XXXII-B.1 Kgs 17:10-16 ; Heb 9:24-28 ; Mk 12:38-44

One man called at the church and asked if he could speak to the Head Hog at the trough. The secretary said, “Who?” Then she gathered herself and said “Sir, if you mean our pastor you will have to treat him with a little more respect than that and ask for the ‘Reverend’ or ‘The Pastor.' But certainly you cannot refer to him as the Head Hog at the Trough.” The man said, “I understand. I was calling because I have $10,000 I was thinking about donating to the building fund.” She said, “Hold on for just a moment — I think the big pig just walked in the door.”

Well, the secretary at St.Tim’s wouldn’t treat Fr.Bolte like that. But we all are subject to changing our tune when money is suddenly involved. That is why this passage of Scripture has been an enduring image throughout the ages. We play favorites. We treat those who give more as if they are the pillars on which the church is erected. In today’s gospel many Pharisees were putting large sums of money in the offertory box. But Jesus did not commend them, instead he commended the widow who contributed the least amount in the treasury. It is not about how much one gives but how sacrificial one’s giving is.

This Gospel passage shows that there are two ways of being generous: the way of the scribes, and the way of the widow. The scribes were the experts in interpreting the Law of Moses, and the Law of Moses was the core of Jewish culture. And so the people of ancient Israel respected and reverenced the scribes. But Jesus was unhappy with them. Without a doubt, they worked long, hard hours; they were always busy with worthy projects.  But, unfortunately, their natural intellectual gifts and elevated social function had gone to their heads. Instead of exercising their leadership as a service to the nation and to their neighbors, they were flaunting it to stoke their vanity, increase their comfort, and enhance their reputation. The higher they climbed, the more they looked down on everyone else. They considered themselves superior because they gave more time, talent, and treasure to the Temple than anyone else. But this was a one-dimensional view of generosity. The scribes were forgetting that all those external things were actually gifts God had given them in the first place. What God truly wants from us is something more, something deeper: he wants our love; he wants us to trust in him.

This is what the poor widow gave to him. She didn’t just share some of her abundance; she handed over to God all of her wealth, saying to him: “Lord, you are my good shepherd, and I will follow wherever you lead.” That was a prayer the scribes never prayed. They considered that they were doing God a favor by serving him; the widow understood that God was the one doing the favors. That’s the kind of generosity God wants to see flourish in each one of us: the generosity by which we give to God not just our stuff, but our heart.

Real giving is reckless, and symbolic of love. The woman could have given one coin and kept the other for herself. She could have kept both for herself. But she decided to give everything she had, and she did so. She did not want to come away from the house of the lord without offering anything.

Unless we gradually transform our self-centered, scribe-like tendencies into a Christ-centered, humble generosity like that of the widow, we will never be able to attain true Christian wisdom or experience true Christian joy. We can do two things to foster this transformation. First, we can ask God, every day, to purify our hearts, because without his grace we can do nothing (John 15:5). Second, we can practice. True, life-transforming virtue can only be developed by conscious effort. It doesn't come from pills or feelings; it comes from exercise.

Virtues, in this sense, are like muscles: the more we use them, the stronger they get. And the best place to exercise heart-felt, selfless generosity is at home. In fact, family life is designed by God to be a gymnasium for all Christian virtues. It is easy to put on the appearance of generosity, like the scribes, when we are interacting with people outside our family circle, because they only see us every once in a while. At home, our family members see us all the time, and so they know the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so, finding creative ways to serve our family members is a sure path to purify our hearts of selfish motives; they simply won't be impressed with our efforts – they know us too well. There is little chance of family members praising us too much for helping with someone else's chores even when they didn't ask us, or for being the first to forgive after an argument or a fight, regardless of who was at fault, or for leaving the last cookie for someone else without expecting any reward for ourselves. God wants to give us the freedom and joy of a truly generous heart. And he will, if we ask for his help, and if we do our part by practicing at home.

A short prayer composed by St Ignatius of Loyola is particularly suited for growth in this type of heart-felt generosity. It goes like this:

Dear Lord, teach me to be generous; Teach me to serve you as you deserve; To give and not to count the cost; To fight and not to heed the wounds; To toil, and not to seek for rest; To labor, and not to ask for any reward - except that of knowing that I am doing your holy will. Amen.

As we continue with this Mass, let's live it from our hearts, exercising our trust in his goodness and power, and offering our lives to him in thanksgiving for all he has given us, just like the poor widow.

ALL SAINTS DAY.

 Rev 7:2-4, 9-14 / 1 Jn 3:1-3 / Mt 5:1-12a 

Today, we celebrate the reality of the Mystery of Salvation. All Saints’ Day is celebrated in honor of innumerable living and luminous witnesses of Christ. “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity” (C.C.C §2013). But how can we experience this “intimate union with Christ”?

In the “Creed” we confess: I believe in the communion of saints. Since the saints already enjoy the eternal vision of God, they cannot be united to us through faith and hope; but, they can, instead, be united to us through charity. “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1Cor 13:13). Therefore, it is not that we venerate the saints only because of their exemplarity. There is a stronger reason than that: to be united in Spirit with the whole Church invigorated by the practice of the fraternal charity.

God wills that the saints communicate grace to each other through prayer with great love, with a love much greater than that of a family, and even the most perfect family on earth. How often have I thought that I may owe all the graces I've received to the prayers of a person who begged them from God for me, and whom I shall know only in heaven. In heaven, we shall not meet with indifferent glances, because all the elect will discover that they owe to each other the graces that merited the crown for them.

“The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.

We do not accept our Salvation passively. Action and involvement are crucial for salvation. In John’s vision one of elders in his vision says that those who survived great distress “have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb." In other words, they not simply accepted their salvation through “the Blood of the Lamb,” through Christ’s sacrifice. They “washed their robes,” they became actively involved in their salvation. Or, as the second reading of today says, God’s children are what they are because they made themselves pure.

Today is our feast day, since we don't have to be dead to be a saint — but  be baptized. However, if we want this day to remain a day of celebration for us, we must not only be baptized but also live our Baptism.

To live our Baptisms means to be so immersed in Jesus' death and Resurrection that:

We choose to be poor as He did (Mt 5:3).

Learn to be lowly (Mt 5:5) and humble of heart (Mt 11:29).

We hunger and thirst for Jesus' righteousness and not our selfishness (Mt 5:6).

We forgive others and give them mercy as Jesus did even on the cross (Mt 5:7).

We prefer to be persecuted with and for Jesus rather than to be popular and comfortable (Mt 5:10).

The Beatitudes are a summary of the Sermon on the Mount and the essence of the Gospel.  We were never told what was commanded or forbidden or even recommended by the eight Beatitudes. the Ten Commandments are basic rules of morality, but the Beatitudes are a measure of how far beyond this the Gospel calls us.  

The morality of the Ten Commandments is a morality that can be measured: it is possible to say exactly where you are with them, ticking the ones you broke and the degree of the breach.  Christians may come to believe that they have no sin just because they haven't been in breach of the Commandments.  The morality of the Beatitudes is harder to quantify: how poor in spirit am I ?  How meek, gentle, merciful…?  You can never say “I’ve reached it!”  We can never even begin to think that we are better than another – because we can't compare.

They are not the virtues of a person saturated with a sense of his or her own importance, but of a person saturated with the consciousness of God. 

So, the beatitudes sum up pretty well the kind of people God wants us to be—the kind of people the saints were in their lives on earth.

Saints are not extraordinary exceptions of humanity. Rather, saints are those people who are most fully human. They know the joys and pains of the human heart; they wrestle with doubts and fears; they know that they are sinners, and yet still called to serve the lord in his Vineyard. They do not run from reality, but plunge into the mess- be it interior darkness or exterior persecution. Saints live first for God, which strengthens them to let go of their egos and plans.

Lets try to answer the call of holiness in our own unique way. God does not expect perfection, but generosity and dedication in our service of His kingdom. As Blessed Teresa poetically put it, We can do no great things, only small things with great love”.

OT XXIX [B]IS 53: 10-11; HEB 4: 14-16; MK 10: 35-45

Today’s gospel teaches us that true happiness comes from surrendering ourselves completely in humble service to God through Christ. The CEO in Jesus’ kingdom is the one who serves the needs of all the others. For Jesus, true service means putting our gifts at the disposal of others.

The request of James and John revealed their lack of understanding of true leadership. They were looking for positions of power and prestige. They thought that leadership came from where you sat rather than how you served.

Now a days there is an over emphasis on our actions which leads us to prize our jobs. People are proud of being a manager, a supervisor, a boss, a director. And it is overused precisely because rank and status are confused with our identity, and because they are prized. The mistake is to think that important jobs make us important people. They do not. Nor does the lack of such importance make us unimportant. The mistake is to believe that one is either a somebody or one is a nobody.

But what do success and failure mean? It does not mean to be head of the pack. Success is not measured by comparing one's achievements against the achievements of one's "competitors."

Alexander Woolcott, one of the most famous alumni of Hamilton College, New York, was asked to give a major address at the college's centennial celebration. Woolcott gave a memorable speech which began with these words: "I send my greetings today to all my fellow alumni of Hamilton College, scattered all over the world. Some of you are successes, and some of you are failures - only God knows which are which!" This is a wonderful reminder to us that in our measurement of success and failure, "God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God's ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways, and God's thoughts than our thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).

For Jesus success means people realizing and fulfilling God's dream for them. Jesus tells us, contrary to popular thinking, that anybody cannot be anything. Before people come into this world, divine providence has already crafted a dream for each person to live out. We do not come into life to write our own job description, we come with a divine job description in our hands and with the physical and mental traits necessary to get the job done. God has an intended destination for which He created you and me. But whether you and I attain this destination or not depends on how we cooperate with God's grace. To say that whatever people are or do in life is what God created them to be and do is determinism. The Bible teaches predestination (God has something in mind for creating you and me) but does not teach determinism (whatever we are or do is what God has predestined for us). God gives us free will to cooperate with divine grace or not. That is why, even though God predestined Mary to be the mother of our Savior, when the time came for her to accomplish this mission, God sent an angel to seek her cooperation. She is a perfect example of success because she courageously said yes to the word of God detailing to her what Providence has in store for her.

Greatness  consisted, not  in reducing other men to  one's service, but in reducing oneself to their service. Such people are considered great. Hannibal Barca was a military commander of the Carthage army in 247 BC. He led a famous campaign in the second Punic War against the Roman army, remaining undefeated until the very gates of Rome. What was the secret of his success.  He was a man who led by example. He would sleep among his soldiers and would not wear anything that made him distinct above his soldiers. He would lead the armies into battle and be the last to leave the battlefield. Even today he stands as a model for leadership.

Jesus told his disciples plainly what his mission was, how he was going to accomplish it and what should be the criteria of greatness among his disciples. He summarized his mission in one sentence: "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." According to Jesus, greatness consists not in what we have, nor in what we can get from others but in what we give to others. Jesus thus overturned all our values, teaching us that true greatness consists in loving, humble, and sacrificial service. For Jesus, true service means putting our gifts at the disposal of others. For our contemporaries Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa, greatness lay in the giving of their whole self to the very lowest, treating them as brothers and sisters and living close to them.

The best place to begin the process of ―self-giving," is in our own homes and in the workplace.  We have to look upon our education, training, and experience as preparation for service to others. All of us feel comfortable serving who are rich, strong, handsome or beautiful. But to serve the poor, weak and unattractive is a challenge. When are we weak and unattractive, and unable to defend ourselves ?…it is at both ends of our life- in embryo and old age, at near death. A government that ignores human beings at these two stages of life is not a civilized government, it is barbaric. Make sure you do not vote to power a government that promotes to legislate to terminate the “useless” stages of life. Remember we all will have a useless stage in our life, when we won’t be able to stand for what our rights. Let’s defend the voiceless. Mother Teresa says: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” This country has shown its abject poverty by legalizing abortion. And now is trying to force the Catholics who believe in the sanctity of life to help contribute to abortion. We have to stand up for what we believe. I would urge you to read at least once the faithful citizenship link published on our parish website before you go to vote. A good number of Catholics do not know what the official Church’s position is. When we go by what the Church teaches we are sure of not making mistakes. But when we believe different from what the Church teaches you are on your own to find out what is good and evil, the responsibility will be your own before God for choosing the wrong. As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal

abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.

Choosing to vote for a candidate who wants to promote what is intrinsic evil makes you complicit in his actions and the inexorable consequences. Last weekend when I preached about avoiding choosing the candidates who stand for something that is intrinsic evil and mentioned abortion, some friends of mine told me father, I believe what you said. I personally believe abortion is intrinsic wrong. But I don’t like you preach that from the pulpit. I have one answer to them. When I was ordained, the bishop took the gospel and set it before me and said, receive the gospel of Christ, believe what you read, preach what you believe. The bible doesn’t expressly say abortion is wrong. But it says God knit me in my mother’s womb. When you start putting two threads together you say you started knitting. When you start a single thread you don’t usually say that. And so I believe life begins life begins at conception and this is what the Church teaches too. So I am duty bound to do that, I am sorry.

As Christians we have only one way to follow: the way of Christ. Let’s believe and practice what we believe. Let’s not say like some politicians I believe it, but I don’t want to impose it on others. Ok, don’t impose it on others, practice it yourself. And don’t try to propagate what you don’t really yourself believe. Let’s pray that all of us here may have the mind and heart to serve the weak and become great before God.

O T XXVIII [B] WIS. 7:7-11; HEB 4:12-13; MK 10: 17-30

African hunters have a clever way of trapping monkeys. They slice a coconut in two, hollow it out, and in one half of the shell cut a hole just big enough for a monkey's hand to pass through. Then they place an orange in the other coconut half before fastening together the two halves of the coconut shell. Finally, they secure the coconut to a tree with a rope, retreat into the bush, and wait. Sooner or later, an unsuspecting monkey swings by, smells the delicious orange, and discovers its location inside the coconut. The monkey then slips its hand through the small hole, grasps the orange, and tries to pull it through the hole. Of course, the orange won't come out; it's too big for the hole. To no avail the persistent monkey continues to pull and pull, never realizing the danger it is in. While the monkey struggles with the orange, the hunters approach and capture the monkey by throwing a net over it. As long as the monkey keeps its fist wrapped around the orange, the monkey is trapped. The only way the monkey could save its life is to let go of the orange and flee.

This hunting system works because it hardly occurs to the monkey that it cannot have both the orange and its freedom. The rich young man in today's gospel probably was like this monkey. He wanted eternal life, but he did not want to share his property with the poor.

If you are a lover of animals and you see the monkey struggling to get the orange while the hunters are closing up on it, what would you do? You would probably shout to the monkey to abandon the stupid orange and run for dear life. This is exactly what Jesus does to the rich young man. He sees the man in danger of losing his bid on eternal life on account of his attachment to wealth. So he calls on him to give up his wealth and save his life.

Jesus told the young man that, if he wanted to be perfect,

keeping the commandments was not enough. We do not possess anything in our life that we refuse to surrender to the Lord.  We cannot just surrender only one aspect of our life and take the other half for ourselves. The first commandment tells that we need to honor God with all our being. Some Christians think that by coming to Church on Sunday really fulfills all what they owe to God. What I do outside the Church does not really need to match up with what I believe.

You cannot be a true Catholic and vote for a candidate who is pro-abortion. With hardly three weeks remaining for the election to take place, the Bishops urge the Catholics to be responsible voters. Before I go any further, let me tell you one thing. I don’t have affiliation to any political party. I don’t have a voting right, I have only permanent residency, not a citizenship here. But I am obligated to teach you what the official church’s position when you go to vote in November. There is one very important question to ask when you go to vote for a candidate.

 “The question to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”  – Archbishop William Lori, Diocese of Baltimore.

"Is it ever licit for a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. Is it ever valid?"

"No. You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb. Where you don't have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion [voters may] choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country. But you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone." – Cardinal Raymond Burke

“I certainly can’t vote for somebody who’s either pro-choice or pro-abortion. Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell. But Jesus didn’t say the government has to take care of them, or that we have to pay taxes to take care of them. Those are prudential judgments. You can’t say that somebody’s not Christian because they want to limit taxation. To say that it’s somehow intrinsically evil like abortion doesn’t make any sense at all.” – Archbishop Charles Chaput, Diocese of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“One might argue for different methods to address the needs of the poor, to feed the hungry and to solve the challenges of immigration, but these are prudential judgments not intrinsic evils… You need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.” – Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Diocese of Springfield, Illinois  

“Other pieces of legislation touch on the building of a good and just society and may be open to prudential judgment, … [but] ’Forming Consciences’ tells us that in the political debate today there is no other issue that rises to this level of moral certitude: Abortion is always wrong. To support political platforms that protect so-called ‘abortion rights’ is to participate in the inexorable conclusion: many, many innocent unborn children will be killed. Sometimes a single issue will be so important it overrides a whole range of lesser issues.” – Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.

“In all of Church teaching, the Life Issues, particularly the protection of unborn children against the crime of abortion, has to be our greatest priority. This is an ongoing slaughter of 4,000 children every single day for the last 40 years. If we support and promote persons who have pledged to extend it and intensify the slaughter, then we bear great responsibility with them.” – Bishop Robert Finn, Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas

“A committed and convinced Catholic is always pro-life on the issue of abortion and euthanasia, and that includes in the voting booth.” – Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, Diocese of Cincinnati, Ohio 

Along with defending unborn life, preserving the dignity of traditional marriage is of central importance and must never be undermined because marriage is a cornerstone of any stable society. Any attempts to redefine marriage as something other than between a man and a woman, should be vigorously opposed by a Catholic as contrary to reason, the natural law, and the divinely revealed truths of the Bible. Bishop Felipe J. Estévez, Diocese of St. Augustine, FL

Jesus says we cannot serve God and mammon at the same time. You cannot follow two contradicting values in your life. We are called to give absolute and unconditional priority to God and his word.

The first reading advises us to use the God given virtue of prudence and to seek true wisdom in preference to vanishing realities like riches, or political and social influence.  Solomon chose Wisdom before everything else.  But when he received Wisdom, he received everything else along with her. Since Jesus is Wisdom Incarnate, when we put following Jesus ahead of everything else we receive everything else along with Jesus. Jesus said to the rich young man, you are lacking one thing. Let’s examine and find out what we are lacking in our attempt to be true follower of Jesus.

OT XXVII [B] Mark10: 2-12 (2-16) L/12

Today’s gospel gives Christ’s explicit teaching on marriage and divorce, the divine origin of marriage, the sacredness of family life and the indissolubility of marriage.  These are difficult messages to preach in a society that embraces co-habitation and ignores both the escalating divorce statistics and the dangerous consequences of divorce.  The Gospel teaches that family life is sacred, that husband and wife are partners with equal rights and that the destruction of the family by divorce will result in the destruction of society. 

The creation story in chapter two of Genesis shows that the ancient Israelites knew the importance of man and woman being joined one to another. The woman is made of the rib of man, and, hence, she is “bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.” Figuratively, “bone” stands for strength and “flesh” stands for weakness. A woman has the strength and weaknesses complementing to that of man.

Man and woman complement each other relationally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. From the moment of creation, woman is seen as a suitable partner for man. Woman is intended to be the one in whom man finds support and strength. This does not mean subservience in any way, for she is a "partner." It does speak to marriage relationships.

In answering to the Jews, Jesus did not claim to introduce a new teaching. He reminded the Jews that his doctrine went back to the original intention of God. He was not addressing to the legality but the morality of divorce. He was speaking of the expediency in marriage. He declared that no man was allowed to separate what God had joined together (Mt 19:6).  These words might have reminded the Pharisees of

Yahweh’s warning given through his last prophet: “I hate

divorce” (Malachi 2:16).  Jesus also explains that Moses'

permission for divorce was only a temporary concession to

control the growing rate of divorce even in his time, by

introducing a law governing divorce.

What form of divorce did the Hebrews practice before Moses gave them the law? It was probably the same "triple express" rule that obtained among their Semitic neighbours, like the ones practiced by Muslims even today, whereby a woman was considered divorced if her husband pronounced a divorce formula three times in the presence of two male witnesses. By oral statement alone a divorce could be concluded in an instant in a fit of anger. But requiring a letter of divorce in a culture where only the temple priests could read and write meant that a divorce process could take months to conclude. This would give the couple time to sleep over it, and friends and family members to mediate and resolve the conflict. The demand for a letter of divorce saved many marriages that would have ended in a hasty divorce in the old "triple express" system.

In fact, viewed against its cultural background, the provision to divorce with a letter was not to facilitate separation of husband and wife but to protect the indissolubility of marriage.

  According to the Mosaic sanction, men were allowed to divorce their wives, but wives were not able to divorce their husbands.  By denying the man’s right to divorce, Jesus places the husband and wife on an equal footing in marriage and teaches that no Mosaic regulation dealing with a temporary situation can alter the permanency and unity of marriage which God intended.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the Church’s teaching: “Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law.   It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death......  Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society.  This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society” (CCC nos. 2384, 2385).

Stability in marriage: Of course, it is not always easy for the two partners in a marriage to get along with each other.  The

husband and wife bring to the marriage their strengths and

weaknesses, loves and hates, hurts and wounds, hopes and

fears.  Hence, the first requisite for a lasting marriage is that the spouses learn to accept each other as they are:  two imperfect and vulnerable human beings. 

When the marriage relationship breaks down and reconciliation is not possible, the Church recognizes the right of the couple to separate and live apart permanently.  If divorced Catholics then enter into a civil marriage, they are allowed to receive Eucharistic Communion only if they refrain from sexual relations.

The Church’s teaching on divorce and remarriage  is easy to be misunderstood  to claim that annulments are just a Catholic form of divorce. But in fact the two are quite different. Divorce and remarriage claims that a true marital bond was really formed, then broken, and then another one formed. But an annulment is a recognition that from the beginning something actually obstructed the formation of the marital bond, so that the spousal union of persons never really occurred. In that case, a person is still free to marry, to make the exclusive, permanent union with someone else.

Sometimes the cause of “failed” marriages can be traced back to these kinds of conscious or unconscious flaws in the original consent. Sometimes serious difficulties in a marriage may require, for the good of the spouses or of the children, separation, or even civil divorce (for example, in the case of physical abuse), and Catholics in these situations can still be in full communion with the Church. Annulments and separations are always painful, which is one of the reasons why the Church encourages her children to prepare well for marriage. Not only by attending marriage preparation classes – which are important – but most importantly by living a life of virtue, prayer, and faith, and by ridding themselves of the widespread “divorce mentality.” I think our divorce mentality has so much in common with our yard sale mentality. We dispose of things in yard sale, things that have some defect, which we don’t want to fix and bring to use. The same mentality creeps into family life too. Some human defect or weakness, in the spouse is taken seriously and instead of both spouses trying to fix it together, is taken to the verge of divorce.

We must reach out to those who have been hurt by bad marriages.  Those who are divorced must be taught that God has not abandoned them.  The parish community needs to accept them with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.  It is the duty of the Christian community to love and support them.  Those who are divorced and remarried must not be excluded from our community.  While the Church cannot sanction remarriage unless the previous marriage was declared annulled by the diocesan marriage tribunal, we must make it clear that the church is not issuing a condemnation.  “They should be encouraged to listen to the Word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts for justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace” (CCC 1651). 

As we continue with this Mass, let’s thank God for patiently showing us the true meaning of marriage, and let’s pray for all Catholic marriages and families.

Let’s ask God to give them the grace they need to discover and fulfill their beautiful, powerful vocation of being mirrors of God’s self-forgetful love in this self-centered world.

OT XXV [B] Wis 2:12, 17-20; Jas 3:16--4:3; Mk 9:30-37

At the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the

United Nations in 1983, the Secretary General, Javier Perez, rose from his seat to introduce Mother Teresa to an elite gathering of the representatives of all member countries of the U.N. He needed only one sentence for his introduction:  "I present to you the most powerful woman in the world!"

On March 3, 1976, conferring on Mother Teresa the highest honor of India’s Vishwa Bharati University, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who was at that time  Prime Minister of India, said:  “I feel myself dwarfed when I stand before this holy and mighty woman who heroically showed the world how to practice Christian love in sacrificial and humble service.” For many years, the world watched, admired and honored this weak and elderly nun, always dressed in a blue bordered white sari, as the incarnation of humble and sacrificing Christian service.  She was the living proof of Jesus' words in today’s gospel that real greatness lies in serving others. Jesus teaches his apostles that child-like humility and loving, selfless service make one great in the eyes of God.

The lesson Jesus has been teaching by his example since the day of his birth, he now teaches with words.

And this lesson is a big one: the nature of true success. When Jesus and his apostles sit down to relax in Capernaum after a day of walking the hot, dusty roads of Galilee, he knows exactly what they have been talking about - success, glory, greatness. But the apostles are too embarrassed to admit it; they suspect that their interest in worldly success is too self-centered to be praiseworthy. But our Lord's response is  surprising. He doesn't tell them that they shouldn't desire to excel, to achieve, to do great things. He doesn't condemn that very normal impulse - because he knows that achieving things, making a difference in the world, is a basic need felt by every human heart. This is one of the purposes of our lives: being a sign of God's goodness by making a positive difference in the world. So Jesus doesn't scold them for wanting to do something great. Instead, he tells them what true greatness really is. The great task for every Christian isn't to achieve fame, fortune, popularity, power, and worldly success. Rather, it's the same task that Christ himself undertook: to serve others, to make others happy, to reach out to those who are weak and in need, like little children. Greatness in Christ's Kingdom is equated with humility, an attitude of the heart that puts the good of others ahead of one's own preferences: it's self-giving, not self-getting. He doesn't say to his apostles, "Don't strive to achieve great things," but he does point out where true, lasting, fulfilling greatness lies - in loving one's neighbor as Christ has loved them. Jesus is the Servant-Lord; we, his faithful disciples, are called to follow in those demanding footsteps. And at the last supper he demonstrated to them this teaching by washing the feet of his disciples.

We never become truly great, we never do our best work until we are "clothed with humility"; until, like our Lord and Savior, we are willing to live to serve others. 

Someone has said, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your full height before some higher nature that will show you how small your greatness is." "Walk humbly with thy God." Here is where we learn true humility. Walking with God, seeing ourselves by the side of His greatness, we see how little we are. And seeing how little we are is the first step toward becoming what we can and ought to be.

 Benjamin Franklin, the early American statesman, made a list of character qualities that he wanted to develop in his own life. When he mastered one virtue, he went on to the next. He did pretty well, he said, until he got to humility. Every time he thought he was making significant progress, he would be so pleased with himself that he became proud. Humility is an

elusive virtue.

There is a story about a woman who had been trying for years to persuade her egotistical husband to change his ways. He was obsessed with being number one. He never stopped talking about being first in sales at the office. He proclaimed that he was first on the list for the next promotion. He had to be first in line to buy tickets for a game and also the first to hit the parking lot after the game.

One day this man's long-suffering wife watched with interest as he stepped on one of those fortune-telling scales. He dropped a coin in the slot and out came a little fortune-telling card that read: "You are a born leader, with superior intelligence, quick wit, and a charming manner. You have a magnetic personality and are attractive to the opposite sex."

"Read that," he said to his wife with a hint of gloating. She did, and then turned the card over and said: "It has your weight wrong too." 

A pastor who prepared a great message on humility.  But he was waiting for a bigger congregation to preach the sermon to! Another pastor was given an award for humility. A week later, the congregation took the award back because the pastor displayed it in his office!  Without humility we can never please God.

  

The Christian vocation is an apostolate of bearing witness to Christ through loving and humble service.  Christian history teaches us that whenever the members of Christ’s Church have forgotten or ignored this call to service, the Church has suffered. Jesus stands conventional wisdom on its head. The truly great person is a diakonos − a deacon − a servant − a person who spends his/her day taking loving care of other people. Jesus wants his apostles to substitute for their ambition to rule, thus becoming the first, the ambition to serve, thus becoming the last. We are all supposed to be serving in love, whatever our position or role in society, the family or the Church may be, because true greatness lies in being the loving servant or slave of all.

During the holy Mass let us pray for the true spirit of service, for an attitude of love for those around us.  We need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to become truly great through loving, humble and selfless service. Mother Teresa puts it like this: “Be the living expression of God's kindness through humble service. Show kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile and kindness in your warm greeting.”

O.T.XXIV [B] IS 50:4c-9a; JAMES 2:14-18; MARK 8:27-35

The story is told of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson on a camping trip. As they lay sleeping one night, Holmes woke Watson and said, "Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see." Watson said, "I see millions of stars." Holmes asked, "And what does that tell you?" Watson replied, "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. And what does it tell you?" Holmes answered, "Someone stole our tent." Some people are great at speculative knowledge but when it comes to its implication for practical living they score zero. Such is Peter in today's gospel.

Scholars tell us that the passage we have for today's gospel is the central passage in Mark's Gospel. From the beginning of the Gospel up to this point has been a preparation for the revelation of the secret of Jesus' identity as the Messiah, in this passage the Messianic secret is revealed, and from here to the end of the Gospel deals with the fulfillment of Jesus' mission as the Messiah.

Jesus realized that if his disciples did not know who he really was, then his entire ministry, suffering and death would be useless. Hence, he decided to ask a question in two parts. 

The first question: “What is the public opinion of him?” Their answer was, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” John the Baptist was so great a figure that many Jews, and Herod their king, thought that John’s spirit had entered the body of Jesus. Elijah, the greatest of the prophets was believed to be the forerunner of the Messiah.  ["Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes"(Mal.4:5).] It was believed that, before the people went into exile, Jeremiah had taken the Ark of the Covenant and the altar of incense out of the Temple, and hidden them away in a lonely cave on Mount Nebo; before the coming of

the Messiah, he would return and produce them, and the glory of God would come to the people again (2Macc.2:1-12). 

This examination of the Apostles is done in two parts: a doctrinal-theological and a practical-existential part.

The first part focuses on the question: "Who do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:29a). Peter, spokesperson for the apostles gives the pointed and correct answer: "You are the Messiah". Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. To say that Jesus was the Christ, the anointed one of God was to say that He was the Immanuel, the Salvation of God -- God who became Man to save sinners!  Peter emerges in flying colors at the end of the first part of the examination.

The second half of the examination has to do with the practical implications of the conclusion they reached in the first part. "Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again". At this point Peter disagrees vehemently with Jesus. Even though he scored 100% in the doctrinal part of the exam, he shows by his actions that, in fact, he knows nothing of the practical implications of what he had said. So Jesus gives him a thumbs down. "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things". The Rock who came out in flying colors in the doctrinal section of the exam ends up as the Satan in the practical section, which is really the determining section. (It is something like our driving test. Even if you score 100 percent in the theory part, if you make a mistake in the practical part you can really kill yourself on the road.) This is what the prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer and others, do too. No suffering. God doesn’t want you to suffer at all. They say: the suffering and death of Jesus make sense only for Jesus, not for his followers. They fail to see that Jesus even called his dear disciple “Satan” for refusing the suffering. Without Jesus’ suffering we would not have had the salvation. Without suffering our spiritual muscles won’t be strengthened. Those who go to gym, do it not because they have nothing else to do, but because they realize that in order to keep them fit and strong they have to do this unpleasant exercise.   

It is characteristic of great leaders to make demands upon their followers. When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister he told the British people that he had nothing to offer them but "blood, toil, tears, and sweat." The Italian freedom fighter Gerabaldi told his followers that he offered them only hunger and death.

These were demanding leaders, but Jesus was a thousand times more demanding then they were. Jesus said, "So, therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." Possessions cannot stand between you and the Lord. Jesus went so far as to say, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own mother and father, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple." Even something as noble as the love of family, as good and right as that is, cannot stand in the way of commitment to the Kingdom of God. Jesus comes to us as the Lord of History and makes demands: Take up you cross and follow me." Only the person who is dead to his own will can follow Christ." Christianity is pretty radical stuff, counter-cultural even. 

But then we need to remember another thing too. God does not want us to be passive sufferers. Jesus himself prayed in the garden, if this is your will, take this cup away from me. He himself went around the whole of Judea healing the sick and the suffering. So what should we take from this ? We shall not irrationally suffer. We shall not suffer injustice. If it is possible for us do whatever in our power to avoid such suffering. Suffer injustice only if it will bring greater good for people we love. This is why Jesus suffered on the cross. To save us and because he loves us. If I become terminally ill and there is no hope of recovery, but my life can only be kept alive by incurring a huge amount which would be a big burden for the rest of my family, will put them in huge debt, then I should choose not to put my family in trouble and choose to abstain from expensive treatment. At such situation I should accept the suffering as a God given opportunity to suffer for myself and others. We cannot know the secrets of all the suffering. Yesterday I was talking to one of our parishioners and he lost his wife to cancer two years ago, after 46 years of their married life. Now he finds it difficult to come to Church because he doesn’t know why God allowed that to happen. When a small child suffers from terminal illness, what does God get out of that ? We don’t know- all that is in the inscrutable plan of God. May be he uses one person’s suffering to convert another to God. He allowed his own son to suffer and die in order to save the humanity. Why can’t he use one child to save another of his child ? We don’t know. But one thing we know for sure from the scriptures that some sufferings are due to our own sins. But righteous persons like Job also suffered because that was to strengthen his spiritual muscles and also was a test of his faith. But in all circumstances we need to remember what St.Paul told us in Rom.8:28 “ I know that all things work together for good, for those who love God. Peter did not know when he made the profession of faith that either Jesus or he would have to suffer. But only gradually he came to accept the sufferings.

Let’s ask the Lord, that like Peter we may also assimilate the true meaning of the cross that not by eliminating the cross, but by embracing the cross as Jesus did that we experience the resurrection.