesus comes before all, on earth and in the heavens. Nothing or no one comes before him in time or in rank. He is the Beginning, that is, of the new creation. He is the First-born, because he was the first to rise from the dead with a resurrected body. Elsewhere Paul calls him the “first fruits of those who have died” (1 Cor 15:20).

Others who were raised from the dead – the widow’s son raised to life by Elisha (2 Kings 4:35); widow’s son at Naim (Luke 7:15); Lazarus (John 11:44); Tabitha, raised to life by Peter (Acts 9:36-41); the boy who slept during one or Paul’s sermons, fell out of a window and died and then was restored to life by Paul (20:7-11) – all were raised only to die again.

God wanted all fullness to be found in him: Jesus is the source of the fullness to which we all aspire, to be totally filled with the Spirit of Christ. ‘Fullness’ (pleroma) is a word rich in meaning when used by Paul. Originally it was part of the technical vocabulary of some Gnostic philosophies. In these systems it meant the sum of the supernatural forces controlling the fate of people. For Paul ‘fullness’ meant the totality of God with all his powers and attributes (Col 2:9).

In this context, the exact meaning of the word pleroma (literally, the thing that fills up a gap or hole, like a patch, see Matt 9:16) is not certain here. Some writers have thought it must mean the same as in Colossians 2:9 (“…the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…”), but since vv 15-18 have already dealt with the divinity of Jesus, it seems likely that the reference here is to the biblical concept of the entire cosmos as filled with the creative presence of God.

This concept was also widespread in the Graeco-Roman world. Paul teaches that the incarnation and resurrection make Christ head not only of the entire human race, but of the entire created cosmos, so that everything that was involved in the fall is equally involved in the salvation. So, in Romans (8:19,22) Paul writes:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God…We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor.

And in 1 Corinthians (2:7):

But we speak God’s wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory and which none of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

This is the work of Jesus: to bring reconciliation and healing where there is division.

…and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

To bring together not only people but the whole of creation. This reconciliation of the whole universe (including angels as well as human beings) means, not that every single individual will be saved, but that all who are saved will be saved by their collective return to right order and the peace of perfect submission to God. This was the mission that Jesus gave to his disciples as he breathed his Spirit on them after the resurrection:

Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. John 20:22-23)

In this scene the only mission given is to reconcile people with God and with each other in Christ. This is the work of the Kingdom, to bring all peoples and the whole of creation into peace and harmony based on truth, love and justice.

Making peace through Christ’s death on the cross
After all the triumphant language of the passage this comes as something of a surprising anticlimax, but totally in keeping with the meaning of Christ. The peace and reconciliation that he brings is through the blood of the cross, the ultimate sacrifice of his humanity in love for his people and the world. This is what constitutes the real greatness of Christ. Because of his death on the cross:

Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name, so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-11)

We, too, are called to follow in his footsteps, ready to carry our cross for the sake of the Kingdom:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matt 5:9)

The passage is extraordinarily rich in meaning and requires much time to be absorbed into the fabric of our thinking. It is both a profession of faith and the basis for very deep prayer.

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Commentary on Acts 15:1-6

We begin today an account of the very first Church council. Scripture scholars find many conflicting difficulties in the structure of the narrative in chapter 15 of Acts. All these difficulties may be explained by supposing that Luke has combined two distinct controversies in one text, along with their varying solutions. Paul distinguishes them more clearly in chapter 2 of his letter to the Galatians. For our purposes here, we need not go into these textual problems.

As often is the case, the matter did not concern a central doctrine of faith, but a tradition. Two issues are going to come up:

1. Should gentile converts be obliged to observe the Jewish Law?
2. What should be done to assuage the mutual cultural sensitivities between Gentile and Jewish members of the Christian communities?

Then, as now, the community could be said to be divided between conservatives who saw the need for continuity with the past, and those who saw the need for change with changing circumstances. The issue at stake was circumcision.

Many of the early Christians, especially those in Jerusalem, were converts from Judaism, and among these were Pharisees. They believed that Christianity was simply a development of their Jewish faith and not a renunciation of it. And, they believed that they should continue observing their Jewish traditions.

Circumcision, like many of the other practices of the Jews, was, at least for men, a crucial identifying mark of God’s people, even though the original reason for the practice may well have been hygienic and preventive. It was not by any circumstances a custom confined only to the Jews of ancient times.

With the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian community, the issue of circumcision became a delicate one. Should the new non-Jewish converts be forced to undergo such a painful (and perhaps in their view a disfiguring) procedure? Was it really central to the Christian identity?

It seems that the Christians in Antioch were not enforcing it on their new gentile converts and this was causing some concern among Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. They sent delegates to Antioch with the strong message:

Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Although they were given a hearing, they may not have represented all the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem, but a more legalistic group within the church there.

It is clear from Luke’s account that there was a deep conflict between the Jerusalem delegates (who may have been predominantly Pharisees) and Paul and Barnabas, who had seen how genuinely many Gentiles had accepted the Christian faith. They did not see that compulsory circumcision should be part of the package. It was, of course, a telling point that Paul himself, a Pharisee, was against compulsory circumcision for Gentiles.

As a result, a group from Antioch, including Paul and Barnabas and “some of the others,” went down to Jerusalem. Among those “others” could have been Titus, who was of mixed parentage, part Jewish, part Gentile. Paul mentions his presence in Galatians 2:1-3.

On the way, they passed through the territories of Phoenicia and Samaria, telling the Christians they met about their successes in evangelising the Gentiles in Asia Minor. This, in some respects, was a clever public relations act because they picked up a great deal of support from those they met along their way. They therefore brought with them to Jerusalem a fairly considerable constituency of support.

When they reached Jerusalem they gave the same message about their great success in bringing Gentiles into the Christian communities, and it is clear that they were cordially received by the Jerusalem Church.

But they were challenged by the conservatives of the day (converted Pharisees), who again, as in Antioch, insisted on the absolute necessity of circumcision for all converts. Perhaps they had Titus in mind. Although his mother was a Jew and his father a Gentile, he had not been circumcised, nor had Paul insisted on it. The whole group then proceeded to discuss the matter in depth. Tomorrow we will see the outcome.

There is much for us to learn from this experience of the early Church. There is certainly a need for continuity if the Church is to retain its identity and its links with its origins. That is why the Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, is the foundation on which our faith is built, and why we need to come back to it all the time.

At the same time, if the Church is to present its message in a way that is meaningful, it must also be ready to make the necessary adjustments in areas which, though they may have a long tradition, are not central and have outlived their meaningfulness. There will always be a measure of tension between conservative and progressive thinking. Both are necessary and a sign of a living church. But this must be a matter of diversity and not division.

What is vital is that people on each side listen to each other and be open to frank and sincere dialogue. In spite of serious differences, we see that dialogue taking place in today’s reading.

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Commentary on Luke 5:1-11

Today we read Luke’s version of the first call of Jesus’ disciples. It differs significantly from the parallel versions in Mark and Matthew and is a combination of passages from Mark and John.

We are told that Jesus was standing by the shore of the “Lake of Gennesaret”. The other Gospel writers call it the Sea of Galilee and John twice refers to it as the Sea of Tiberias.

Because of the large crowds pressing in on him to hear the word of God, Jesus was forced to borrow one of two boats moored near the shore where their owners were washing their nets:

He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon*, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

As we saw in the synagogue at Nazareth (and also in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel), sitting was the usual teaching position. From a practical point of view, by preaching from the boat Jesus could avoid the pressure of the crowd and yet be close enough to speak to them.

It is a simple, straightforward statement and yet there is a symbolism here. Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and teaches from it. In the Gospel, the boat is frequently a symbol of the church community. It is very meaningful to say that Jesus stepped into that boat, that it was Simon’s boat, and that he taught from there. It is a symbol of what is to come in the near future.

Now comes the lesson and the revelation. At the end of the teaching, Simon is told to go out into the deep water and start fishing. Simon says in response:

Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.

Perhaps one can sense something of the condescension of the expert towards the amateur in Simon’s response, i.e. “we know there are no fish there but, just to make you happy, we’ll put out the nets.”

But their nets were hardly in the water when they were so full of fish that they were on the point of breaking. They (Simon and those others with him in the boat) had to call their companions in the other boat to come to their help (they do not seem to have caught any fish; only Simon’s boat does). The two boats together were now so full of fish that they were on the point of sinking.

Simon, just before, so arrogant and all-knowing, is now totally overcome. He knew there were no fish there. So there was only one explanation. The man standing before him was someone very special:

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!

It is the reaction of a person in the presence of God’s overwhelming power and goodness. We see similar reactions by Abraham (Gen 18:27), Job (42:6) and Isaiah (6:5).

Peter—the ‘expert’—realises he is nothing in the presence of this man. Instead, he becomes aware of his shortcomings. Paradoxically, it is the saints who are most ready to acknowledge their sinfulness. And his companions, James and John, were equally amazed. There is no mention of Andrew in this version of the story because he would have been in his brother Peter’s boat. The passage indicates that Peter was not alone in the boat (“we have worked hard all night…”).

Some commentators feel that Luke may have borrowed this story from John’s account of the disciples going fishing at the end of that Gospel. It has been noted that Simon calls Jesus ‘Lord’, a post-resurrection title, and refers to his sinfulness, which makes more sense after his triple denial during the Passion. The story also looks forward to Peter’s leadership (his name is changed by then), which is confirmed in the same chapter of John.

Jesus then reassures Simon and his companions:

Do not be afraid…

These are words they will hear again because he is calling them to be his partners in the work of building his Kingdom. The huge catch of fish made by the boat carrying Jesus and Simon is a sign of a much greater catch of people to be made by the new community led by the Spirit of Jesus and under the leadership of Peter.

Unlike the other Gospels, Luke has a period of teaching and miracles preceding the call of the disciples. This makes their unhesitating response less surprising and more plausible.

They heard the message, they accepted the call and:

When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

In Mark and Matthew, they left their nets and boats. In Luke’s Gospel especially, the following of Jesus is understood as absolute—one must leave everything and throw in one’s lot totally with Jesus wherever that will lead. Those boats and nets were the security on which the lives of Simon, his companions and their families depended. But they left them and everything else. This is faith; this is trust. Without it, the mission cannot succeed.
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*He will not be called Peter until Luke’s next chapter.

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Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:1-2,5-7; Psalm 95; Luke 22:24-30

The Gospel reading is from Luke’s account of the Last Supper. Jesus has just taken the cup and then the bread, which he said was his body, and distributed them among his disciples, telling them to repeat the ritual in his memory. He then goes on to say that he is going to be betrayed by one of those who are sharing the cup. This saying causes some consternation among them.

Then an argument broke out among them as to which of them was the greatest. Were they doing this because of what Jesus had told them about his coming death? Without Jesus, who would be in charge of the group? Right on the very eve of their Master’s death they are squabbling about status.

Jesus then interrupts them by pointing out that in the pagan world, it is those in positions of authority, like kings and governors, who like to exert their power over those who are under them. With the followers of Jesus, however, the situation is to be very different. Those who are really the great ones in the group should behave like the most junior and the one who is the leader stands out by his desire to serve those for whom he is responsible.

That is how Jesus himself is behaving with them. Who is greater? he asks. Is it the one seated at table or the one who serves? Yet Jesus is among them as one who serves. That is shown dramatically in John’s gospel when Jesus gets up from the table and kneels down to wash his disciples’ feet, an act which Peter found very disturbing because it went against all his instincts.

Greatness in Jesus’ world, in the Kingdom, does not consist in exerting authority and power but on the level of what is being done for the benefit of others. Service is not demeaning or lowering oneself. Rather, it is love in action. It is what Jesus’ life was about; he came to serve and not to be served. For that, he becomes a model for our lives.

The reading relates very much to Pope Gregory. In spite of his high position and responsibilities in directing the Church, he saw himself at the service of the Church. He called himself ‘the servant of the servants of God’. He had no time for senior clerics who liked to be addressed by exalted titles and demand other privileges.

We live in a world where status symbols of all kinds are greatly prized but the true Christian is totally indifferent to such things.

In the First Reading from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells the Christians of Corinth that he is not preaching himself but Jesus Christ as his Lord and himself as their slave and servant for the sake of Jesus. Paul’s role is to be a transparent medium through whom Jesus and his message are clearly seen. The God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” shines in our hearts so that the glory of God can be seen in the face of Jesus. As Cardinal Newman prayed, “Let them look up and see, no longer me, but only Jesus.”

Again, this passage applies to Gregory who wrote much, not to glorify himself, but to present the mystery of Jesus to people hungry for knowledge of their Lord.

We, too, are called to be the visible presence of Christ in our world. Together we form the Body of the Risen Christ. “Who sees you, sees me” is what he told his disciples. Our task as followers of Christ is not just to care for our own spiritual well-being but to be aware of our responsibility to make Jesus and his Gospel known to the world around us. What are we doing to make that happen?