Psst, Can You Keep A Secret?

Deacon Tom Writes

“Psst…Can You Keep a Secret?”

Second Sunday of Lent,Year B

“As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9)

Mark is the only writer of the Synoptic gospels that weaves the mysterious theme we hear today in which Jesus charges his disciples to keep his identity a secret. Mark makes us aware that Jesus understood the mounting opposition against him and his need to be in control of the events that were to unfold at the end of his life. All four evangelists record that Christ believed he was commissioned by God and acted with His authority. Yet, it is only in the Gospel of Mark that we encounter this unusual language instructing his closest followers not to reveal His divine identity. This desire to withhold that Jesus was the Messiah from the larger population is known as the “Messianic Secret.” 

William Wrede first used the term “Messianic Secret” during the late 1800’s in his attempt to explain that Jesus was not understood to be the Messiah during his lifetime. Wrede theorizes that in those instances where Mark recounts Jesus telling others not to reveal the secret of his Messiahship     
(Mk 7:36, Mk 8:30, Mk 9:9), he does so to explain that it took the Resurrection for people to realize fully that Jesus was the Messiah. In this sense Mark, according to Wrede, was using the Messianic Secret as a literary device to reconcile Jesus’ identity with the very unmessianic character of his ministry. This technique works nicely to focus the mounting tension between the mission and purpose that Jesus came to fulfill, and that which existed in the minds of the people.

Jesus avoided any claim on the title of Messiah for fear that it would trigger the notion of political kingship. The Jewish people expected just such a Messiah who would lead them in revolution against their Roman occupiers. But that was not the role Jesus intended to fill.

We know that Jesus had a different kingship in mind, one that would introduce the “reign of God”, one that would be better understood after he had risen from the dead. Then, Jesus’ true identity would be revealed throughout the world and throughout the ages. But until that time, he told them, “not to relate what they had seen…”

In some obscure way the obtuseness of the "Messianic Secret" is a great equalizer in portraying even those who witnessed the ministry and work of Jesus as having no particular advantage to having been there. Some like Thomas stood side by side with Jesus through it all and yet he needed the reassurance of putting his hands into the very wounds that Jesus suffered. Other, like the Centurion, believed once they witnessed the crucifixion. That the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, is the central focal point of Christianity is without question. The debate over whether Mark developed the "Messianic Secret" to ease the tension of the early Christian community that saw Christ as the Messiah amidst a hierarchical Jewish establishment that failed to do so has been the subject of debate for many years. But in a more profound way, the secrecy that Mark records in his gospel narrative provides the veil into the life and times of Jesus that we all experience until we, perhaps like Thomas, through the gift of faith, are able to proclaim with certainty, “My Lord and My God”.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Tough Nuts to Crack

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Tough Nuts To Crack”

First Sunday of Lent, Year B

The image was striking: a woman with the sign of the cross in ashes on her forehead tightly hugging a child (daughter?) both sobbing bitterly. Their photo captured by the reporter at the scene of the Ash Wednesday shooting at a Southern Florida High School where 17 people died tragically and many others wounded, and reasonable people left asking, “How much more of this can we take?”

Immediately the debate began over gun control, over mental illness, over the violence in this country, and so on. All are appropriate and, if past experience holds true, nothing will come of it. What is missing from the conversation is the mention of the word “sin.” We are missing a critical element contributing to this tragedy if we are not able to see “sin,” that is evil at work in our world as a source of the problem. Unfortunately, the word “sin” doesn’t enter the conversation. How then can we have “contrition” if we aren’t able to recognize the “sin?” How then can we ever have a solution to the many similar problems that plague us if we can’t acknowledge their source?

The word “Contrition” comes from the Latin word contritio, a breaking of something hardened. Contrition is the action we take to break away from our patterns of behavior that cause us pain, our self-inflected wounds if you will. In spiritual language we call this behavior, “sin,” and the desire to break our attraction to what harms, no longer to be “crushed by guilt.” is called, “contrition.”

To experience such a horrific act on Ash Wednesday encourages us to look at the sin in our lives and our need for contrition, “for what we have done and for what we have failed to do” as our Catholic faith reminds us of our active and passive participation with sin.

It is interesting that the word “contritio” connotes a breaking something hardened. Scriptures warns us about “hardness of heart” in Psalm 95... If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.  Pharaoh’s heart was hardened as were the hearts of the people of Israel as they crossed the desert to the Promised Land. Scripture reveals that nothing good results from a spiritual hardness of heart. There is much evidence to suggest that many of us suffer from some form of hardness of heart today. Take our attitudes, for instance. There are many who have become hardened to one degree or another by life’s experiences A homeless person will approach us on the street and ask for some change and we refuse them. We justify our actions in many different ways…They need to get a job…. They will only buy booze… and on and on.

Our attitudes are fixed on every topic from A – Z, from abortion to xenophobia and we are not about to change our positions, only hunker down on them.

That is exactly what the Season of Lent is all about. It’s time to make some changes in our attitudes and, as Philippians 2:5 says, “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.” And our attitudes can only change when we take steps to change the focus of our life from ourselves to Christ as the epicenter.

I don’t think many of us enter Lent looking to do a complete makeover of our lives. Most of us know that even small changes in our behavior are very difficult to make. Just try to stop smoking or go on a low cholesterol diet! We find out then how making small changes really impacts many other facets of our lives

Maybe that’s why we approach Lent so cautiously. We are afraid to go messing around with some of those attitudes that need to be adjusted Let’s face it; it is easier to give up a meal here and there than to try reaching out to a co-worker who is always making our lives miserable. It is much easier to say a Rosary than to say, “I forgive you” to someone who has hurt us in the past. It is much easier to do nothing because the problems we face are too big than to look at our own complicity with sin with a contrite heart and make the changes we need to make.   

During this Lenten season, let’s ask God for His grace that calls us to a spirit of “Contrition” so He may help us in our efforts to breakdown any and all of those attitudes that keep us separated from His love, mercy, and compassion.

Enjoy the day and remember to say “I Love You” to the special people in your life.

Deacon Tom

Image Credit: doodlescribble/1306@deviant.com

Healing Touch

Deacon Tom Writes,

A Healing Touch

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B 

It’s interesting how the same words can take on different meanings. For instance, if we walked into a room today in the middle of a conversation and heard someone say, “He touched me,” we might think of the #Me Too movement about sexual harassment or some inappropriate behavior being described. But if we turn the clock back to the day Jesus encountered the leper who asked to be made clean, a different image comes to mind. Jesus touched him and immediately he was made clean. In this case… touching brings about healing.

The simple act of touch is such a powerful gesture. It can produce either great physical and psychological trauma or it can bring about tremendous healing and comfort. Jesus, of course, brought about great comfort as he healed people throughout His ministry.

Jesus willingly touched the leper even though by that action He violated the Mosaic Law. He did so because He had pity on this poor, suffering Child of God. Jesus’ compassion for this man compels Him to place His hands upon him to show him that he was not “invisible”, that he was lovable even in his physical distress, and perhaps more importantly, that God was with Him, right by his side, suffering with him.

What a lesson this was for Jesus’ follower…. and for us! There was no boundary that Jesus would not breach to teach us about the dignity and worth that we all possess by virtue of our humanity. God’s love is unconditional and knows no limits. We are called to imitate Jesus by loving others even when they are “untouchable,” like the leper in today’s gospel. He was made much more than clean; he was given new life, all because of a simple touch. And we all desire that new life, no matter how “untouchable.”

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Self-inflicted Wounds

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Self-inflicted Wounds”

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Today’s readings begin with Job’s lament. He has lost everything: his family, health, fortune, and friends. He is living in misery; he has cut himself off from God and given up hope. One would have to look far and wide to find an equally pathetic creature under the sun, we might think. But how wrong we would be! Several years ago Sojourners Magazine, an inspirational magazine that carries articles where faith, politics, and culture intersect ran an article with the title, “Ending the World’s Most Savage Cruelty.” Gets your attention, doesn’t it?   

The article’s lead story is on the subject of global human trafficking. When it comes to suffering and misery, we have outdone ourselves!‼  The exploitation of women and children for the sex trade, child labor, and child soldiers is simply beyond comprehension. The torture and torment know no boundaries. Antislavery activist Siddhartha Kara in his 2010 exposé Sex trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery wrote these haunting words. “I experienced no emotion more devastating than peering into the eyes of and enslaved human child. Where one expects to see the spark of innocence, one discovers instead the abyss of humankind’s most savage cruelty.”

“More girls have been killed by violence or neglect in the last 50 years precisely because they were girls.” Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sherryl WuDunn report in their acclaimed Half the Sky, “than men were killed in all the battles of the 20^th century.” http://globalsolutions.org

Not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but more than a million children are living the nightmare of torment and torture as sex or labor slaves or child soldiers today….

Sickness and disease have plagues humanity from the beginning of time and have been the cause of much of our suffering. But this horrific evil - the sex trade, like war, poverty, ignorance, and so many other crimes against humanity, we bring about ourselves. We are the master designers of the misery and the suffering endured by the innocent….because our greed, our depravity and our perversity is without limit but surely not without notice. How often we hear the Psalm, “The Lord hears the cries of the poor.” In a world so fallen from grace, we must ask ourselves, “What is God asking of us?” and become engaged in being part of the solution. A first step is to become aware of the problem. To that extent, I hope this article accomplished that. The rest is between God and us.

Have a super Sunday!!!

Deacon Tom