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Francis de Sales was born at Thorens, in the Duchy of Savoy on 21 August, 1567, the eldest of six brothers from aristocratic parents. He went to the colleges of La Roche and Annecy, and then for five years at the College of Clermont, Paris, under the care of the Jesuits. While studying theology, he developed serious scruples about the much discussed Calvinist issue of predestination from which he was freed while praying to Our Lady.  As a result, he made a vow of chastity and consecrated himself to Our Lady. His father selected one of the noblest heiresses of Savoy to be his future wife, but Francis declared his intention of embracing the ecclesiastical life. The Bishop of Geneva obtained for Francis the position of Provost of the Chapter of Geneva, a post in the patronage of the pope. It was the highest office in the diocese and Francis was ordained priest in 1593.

At Annecy, the seat of the bishopric of Geneva, the new provost devoted himself to preaching, hearing confessions, and the other work of his ministry. He was instrumental in bringing many people back to the Church from Calvinism, which had its centre in Geneva. The bishop, Claude de Granier, then chose an unwilling Francis as his coadjutor and sent him to Rome in 1599.  Pope Clement VIII ratified the choice.  On the death of de Granier, Francis was consecrated Bishop of Geneva in 1602, where he proved himself an extraordinary zealous and pastoral bishop. His goodness, patience and mildness became proverbial. He had an intense love for the poor, and himself lived a life of extreme simplicity in order to provide more for those in need.

Together with St Jane Frances de Chantal, in 1607 he founded the Institute of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin, for young girls and widows who felt they did not have the strength or inclination for the greater austerities of the older orders. Here, he came into contact with all the distinguished ecclesiastics of the day, and in particular with St Vincent de Paul.

In 1622, he had to go with the Court of Savoy into France. At Lyons, he insisted on occupying a small, poorly furnished room in a house belonging to the gardener of the Visitation Convent. There, on 27 December, he experienced some form of stroke.  His last words were: “God’s will be done! Jesus, my God and my all!”  He died on 28 December, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

During the French Revolution his heart was brought by Visitation nuns from Lyons to Venice, where it is venerated today. He was beatified in 1661, and canonised by Pope Alexander VII in 1665.  He was proclaimed Doctor of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX in 1877. Among his many writings, his Introduction to the Devout Life became a classic of spiritual direction and is still read.

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Agnes was martyred at the end of the persecution of the Roman emperor Diocletian, probably in the early years of the 4th century.  She is thought to have been between 12 and 15 years of age.  It is clear that her death was the result of a determination to preserve her virginity.  The Church, following the teaching of St Paul, had considered a state of virginity or celibacy preferable, in itself, to a state of marriage. And of the many virgin martyrs in Rome, few were held in greater esteem than Agnes by the early Church.

Very few details of Agnes’ life are known.  However, in the ancient Roman calendar of the feasts of the martyrs (Depositio Martyrum), her feast is listed on 21 January.  This record also mentions the name of the road (via Nomentana) near which her grave was said to be located. 

Today, in the Latin Church, the same date is still observed for her feast. Although few reliable details of how she met her death are recorded in writing, Church writers and poets praised her virginity and heroism under torture.  On only one point does there seem to be agreement: she was very young when she gave her life to preserve her integrity.  St Ambrose says she was just 12; St Augustine says she was 13.  Damasus even describes her as going to her martyrdom from the lap of her mother or nurse.  She is among the women saints commemorated in the Roman Canon.

The name ‘Agnes’ comes from the Latin word for ‘lamb’ (agna), so traditionally on this feast, the wool from two lambs is presented annually as a tax by the Lateran Canons Regular in Rome to the Chapter of St John.  They are solemnly blessed on the high altar of the church after a pontifical Mass and then offered to the Pope.  This wool goes into the making of the pallium, which only the pope and archbishops are entitled to wear over their liturgical vestments.

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This common feast commemorates 67 Jesuit martyrs who died in religious conflicts after the Reformation and have been beatified.  Most were French and some were Portuguese.

Fr Jacques (James) Salés and Brother Guillaume (William) Saultemouche, both French, died in Aubenas, France, in February 1593 during France’s War of Religion.

Jacques Salés wanted to be a missionary and wrote Father General Claudio Acquaviva to be accepted anywhere – America, China or Japan. The response was negative; Father General reminded him that France itself was a mission territory, given the conflict between Catholics and Huguenots (French Calvinists).

Brother William Saultemouche (1557-1593) served as porter at Pont-à-Mousson, and was known for his simplicity and gentle character. He was chosen to accompany Fr Jacques Salés on a mission to give sermons in Aubenas, a town that the Catholics had regained control of from the Huguenots. The Baron of Montréal wanted someone who could refute the Calvinist ministers. Salés began preaching in Aubenas and other places on 29 November, 1592, explaining Catholic belief in an ecumenical way. He returned with Saultemouche on 5 February, 1593, because tension between Catholics and Huguenots was increasing.  On the same day they were grilled by Huguenots to deny their faith, but refused.  They were shot and stabbed and their bodies dragged through Aubenas and then dumped.  Catholics retrieved the bodies and buried them.

Fr Joseph Imbert and Fr John-Nicholas Cordier, also French, died on prison ships in Rochefort in 1794 during the French Revolution.

Joseph Imbert was born about 1720 in Marseilles, France, and joined the Jesuits in Avignon.  He was in Grenoble when the Jesuits were suppressed in 1762.  He became a diocesan priest, but had to step down when he refused to accept the 1790 Civil Constitution on the Clergy, and then worked underground.  As vicar apostolic, he was arrested in 1793 during the Reign of Terror.  He was condemned to be deported on a former slave ship to Africa.  On 13 April, he was put on a prison ship anchored near the Charante River.  Four hundred priests were crammed below decks in appalling conditions.  After two months Joseph died of typhoid.  He was buried on a nearby island with 226 other priest-victims.

John Nicholas Cordier was born in 1710 in Souilly, in the Duchy of Lorraine, and joined the Jesuits in 1728.  He taught philosophy at Strasbourg and then theology at Pont-à-Mousson. He later was prefect of studies and superior of the Jesuit residence in Saint-Mihiel. After the Jesuits were suppressed, he became chaplain to a convent of nuns.

In 1790, the government suppressed all religious orders in France and Cordier was taken in by and accepted shelter from a priest in Verdun. On 28 October, 1793, he was arrested and ordered to be deported.  He waited for six months to be sent to Africa and, on 19 June, 1794, was put on a slave ship which could not leave because of an English blockade.  The living conditions were beyond endurance.  When Cordier became ill, he was moved to a temporary hospital, which was better than the ship, but he died there and was buried with 254 other victims.

Fr Ignatius de Azevedo, born in Portugal, and 39 Jesuit companions were martyred off the Canary Islands in July 1570, while sailing for the Brazil mission.

Ignatius de Azevedo had been an educationalist in Portugal when Fr General Francis Borgia made him Visitor to Brazil, where he arrived in 1566.  He was then made Provincial of Brazil and told to recruit more missionaries from Portugal and Spain.  He gathered 70 volunteers – priests, scholastics and even novices.  On 5 June, 1570, they left in eight ships passing by the Canary Islands.  Fr Azevedo was on a ship with 43 companions.  Approaching Sta Cruz de La Palma, they were intercepted by French Huguenot pirates.  The pirates boarded the missionaries’ ship and set about killing all in cassocks, beginning with Ignatius.  Only one Jesuit survived because he could cook.  When the ship reached La Rochelle in France, he escaped and brought the news to Portugal.

James Julius Bonnaud, born in 1740, was a native of Haiti who joined the Jesuits in France in 1758.  After his theology studies and ordination in Flanders, he returned to Paris to work in the diocese. He wrote against the revolutionaries and their anti-papal Civil Constitutions, making himself a target for the revolutionaries.

As it progressed, the French Revolution became rabidly anti-Catholic.  Property was seized, religious orders suppressed. Priests were then required to sign an oath for a national church independent of Rome, with severe penalties for those who refused.  Then on 2 September, 1792, with invading Prussians and Austrians near the gates of the city, the Paris Commissar decided to kill all priests.  Among those martyred were James Bonnaud and 13 other Jesuits among 95 priests at a Carmelite friary.  They were locked into a chapel and, those who refused to sign the oath, were thrown down a flight of stairs to a mob who attacked them with all kinds of weapons.  Altogether, fourteen Jesuits were martyred. With James Bonnaud were: William Anthony Delfaud, Francis Balmain, Charles Berauld du Perou, Claude Cayx-Dumas, John Charton de Millou, James Friteyre-Durve, Claude Laporte, Mathurin Le Bous de Villeneuve, Claude Le Gue, Vincent Le Rousseau de Rosancoat, Loup Thomas-Bonnotte and Francis Vareilhe-Duteil.

These fourteen Jesuits, with nine others, were beatified by Pope Pius XI on 17 October, 1926, together with 168 other French priests.

These martyrs are remembered for their fidelity to Christ, their allegiance to the Catholic Church, and their sufferings at the hands of fellow Christians and fellow citizens.

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Commentary on Ephesians 6:10-13,18; Psalm 15; Matthew 19:16-26

Both the chosen readings reflect experiences in Anthony’s life.  The First Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of equipping ourselves with the armour we need to protect ourselves against the insidious urgings to indulge our lower appetites.  In spite of a life devoted to austerity and prayer, Anthony was faced with many urgings to an easier and more pleasure-filled way of life.  But, following the teaching of the reading, he put on “the whole amour of God” and eventually came out victorious.  Temptations are almost necessary if we are to develop a vigorous faith.  St Paul elsewhere speaks of training like an athlete to develop his spiritual life.  A life without resistance, challenges and discipline will not have real strength.

The Gospel is the story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to earn eternal life.  All he needed to do, Jesus said, was to keep the commandments of the Law.  But the man pushed further, “Which ones?” he asked. Jesus listed the fourth (respecting parents), the sixth (no adultery), the seventh (no stealing), the eighth (no false accusations against people) and lastly, loving the neighbour as oneself.  Interestingly, the fifth commandment is not cited.  This man was unlikely to be guilty of such a thing. 

What is interesting is that all the commandments Jesus mentions are directed to the well-being of others.  Commandments directly related to God are not mentioned.  In reply, the man claimed that he had observed all of the commandments cited by Jesus.  What else could be required of him? Jesus told him:

If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.

On hearing this, the man became very downcast:

…he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Jesus had called his bluff.  All those commandments he claimed to be keeping, he only observed as the fulfilment of laws which put him on the right side with God.  He was not really concerned about the well-being of brothers and sisters in real need.

As he went away, Jesus told his disciples:

Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

The disciples were utterly shocked at Jesus’ words.  If the rich cannot get into God’s Kingdom, then who can be saved?  Their thinking reflected the conviction of most people of their time.  Wealth was a sign of God’s blessings; poverty was punishment for sin. The rich man would have thought the same.

In order to make sense of Jesus’ teaching we have to clarify two points.  First, what is meant here by ‘rich’.  To be rich in the Gospel (and indeed in the eyes of many people today) is to have lots of wealth, lots more than ‘ordinary’ people.  It means having surplus wealth when people around you are in dire need.  Second, the ‘Kingdom’ or ‘Reign’ of God is not referring to ‘heaven’ (although in Matthew’s text he speaks about the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’).  The Kingdom of God exists in this world wherever people are living their lives in the way God wants them to live them, and that means loving one another as Jesus has loved each one.  And that can only happen when all reach out to each other and ensure that all have what they need for a full life.  That is what we mean when we pray:

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Later, Jesus’ disciples will understand this, and will live and preach it.  And Anthony, whose feast we are celebrating today, took Jesus’ words literally and spent the rest of his life living with the absolute minimum and spending himself on both the spiritual and material welfare of those in all kinds of need. 

Perhaps we are not in a position to follow literally in his footsteps, but his life is a serious challenge to each one of us to evaluate the ownership and use of material goods in our own lives, and to what extent we live our lives with an eye on those in need.

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Most of what we know about Anthony is thanks to St Athanasius, his friend, who wrote his biography. Anthony was born in 251 AD at Coma, a village near Great Heracleopolis in central  Egypt, where he grew up in a very protective and well-off family.

On the death of his parents, he inherited a large estate.  Then, in church one day, he heard the words of the Gospel:

If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. (Matt 19:21)

He took the words as addressed to himself and sold off the whole of the estate, only keeping what he felt he needed for his sister and himself.  Later, he heard the call:

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. (Matt 6:34)

This led him to give away what he still had, put his sister in a convent and, still only 21 years of age, become a hermit.  He lived alone, working with his hands, praying and doing religious reading.  He only ate bread with salt and only drank water.  He slept on a rush mat.  He was soon seen as a model of humility, holiness and self-discipline. He was assailed by many temptations during this period, some very persuasive, but managed to resist them all.

For many years, Anthony lived in a tomb near his birthplace, but at the age of 35, moved to the ruins of an old castle on top of a mountain.  There he lived for almost 20 years, seeing no one except a person who brought him food every six months!  At the end of that time he set up his first monastery, which consisted of separate cells, each occupied by one monk (like the Carthusians today).  But he still lived mainly on his own, only visiting the monastery when necessary.

In spite of his austere life, he always gave the impression of being energetic and joyful. People could pick him out from among the other monks simply by his cheeriness. Many came long distances to speak with him. And he was as ready to learn from them as they came to learn from him.

At the age of 60, during a time of religious persecution, he went to Alexandria hoping to earn martyrdom, but was not arrested.  Later still, he returned to Alexandria to refute the Arians who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, but in spite of being asked to stay on in the city, he returned to his life as a hermit.

He died about the year 356, traditionally on 17, January.  He is said to have lived to the remarkable age of 105, never having been sick, still with good sight and sound teeth.  He is regarded as the ‘Father of Monks’.  Several groups of Eastern monks may still be following his teaching, and he certainly influenced later development of monastic life in the Church.

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Commentary on Hebrews 4:12-16

We read today two much-quoted passages from Hebrews, and the reading is in two distinct parts. The first is about the power of Scripture, and the second speaks of Jesus as our High Priest.

First, we are told of the power of God’s word. It is a word that has been conveyed all throughout the long line of prophets and other spokespersons in the Old Testament, culminating in the Word that has come to us, in and through Jesus Christ, who in his whole being and life was the Word. It also comes to us in the earliest writings of the Church, which we call the New Testament. And it continues to come to us in many various ways.

This word is able to penetrate into the deepest recesses of our thoughts and feelings—”sharper than any two-edged sword”. It is “living and active”. It is not a dead word on a printed page. By it our most inmost thoughts and intentions are evaluated and judged as we make our quest for that eternal “rest” in God’s bosom.

What a pity so many Catholics (as opposed to Christians of other denominations) are almost total strangers to this Word and have never experienced its power. By and large in our liturgy and catechesis we have done very little to help our people become familiar with this indispensable tool for their life with God, with each other and with the world in which they live.

In the second part of the reading, Jesus is introduced as our “great high priest”. The author here alone calls Jesus by this title, which is a designation used by Philo for the Logos (the Word). It is the beginning of an extended discussion of the superior priesthood of Christ over and against the priesthood of the Old Testament.

Our High Priest has “passed through the heavens”. In the Old Testament, the high priest on the Day of Atonement would pass from the sight of the people into the Holy of Holies. He was the only person who had the right to enter this sacred space, and then only once a year. Now, in a similar, but much greater way, Jesus—his work of Atonement accomplished—has passed from the sight of his disciples, and ascended through the various levels of the heavens into the sanctuary of Heaven, the place where God himself dwells.

This is the first mention of “heaven” or “heavens” (in the Greek, it is plural) where, according to the Letter, Christ exercises his priestly functions in the presence of his Father. Sitting at the Father’s right hand, the closest place of honour, he belongs there no less than God himself. His single sacrifice, done once and for all, has a perfect and eternal value, never needing to be repeated. Here we find the fulfilment of our greatest hope in God.

The high priest of the Old Testament was a privileged and remote figure (as are many senior hierarchy of our own day). But in Jesus we have a High Priest who is fully able to sympathise with all our weaknesses, for he has undergone trials and temptations similar to, and even exceeding, our own. How many of us have suffered as Jesus did?

But, in one respect, he is radically different—he is totally without the slightest taint of sin. We see how Jesus dealt with temptation to sin in the paradigm of the temptations in the desert, a story encapsulating all the events by which he might have been tempted to violate the will of his Father (see Matt 4:1-11). We are reminded that Jesus our High Priest is not some remote, lofty personage, but someone who has shared intensely the experience of human living, including the weaknesses and temptations to which we are all subjected—though without sin. It is important to realise that weakness and temptation are not to be confused with sin.

Given that we have such a High Priest, we are encouraged to approach God’s throne “with boldness”. There we will find the compassion we need for our failures, and the sources of strength in our times of trial.

In our Eucharist, we continue to meet our High Priest, and indeed the celebrant who presides over the Eucharist is said to be, in a very real way, in loco Christi (in the place of Christ). By our breaking together of the Eucharistic bread, we express our deepest desire to be united with the self-giving sacrifice of our High Priest, a union that is manifested in the way we live out the Gospel message in our daily lives.

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Commentary on Mark 2:13-17

Jesus certainly chose some very strange people to be his followers. Levi was a tax collector, one of a much despised group of people. The Romans did not collect taxes themselves from their subject people. Instead, a local person would pay a lump sum or deposit to the Romans to be designated a publican (tax collector) for a particular area. Along with the job, publicans were given the right to recoup their initial deposit from the taxes they collected. Since they also wanted to make a profit, this laid the system open to widespread abuse and corruption. Tax collectors were regarded as traitors to their own people in collecting taxes for Rome, the hated colonial power. They and their families were social outcasts. No self-respecting and observant Jew would have anything to do with such people.

Yet, here is Jesus offering one such person an invitation, “Follow me”. We need to know that Jesus never goes by stereotypes. Nor does he judge people by their past behaviour. He is only interested in what they can be in the now and in the future. There and then, Levi drops everything and goes after Jesus. That is what following Jesus means. It is what Peter and Andrew, and James and John had also done.

Later, when Jesus is dining at Levi’s house, several known sinners and tax collectors are at table with Jesus and his disciples. In some translations of the Bible, Jesus is said to be dining in “his” house, which is (deliberately?) ambiguous. Is it the house of Levi or the house of Jesus? In either case, it is very meaningful—Jesus eats in a sinner’s house, or he invites a sinner to eat in his house. Perhaps they are celebrating Levi’s becoming a follower. And who else could Levi have invited if not the only people who would mix with him—other tax collectors and outcasts? But, in addition the Gospel says that:

…many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many [tax collectors and their like] who followed him.

This is a real source of scandal for the scribes and Pharisees. If Jesus really was a Rabbi, he would have had nothing to do with such people. To sit down and eat with such ‘unclean’ people was to be contaminated oneself. Jesus replies:

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.

As we have already seen, Jesus’ whole mission is one of salvation and redemption of restoring people to wholeness. And how is he to help sinners change unless he is in direct contact with them? By being with sinners, Jesus is not approving or condoning or turning a blind eye to their behaviour. He describes them as “sick”; they are in need of healing and rehabilitation. This can only be done by reaching out to them.

Of course, one can ask if those judging Jesus were not also sick and in need of healing themselves. The difference was that the ‘sinners’ approached Jesus, while the Pharisees could not see or acknowledge their particular kind of sin and consequent need of healing.

Perhaps our Church should look more closely at this passage. So much of our Church work involves serving the already converted or the semi-converted. We are often not present where people are most in need of hearing the Gospel message. We tend to side with the Pharisees and feel we should keep away from the ‘sinful’ and the ‘immoral’. We also need to learn the ways by which the Gospel message and the Gospel vision can most effectively be communicated to those who have lost touch with God and the meaning of life.

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Commentary on Mark 2:1-12

After some days, Jesus returns to Capernaum from his refuge in the desert. Immediately the crowds gather in and around the house where he is staying. It is so crowded that there is no room to get in or out. The ‘house’ is not identified and it is not important. In the early Christian communities, they gathered in one house to celebrate the Eucharist. Jesus was there among them. Some people are inside the house with Jesus; others are still on the outside.

Then, four men arrived carrying a paralytic friend. They were anxious to get to Jesus. Seeing no way in, they went up by the outside staircase and on to the flat roof, removed a few tiles, and let the man down right at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus is touched by their faith, trust and confidence in him—all essential conditions for healing. Jesus says to the paralysed man:

Child, your sins are forgiven.

This must have been a surprising statement to the paralytic. He had come for healing, not forgiveness. Some scribes who were also present were not only surprised, they were deeply shocked, thinking contemptuously to themselves:

Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?

They are perfectly right, but their eyes are closed to drawing the obvious conclusion. They don’t see because they do not want to see, because—even worse—they think they can see. Even today, we meet Christians like that, who are convinced they and they alone are in sole possession of the ‘truth’.

Jesus, knowing their thoughts then challenges them:

Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?

Then he tells the man:

I say to you, stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.

Of course, telling a person their sins are forgiven is certainly easier, but does the fact that Jesus could heal the paralytic instantly also mean that his sins were forgiven?

We need to realise the close links the Jews of the time made between sin and sickness. Many kinds of sickness were seen as punishment for personal sin or even the sins of parents (see also the story of the man born blind in John’s Gospel, chap 9). The man in this present story was understood to be paralysed because of some sin in his life. If Jesus could clearly remove the illness, then the cause of the illness was also being taken away. In so doing, Jesus makes it clear that in forgiving the man’s sin, he was not blaspheming. He was what he claimed to be.

In our time, we realise that there can be a link between physical illness and the way we act and relate with people. We know that there is a mutual influence between our thinking and our attitudes, feelings and behaviour. Some sicknesses can be psychosomatic, the result of stress or an imbalance in our relationships with others, our work or our environment. The words holiness, wholeness, health and healing all have a common root. The whole person, one in whom all parts are in perfect harmony, is the truly holy person.

That wholeness is something we need to pray and work for. The paralysed man represents all those who are paralysed in other ways, those who are not able to behave with the freedom that a well-integrated person has. And that integration and wholeness concerns our relations with others, with ourselves, with our environment and, of course, with God.

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Commentary on Hebrews 4:1-5,11

We read today of the “rest” which only God can give. The symbol of “rest” is seen now at a deeper dimension. The promise given to the Israelites is a foreshadowing of that given to Christians, and it is “good news”. Because the Promised Land was seen as the place of rest that God provided for his people, it was a share in his own rest, which he enjoyed after he had finished his creative work (Gen 2:2). The author now relates this meaning of God’s rest to Psalm 95 (in yesterday’s liturgy).

The reading begins with the advice that, while the opportunity to avail of God’s “rest” is present, the Hebrews should avail of it. The implication is that the Israelites in the desert had failed to use the opportunity when they had it (see yesterday’s reading).

The comparison in the current reading is between the Israelites and the Christians. The Israelites, who doubted the word of God, did not enter a place of rest which, for them, was the Promised Land. But God’s promise cannot remain unfulfilled, so it now applies to Christians, invited to enter into a very different Promised Land of unalterable and unending happiness.

If we are to enjoy the “rest” that God wishes us to have, we must open our hearts to God’s call and God’s message. The “good news” (Greek, euangelion; Latin, evangelium) has been coming to us just as it has been coming to God’s people for generations. In the past, however, many did not benefit because, as we saw in yesterday’s reading, they had closed their ears to the message.

However, those who really put their trust in the message—in both their hearts and in their way of life—will enter that “rest”. They are unlike those others of whom God said:

As in my anger I swore,
‘They shall not enter my rest’…

The author now extends the limited meaning of “rest” in Psalm 95 to the “rest” that Genesis speaks of God enjoying at the end of the six days of Creation. And that “rest” has been a reality ever since. And we need to remember that it is God’s “rest” we are speaking about, not ours.

It is for the Hebrew Christians then, while they have the opportunity, to enter that “rest” and not find it closed off because of their refusal to believe—that is, to believe fully in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Our goal in life, too, is to experience that eternal place of rest face to face with our loving God. And the warning in this reading is totally appropriate for us too. If we want to experience that future “rest”, we need to be always united with our God in the now. He is to be found nowhere else.

There may be some kind of message here, too, for the way we spend our days and times of rest, especially our Sundays. Are they really days of ‘rest’? Do we spend the time in ways that are creative and nurturing for both spirit and body?

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Commentary on Mark 1:40-45

Today’s healing story does not actually belong to that ‘day in the life of Jesus’ on which we reflected over the past two days.

Lepers were among the most piteous of people in scriptural times. Although little was understood of the origin of the sickness, it was clearly known to be contagious, and therefore greatly feared. The only solution was to isolate the victim and not allow him or her to approach people. So, apart from the appalling physical disintegration of body and limbs, there was the social ostracism, the contempt, and the fearfulness of others which the victim suffered.

What was probably even more tragic was that many who were branded as lepers were likely suffering from some other ailment, which may not have been contagious at all—such as ulcers, cancer or other skin diseases (and perhaps some of them even psychosomatic). The signs for diagnosis are given in chapter 13 of the Book of Leviticus and, by our standards today, are rather primitive indeed. The room for a wrong diagnosis was huge. It was a question of being safe rather than sorry.

The leper in the story indicates his great faith and trust in Jesus, a necessary and sufficient condition for healing in the Gospel. He says:

If you are willing, you can make me clean.

He knows this because he has undoubtedly seen or heard about what others have experienced.

Jesus is filled with a deep sense of compassion for the man’s plight. Highlighting the emotions of Jesus is a characteristic of Mark’s Gospel and is seldom found in Matthew. What Jesus feels is compassion, not just pity. In pity we feel sorry for the person, but in compassion, we enter into the feelings of the other; we empathise with their experience. And, in doing so, Jesus does the unthinkable—he reaches out to touch the leper. This must have been a healing act in itself. The leper was by definition untouchable. Jesus says to him:

I am willing. Be made clean!

But that is not the end of the story because the man has still to be reintegrated into the community—this is the second part of the healing process. He is told to go to the priests to make the customary offering of thanksgiving. They will examine him and then pronounce him fit to reenter society.

He is also told not to say anything to anyone about it. Jesus wanted no sensationalism. But how could the man refrain from telling everybody about his wonderful experience of coming in contact with the whole-making power of Jesus? He becomes an ardent evangeliser, a spreader of good news—something we are all called to be.

What is the outcome of our experience of knowing Jesus? Why do we not have the enthusiasm of this man? It is worth noting that the experience was the result of his first having been the victim of a terrible cross. It is often in our crosses that grace appears.

Once again, Jesus goes out into the desert to avoid the enthusiastic crowds. Jesus was not interested in having ‘fans’, only genuine followers. He would not be ready until his full identity was recognised. That would only happen as he hung dying on the cross (see Mark 15:39).

Before we leave this story, we should ask who are the lepers in our society today? Sadly, there are many marginalized groups—undocumented immigrants, those who are homeless, individuals struggling with addiction to drugs, alcohol, pornography or other harmful substances or activities; indeed, we have many lepers among us. Let us examine our attitudes today and revise them as necessary.