Faith and Reason

Greetings on this the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Dt 18:15-20; Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9; 1 Cor 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28

Note: There is a wonderful synchronicity of the Week Three Saturday and 4th Sunday of Ordinary time readings. Back to back they are powerfully mutually supportive.

Saturday

Saturday Readings Heb 11:1-2, 8-19; PS Luke 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75; Mk 4:35-41

Six time Saint Paul invokes Faith as describing the core reason Abraham trusted God. He did as he instructed. He reasoned that the Lord would keep his promise “I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth “. Therefore his son Isaac would be raised from the dead after the sacrifice. He reasoned the God who protected him already all this time would be able to do such a marvelous thing.

In the Gospel reading Saturday, Jesus asked the Apostles a question of faith. This happened immediately after his supernatural act of Calming the Seas. Who is this person that even the Seas (the most powerful forces of the natural world) obey him!

The Responsorial Psalm reminds us the reason God is generous is simply.

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

John 3:16

On Saturday – the natural world obeys God and His Son.
On Sunday – the supernatural world obeys God and His Son.

Sunday

In the Sunday 1st reading, Moses describes a two part promise:

1. A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.
2. But he careful to NOT listen to another. The test is simple. If a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die. Note: for our purposes we are free to understand this as ‘Can’t do? Don’t listen to him/her then.”

Responsorial Psalm
But if he DOES speak and it DOES come to pass “Harden not your hearts.”

Unrestricted Devotion
Saint Paul describes the difficulties of ordinary life and pleasing the Lord. A married man or woman cannot, he reasons, be completely attentive to the Lord because of the anxieties of married family life. He isn’t advising against but promoting the superior unmarried life dedicated to the Lord.

Gospel Reading
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

On Sunday – the supernatural world obeys God and His Son.

We can trust the teachings of this one they reasoned because he commands the Seas and the Spirits, even the evil ones must obey him.

Trust the Lord in all your difficulties.

Do NOT listen to the ones who preach the prosperity gospel on the one hand and the other goup preach a vengeful God on the other hand. They do not speak for God. They do not do what the Lord does in a life of Beatitudes.

Jesus can be believed because he can do what he promises to do: free us from sin and make us children of God. Then he went about doing these things: curing the sick and feeding the masses.

He predicted his death and resurrection and ascension.

He can be trusted.

The height of today’s gospel reading is that Jesus freed a man from the influences of evil. Everyone else had no idea. Maybe the man himself had no or little idea he was under an influence of possession. But at the simple sight of Jesus the demons could no longer harm him and were expelled from him. Even when you didn’t even know you needed the help!

Choose life. Choose wisely whom you listen to. Do they live the Beatitudes? Do you?

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry