Context

Today’s Gospel passage gives Jesus’ reply to the question raised, perhaps by some well-meaning Pharisees who were disciples of John the Baptist, asking why Jesus’ disciples ate and drank and feasted, while they (John the Baptist’s disciples), and the Pharisees in general, fasted and prayed.  Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving were the three cardinal religious practices — the “good deeds”– of Jewish religious life.

Jesus’ reply: Jesus responded to their sincere question using three metaphors: the metaphor of the “children of the bridal chamber,” the metaphor of patching torn clothing, and the metaphor of wineskins. First, Jesus compared his disciples with the children of the bridal chamber. These were the selected friends of the bride and groom who feasted in the company of the bride and groom during a week of honeymoon. Nobody expected them to fast. Jesus assured the questioners that his disciples would fast when he, the Bridegroom, was taken away from them. In other words, fasting is necessary when we sin, and our union with Christ begins to fade, as happens when we get addicted to evil habits and evil tendencies, leading us to sin. As Catholic Christians, we are uniquely blessed to experience Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist. In the same way, we are to welcome both the joys of Christian life and the crosses it offers us. But Joy is the chief characteristic of a Christian – joy even in tribulation. Using the comparisons of the danger of using new, unshrunken cloth to make a patch for an old garment, or old wineskins to store new, still-fermenting wine, Jesus told the questioners that they must have more elastic and open minds and larger hearts to understand and follow his new ideas which were, in many cases, different from traditional Jewish teachings. Jesus is challenging us  to be open to radical transformation so that we may  receive him and, with his grace, reflect  his love, mercy, and forgiveness  to others. 

Life Messages

1) We need to be adjustable Christians with open and elastic minds and hearts. The Holy Spirit, working actively in the Church and guiding the Church’s teaching authority (the Magisterium), enables the Church to put into practice new visions, new ideas, new adaptations, and new ways of worship in place of old ones. So, we should have the generosity and good will to follow the teachings of the Church.

2) At the same time, we need the Old Testament revelations, the New Testament teachings, and the Sacred Tradition of the Church as main sources of our Christian Faith.

3) We need to gain spiritual strength by fasting, prayer, and penance, especially  when we separate ourselves from Christ by our sins

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies

• The five conflicts between Jesus and the Religious authority. In Mark 2: 1-12 we have seen the first conflict. It was about the forgiveness of sins. In Mark 2: 13-17, the second conflict is on communion around the same table, with sinners. Today’s Gospel presents the third conflict concerning fasting. Tomorrow, we have the fourth conflict, concerning the observance of the Sabbath (Mk 2: 13-28). Day after tomorrow, the last conflict concerning the cure on the Sabbath (Mk 3: 1-6). The conflict concerning fasting has a central place. For this reason, the words on sewing a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak and the new wine into fresh skins (Mk 2: 21-22) should be understood in the light which radiates clearly also on the other conflicts, two before and two after.
• Jesus does not insist on the practice of fasting. Fasting is a very ancient practice, practiced by practically all religions. Jesus himself practiced it during forty days (Mt 4: 2). But he does not insist with his disciples so that they do the same thing. He leaves them free. This is why the disciples of John the Baptist and those of the Pharisees, who were obliged to fast, want to know why Jesus does not insist on fasting.
• When the bridegroom is with them, they do not have to fast. Jesus responds with a comparison. When the bridegroom is with the friends of the bridegroom, that is, during the wedding feast, they do not need to fast. Jesus considers himself as the bridegroom. The disciples are the friends of the bridegroom During the time in which Jesus is with the disciples, there is the wedding feast. A day will come in which the bridegroom will be absent and then, if they wish they can fast. Jesus refers to his death. He knows and feels that if he wishes to continue on this path of freedom, the religious authority will want to kill him.
• To sew a new piece of cloth on an old cloak, new wine in new skins. These two affirmations of Jesus, which Mark places here, clarify the critical attitude of Jesus before religious authority. One does not sew a piece of new cloth on an old cloak. When the cloak is washed, the new piece of cloth tears the cloak and the tear becomes bigger. Nobody puts new wine in old skins, because the fermentation of the new wine will tear the old skins. New wine in new skins! The religion defended by the authority was like an old cloak, like an old skin. It is not necessary to want to change what is new and brought by Jesus, for old customs. The novelty brought by Jesus cannot be reduced to fit the measure of Judaism. Either one or the other! The wine which Jesus brings tears the old skins. It is necessary to know how to separate things. Jesus is not against what is “old.” What he wants to avoid is that the old imposes itself on the new and, thus he begins to manifest it. It would be the same as reducing the message of the Vatican Council II to the catechism of the time before the Council, as some are wanting to do.

SOURCE: Carmelite Lectio Divina

Context

Today’s Gospel passage gives Jesus’ teaching on the purpose of the Sabbath and on its proper observance. This was his response to a criticism and a silly accusation made by Pharisees against his disciples. On a Sabbath, to satisfy their hunger, the disciples had plucked ears of grain from a field, removing the husks by rubbing the grain between their palms and blowing away the chaff. The Pharisees accused them of violating Sabbath laws by performing three items of work forbidden on the Sabbath, namely, harvesting, threshing, and winnowing. God Himself, the originator of the Sabbath (Gn 2:3), ordered the Jewish people to avoid certain kinds of work on this day (Ex 20:8-11; 21:13; Dt 5:14) to leave them free to give more time to God.  As time went by, the rabbis complicated this Divine precept. By Jesus’ time they had extended the list to 39 kinds of forbidden work (Navarre Bible Commentary).

Counter-arguments: According to Matthew, Jesus gives three counter-arguments from Holy Scripture defending the apostles. But Mark gives only one of those arguments.   Jesus argues that basic human needs, like hunger, take precedence over Divine worship and Sabbath observance. In other words, the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy does not come before the duty to seek basic sustenance.  Jesus cites from Scripture the example of hungry David and his selected soldiers. They approached Abiathar (Mk 2: 26), the high priest of Nob (or his father, priest  Ahimelech — 1 Sm 21:1-6)  who gave them for food the “bread of the Presence” which only the priests were allowed to eat. The bread of the Presence consisted of twelve loaves or cakes placed each morning on the table in the sanctuary, as homage to the Lord from the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Lv 24:5-9).  The loaves withdrawn to make room for the fresh ones were reserved to the priests (Navarre Bible Commentary).

Life Messages

Like the Jewish Sabbath, the Christian Sunday is to be:

1) a day of rest and refreshment with members of the family;

2) a day for thanksgiving and the recharging of spiritual batteries through participation in the Eucharistic celebration (for Catholics);

3) a day for parents to teach religious Faith and Bible to their children;

4) a day to do works of charity in the neighborhood and in the parish;

5) a day for socializing with family members, neighbors, and fellow-parishioners.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies

• The Law exists for the good of persons. One day on the Sabbath, the disciples passed by a cornfield, and they opened a path by plucking ears of corn. In Matthew 12: 1 it is said that they were hungry. Quoting the Bible, the Pharisees criticized the attitude of the disciples. It would be a transgression of the law of the Sabbath (cf. Ex 20: 8-11). Jesus responded quoting the Bible also to indicate that the arguments of the others have no meaning, no reason for being. He recalls that David himself did something which was prohibited, because he took the sacred bread of the temple and gave it to the soldiers to eat because they were hungry (I Sam 21: 2-7). And Jesus ends with two important phrases: • (a) the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath, (b)) The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath! 49
• The Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. For more than fivehundred years, since the time of the Babylonian captivity to the time of Jesus, the Jews had observed the law of the Sabbath. This secular observance became for them a strong sign of identity. The Sabbath was rigorously observed. At the time of the Maccabees, toward the end of the second century before Christ, this observance had reached a critical point. Attacked by the Greeks on Sabbath, the rebellious Maccabees preferred to allow themselves to be killed rather than to transgress the law of the Sabbath using arms to defend their own life. For this, one thousand persons died (I Mac 2: 32-38). Reflecting on the massacre the Maccabee leaders concluded that they should resist and defend their own life, even on the Sabbath (I Mac 2: 39-41) Jesus used the same attitude: to consider the law of the Sabbath in a relative way in favor of the human life, because the law exists for the good of human life, and not vice-versa!
• The Son of Man is also the Lord of the Sabbath! The new experience of God as Father/Mother makes Jesus, the Son of Man, to have the key to discover the intention of God who is at the origin of the Law of the Old Testament. For this reason, the Son of Man is also the Lord of the Sabbath. Living with the people of Galilee during thirty years and feeling in his own person the oppression and the exclusion to which so many brothers and sisters were condemned in the name of the Law of God, Jesus perceives that this could not be the significance of that law. If God is Father, then he accepts all as sons and daughters. If God is Father, then we should be brothers and sisters to others.
• And this is what Jesus lived and preached, from the beginning to the end. The Law of the Sabbath must be at the service of life and of fraternity. If was precisely because of his fidelity to this message that Jesus was condemned to death. He disturbed the system, he was uncomfortable for them, and the system defended itself, using force against Jesus, because he wanted the Law itself to be at the service of life and not vice-versa.
• Jesus and the Bible. The Pharisees criticized Jesus in the name of the Bible. Jesus responds and criticizes the Pharisees using the Bible. He knew the Bible by heart. At that time, there were no printed Bibles as we have today! In every community there was only one Bible, handwritten which remained in the Synagogue. If Jesus knew the Bible so well, it means that during 30 years of his life in Nazareth, he participated intensely in the life of the community, where the Scripture was read every Saturday. We still lack very much in order to have the same familiarity with the Bible and the same participation in the community!

SOURCE: Carmelite Lectio Divina

Context

Today’s Gospel describes a miraculous healing done by Jesus on one Sabbath as a public violation of Sabbath law to prove that God’s intention for the Sabbath was to do good and to save liferather than to do evil or to destroy life.

 The incident and the reaction: Ex 20:8 and Dt 5:12 instructed the Jews to keep the Sabbath holy. But the Scribes and the Pharisees had amplified God’s law on the Sabbath by misinterpreting it and had made it burdensome for the common people through man-made laws. Jesus wanted to demonstrate in public the original intention of God in declaring the Sabbath holy. For Jesus, the Sabbath was a day of rest to be used in adoring God, learning and teaching His laws, and doing good to/for others. Hence, Jesus took the liberty of granting healing to a man with a withered hand in the local synagogue immediately after the worship service, thus infuriating the scribes and the Pharisees.

Life Messages

1) Our Christian Sabbath, that is, our Sunday, observance of participating in the Eucharistic celebration is meant to recharge our spiritual batteries for doing good to/for others and avoiding evil.

2) Our Sunday observance is also meant to be an offering of our lives to God on the altar, to ask God’s pardon and forgiveness for our sins, to present our needs before the Lord and to participate in the Divine Life by Holy Communion.

3) Sunday is also a day for us to spend time with the members of the family and to participate in the activities of our parish and neighborhood.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies

• In today’s Gospel we meditate on the last of the five conflicts which Mark presents at the beginning of his Gospel (Mk 2: 1 to 3: 6). The four previous conflicts were provoked by the enemies of Jesus. This last one is provoked by Jesus himself and reveals the seriousness of the conflict between him and the religious authority of his time. It is a conflict of life or death. It is important to note the category of enemies which has arisen in this conflict. It is a question of the Pharisees and the Herodians, that is of the religious and the civil authority. When Mark wrote his Gospel in the year 70, many of them still remembered very well the terrible persecution of the 60’s, perpetuated by Nero against the Christian communities. In hearing that Jesus himself had been threatened to death and how he behaved in the midst of these dangerous conflicts, the Christians found a source of courage and orientation so as not to be discouraged along the journey.
• Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus enters into the Synagogue. He had the habit of participating in the celebrations of the people. A man was there who had a withered hand. A physically disabled person who could not participate fully, because he was considered to be impure. Even if he was present in the community, he was marginalized. He had to remain far away from the rest.
• The concern of the enemies of Jesus. The enemies were observing him to see if Jesus would cure on Saturday. They wanted to accuse him. The second commandment of the Law of God ordered to “sanctify the Sabbath.” It was prohibited to work on that day (Ex 20, 8-20). The Pharisees said that to cure a sick person was the same as working. And for this reason they taught: “It is prohibited to cure on the Sabbath!” They placed the law above the well-being of persons. Jesus was an uncomfortable person for them, because he placed the well-being of persons above the norms and the laws. The concern of the Pharisees and of the Herodians was not the zeal for the Law, but rather the will, the desire to accuse and get rid of Jesus. 51
• Get up and stand in the middle! Jesus asks two things of the physically disabled person: Get up and stand in the middle! The word “get up” is the same one which the communities of Mark also used to say “rise, resurrect.” The disabled person has to “resurrect,” to get up, to live in the middle and to take his place in the centre of the community! The marginalized, the excluded, have to live in the middle! They cannot be excluded. They must be together with the others! Jesus calls the excluded one to stand in the middle. • The question of Jesus leaves the others without knowing what to say. Jesus asks: Is it permitted on the Sabbath to do good or to do bad? To save life or to kill? He could have asked: “On the Sabbath is it permitted to cure: yes or no?! And in this way all would have answered: “No, it is not permitted!” But Jesus changed the question. For him, in that concrete case, “to cure” was the same as “to do good” or “to save a life,” and not “to kill!” With his question Jesus put the finger on the wound. He denounced the prohibition of curing on the Sabbath considering this to be a system of death. A wise question! The enemies remain without knowing what to answer.
• Jesus looked angrily around at them, grieved to find them so obstinate. Jesus reacts with indignation and sadness before the attitude of the Pharisees and the Herodians. He orders the man to stretch out his hand, and he cures him. By curing the disabled man, Jesus shows that he does not agree with the system which places the law above life. In response to the action of Jesus, the Pharisees and the Herodians decide to killhim.With this decision they confirm that, in fact, they are defenders of a system of death! They are not afraid to kill in order to defend the system against Jesus who attacks and criticizes it in the name of life.

SOURCE: Carmelite Lectio Divina

Context

Today’s Gospel describes how both Jews and Gentiles from Galilee and all surrounding areas gathered around Jesus practically every day of  his public ministry of preaching and healing. Jesus preached the Good News of God’s love  and demonstrated by his healing ministry the mercy and compassion of God his Father .

Jesus’ mission was universal, attracting Jews and pagans alike. He exercised his Divine power of healing, using his human body to demonstrate to people that he was both God and man. Jesus instructed the healed ones not to publicize him, as the expected Messiah because he did not want to bring his public life to a premature end. The ordinary Jews believed that the expected Messiah would declare himself King of the Jews after overthrowing the Roman rule. Hence, it was dangerous to let people regard him as the Messiah.

Life Messages

1) Jesus continues to preach the Good News and heal the sick through the Church and through us, his  followers. He welcomes our response to him and calls us to come to Him through the Sacraments, and especially through our participation in the Eucharistic celebration, with trusting Faith and confident expectation.

2) “The holy human nature of our Lord is our only route to salvation; it is the essential means we must use to unite ourselves to God.  Thus, we can today approach our Lord by means of the sacraments, especially and pre-eminently the Eucharist.  And through the sacraments there flows to us, from God, through the human nature of the Word, a strength which cures those who receive the sacraments with faith (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica”, III, q. 62, a. 5).

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies

The conclusion reached at the end of this fifth conflict (Ml 2-3, 6), is that the Good News as it was announced by Jesus, said exactly the contrary of the teaching of the religious authority of the time. This is why, that at the end of the last conflict, it is foreseen that Jesus will not have an easy life and will be put to death. Death is already appearing in the horizon. They decide to make him die (Mk 3: 6). Without a sincere conversion it is not possible for persons to attain a correct understanding of the Good News.

• A summary of the evangelizing action of Jesus. The verses of today’s Gospel (Mk 3,:7- 12) are a summary of the activity of Jesus and they stress an enormous contrast. Earlier, in Mk 2: 1-3: 6, it was spoken only of conflicts, including the conflict of the life and death between Jesus and the civil and religious authority of Galilee (Mk 3: 1- 6). And here, in the summary, we have the contrary: an immense popular movement, greater than the movement of John the Baptist, because people come not only from Galilee, but also from Judaea, from Jerusalem, from Idumaea, from Transjordan, and even from the pagan region of Tyre and Sidon to encounter Jesus! (Mk 3: 7-12). All want to see him and to touch him. The people are so numerous, that Jesus himself is concerned. There is the danger of being crushed by the multitude. This is why he asks the disciples to have a boat ready for him so that the crowd would not crush him. And from the boat he spoke to the crowds. There were especially the excluded and the marginalized who came to him with their ailments: the sick and those possessed. Those who were not accepted to live in the society of the time were accepted by Jesus. Here is the contrast: on the one side the religious and civil leaders decided to put Jesus to death (Mk 3: 6); on the other side, an immense popular movement seeking salvation in Jesus. Who will win?
• The unclean spirits and Jesus. Mark insists very much on the expulsion of the unclean spirits. The first miracle of Jesus is the expulsion of the unclean spirits (Mk 1: 25). The first impact caused by Jesus is due to the expulsion of the devil (Mk 1: 27). One of the principal causes of the clash of Jesus with the Scribes is the expulsion of the unclean spirits. (Mk 3: 22). The first power which the Apostles received when they were sent out on mission was the power to expel the demons (Mk 16: 17). What does it mean in Mark’s Gospel to drive out or expel the evil spirits?
• At the time of Mark the fear of the devil was increasing. Some religions instead of liberating the people, increased fear and anguish. One of the objectives of the Good News of Jesus is precisely to help people to liberate themselves from this fear. The coming of the Kingdom means the coming of a stronger power. Jesus is “the stronger man” who has come to conquer and overcome Satan, the power of evil, and to take way from him, to rob humanity imprisoned by fear (Mk 3: 27). This is why Mark insists very much on the victory of Jesus over the power of evil, over the devil, over Satan, sin and death. From the beginning to the end, with almost similar words, he repeats the same message: “And Jesus drove out, expelled the impure spirits!” (Mk 1: 26, 27, 34, 39; 3: 11- 12, 15, 22, 30; 5: 1-20; 6: 7, 13; 7: 25-29; 9: 25-27, 38; 16: 9,17). It seems 53 almost a refrain which is repeated! Today, instead of using always the same words, we prefer to use diverse words. We would say: “The power of evil, Satan, which causes so much fear to people, Jesus overcomes him, dominates him, conquers him, threw him off the throne, drove him out or expelled him, eliminated him, annihilated him, knocked him down, destroyed him and killed him!” What Mark wants to tell us is the following: “Christians are forbidden to be afraid of Satan!” After Jesus rose from the dead, it is a mania and a lack of faith to call in cause Satan, at every moment, as if he still had any power on us. To insist on the danger of the devil in order that people may return to Church, means to ignore the Good News of the Kingdom. It is a lack of faith in the Resurrection of Jesus!

SOURCE: Carmelite Lectio Divina

Context

Today’s Gospel passage gives a short account of the call and mission of the Apostles. Jesus is the first missionary, sent by his Father with the “Good News” that God, his Father, is a loving, merciful, and forgiving Father Who wants to save everyone through His Son Jesus. Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus selects and empowers twelve future missionaries as apostles, giving them his own mission along with a share of his power to preach, and to heal the sick as proof of the truth of their message. Then, Jesus sends them in pairs to the Jewish towns and villages as heralds, to prepare the people to receive the Good News.

Special features: Jesus selected very ordinary people, most of them hard-working fishermen with no social status, learning, or political influence, because he was sure that they would be very effective instruments in God’s hands. It was a strange mixture of people. Matthew was a hated tax-collector for a foreign power, while Simon the Cananaean was a Zealot and fanatical nationalist who belonged to a militant group determined to destroy Roman rule by any means. The others were mostly professional fishermen with a lot of good will, patience and stamina. At first it was only their admiration and love for Jesus that united them. Jesus selected them after a night of prayer and gave them his own powers of healing and exorcism and  his own mission of preaching the “Kingdom of God.”

Life Messages

1) As Christians, we have the same mission that Jesus entrusted to his  apostles: to proclaim the word of God to all the world. We fulfill this mission primarily by living out Jesus’ teachings and by promoting and helping the world-wide missionary activities of the Church with prayer, moral support, and financial aid.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies

The Gospel today describes the acceptance and mission of the twelve apostles. Jesus begins with two disciples to whom he adds other two (Mk 1: 16-20). Gradually, the number 54 increased. Luke tells us that he called the 72 disciples so as to go on mission with him (Lk 10: 1). •

• Mark 3, 13-15: The call for a two-fold mission. Jesus calls whom he wants and they go with him, they follow him. Then, “He appointed Twelve, to be his companions and to be sent out to proclaim the message, with power to drive out devils”. Jesus calls them for a double purpose, for a two-fold mission: (a) To be with Him, that is, to form the community of which He, Jesus, is the centre. (b) To pray and to have power to drive out devils, that is, to announce the Good News and to fight against the power of evil that ruins the life of people and alienates persons. Mark says that Jesus went up to the mountain and while he was there, he called the disciples. The call means climbing up. In the Bible to climb up the mountain recalls the mountain that Moses climbed and had the encounter with God (Ex 24, 12). Luke says that Jesus went up to the mountain, prayed all night and, the following day, he called the disciples. He prayed to God so as to know whom to choose (Lk 6, 12-13). After having called them, Jesus makes the election official and creates a more stable group of twelve persons in order to give more consistency to the mission; and also to signify the continuity of God’s project. The twelve Apostles of the New Testament are the successors of the twelve Tribes of Israel.
• Thus, the first community of the New Testament comes into being, is born, a model community, which gradually grows around Jesus during the three years of his public activity. At the beginning they are only four (Mk 1: 16-20). Shortly afterwards the community increases in the measure in which the mission is developing, extending in the towns and villages of Galilee. There is a time in which they do not even have the time to eat or to rest (Mk 3: 2). This is why Jesus was concerned about giving the disciples some rest (Mk 6: 31) and to increase the number of missionaries (Lk 10: 1). In this way, Jesus tries to maintain the two-fold objective of the call: to be with Him and to go on mission. The community which is formed in this way around Jesus has three characteristics which belong to his nature: it is a forming, missionary community, and is inserted among the poor of Galilee.
• Mark 3: 16-19: The list of names of the twelve apostles. Immediately after, Mark gives the names of the twelve: Simon to whom he gave the name of Peter; James and John the sons of Zebedee, to whom he gave the name of Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,
• Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the man who was to betray him. The majority of these names come from the Old Testament. For example, Simon is the name of one of the sons of the Patriarch Jacob (Gn 29: 33). James is the same as Jacob (Gn 25: 26). Judas is the name of the other son of Jacob (Gn 35: 23). Matthew also bore the name of Levi (Mk 2: 14), who was the other son of Jacob (Gn 35: 23). Of the twelve Apostles, seven have a name that comes from the time of the Patriarchs. Two have the name of Simon; two are called James; Two Judas; one Levi. There is only one who has a Greek name: Philip. It would be like in a family where all have names of ancient times and only one has a modern name. This reveals the desire that people have to remake history, from the beginning! It is worthwhile to think about the names which we give our children today. Like them, each one of us is called by God by our name.

SOURCE: Carmelite Lectio Divina

Context

Today’s Gospel tells us how Jesus’ relatives and fellow villagers wrongly judged him  as out of his mind and consequently tried to take him by force back to Nazareth to his safe, secure job as a good carpenter. That might be one reason why Jesus once remarked, “a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” (Mt 10:36). However, Jesus met opposition with grace and with determination to fulfill his Father’s will.

There were five reasons why Jesus’ family thought he was mad and attempted to dissuade him from his preaching and healing mission. First, Jesus had abandoned his safe, secure job as a much-needed village carpenter with a steady income to become a wandering preacher with no residence or steady income. Second, Jesus had chosen a band of fishermen with no political or social influence, a hated tax-collector and a fanatic zealot among his disciples. Third, Jesus had begun to criticize the power lobby – the chief priests, elders,  scribes, and Pharisees – in the Jewish religious headquarters, Jerusalem, labeling them hypocrites. Jesus’ relatives might really have been afraid that Jesus would be arrested, and they would be persecuted with him for criticizing those in power.  Fourth, Jesus had indirectly claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah and had worked miracles to support his claim. Fifth, they might have been jealous of Jesus’ huge popularity throughout Palestine.

Life Messages

1) Since Jesus experienced rejection by his own relatives, he can sympathize with the hurt and rejection we receive from our family members and console us in our pain.

2) Let us learn to forgive the modern “liberal-minded” people who find our Christian beliefs and practice  “crazy,” and face them with the courage of our convictions based on Christ’s Divine authority and the reliability of his doctrines and promises.

3) Let us remember that many saints, following Christ’s example, have been taken for madmen–but they were mad with love, mad with love for Jesus Christ, their God.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony’s Homilies

• Mark 3: 20: The activity of Jesus. Jesus returned home. His home is now in Capernaum (Mk 2: 1). He is no longer living with his family in Nazareth. People knowing that Jesus was in the house, they went there. Such a crowd of people gathered there that He and his disciples did not even have time to eat calmly (Mk 6: 31)
• Mark 3: 20: Conflict with his family. When Jesus’ relatives knew this, they said: “He has lost his mind!” Perhaps, this was so because Jesus did not seem to be behaving normally. Perhaps, because they thought that with this he jeopardized the name of the family. Whatever it was, the relatives decided to take him back to Nazareth. This is a sign that the relationship of Jesus with his family was suffering. This must have been a source of suffering, for him as well as for Mary, his Mother. Later on (Mk 3: 31- 56 35) Mark tells how the encounter of Jesus with his relatives was. They arrived to the house where Jesus was staying. Probably they had gone there from Nazareth. There is a distance of about 40 km. from there to Capernaum. His mother was with them. They could not enter the house because there were many people there at the entrance. This is the reason why they sent him a message: “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you!” The reaction of Jesus was firm and he asked: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And he himself answers pointing out to the crowd gather there around him: “Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother”. He extended the family! Jesus does not allow the family to draw him away from the mission. The situation of the family at the time of Jesus. In the ancient Israel, the clan, that is, the large family (the community) was the basis of social living together. This was the protection of the small families and of the persons, the guarantee of the possession of the land, the principal channel of tradition, the defense of identity. That was the concrete way in which the people of that time had to incarnate the love of God in the love toward neighbor. To defend the clan, the community it was the same as to defend the Covenant. In Galilee at the time of Jesus, because of the Roman system, introduced and imposed during the long years of government of Herod the Great (37 BC to 4 BC) and of his son Herod Antipas (4 BC to 39 AD), all this had ceased to exist, or existed every day less. The clan (community) was becoming weaker. The taxes that had to be paid to the government and to the Temple, the increasing getting into debt, the individualist mentality of the Hellenistic ideology, the frequent threats of the violent repression on the part of the Romans, the obligation to accept the soldiers and to give them lodging, the always greater problems for survival, all this led the families to close up in themselves and in their own needs. Hospitality was no longer practiced; neither was sharing, nor communion around the table, the acceptance of the excluded. This closing up was strengthened by the religion of the time. The observance of the norms of purity was a factor of marginalization for many people: women, children Samaritans, foreigners, lepers, possessed, publicans or tax collectors, the sick, mutilated persons, the paraplegics. These norms, instead of helping and favoring acceptance, sharing and communion, favored separation and exclusion.
• Thus, the political, social and economic situation as well as the religious ideology of the time, everything was against and contributed to weaken the central values of the clan, of the community. Therefore, in order that the Kingdom of God could manifest itself, once again, in the community living of the people, persons had to overcome the narrow limits of the small family and openthemselvesup once again to the large family, the Community.
• Jesus gives the example. When his relatives get to Capernaum and try to take hold of him to take him back home, he reacts. Instead of remaining closed up in his small family, he extends the family (Mk 3: 33-35). He creates the community. He asks the same thing to those who want to follow him. Families cannot close up in themselves. The excluded and the marginalized should be accepted, once again, into the community, and in this way feel accepted by God (cf. Lk 14: 12-14). This is the path to be followed inorder toattainthe objective of the Law whichsaid:“Let therebenopoor among you” (Dt 15: 4). Just like the great prophets, Jesus tries to strengthen and affirm community life in the villages of Galilee. He takes the profound sense or significance of the clan, of the family, of the community, like an expression of the incarnation of the love of God in the love toward neighbor.

SOURCE: Carmelite Lectio Divina