23rd May >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Mark 9:41-50) for Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will mos (2024)

23rd May >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Mark 9:41-50) for Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward’.

Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Mark 9:41-50If your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off.

Jesus said to his disciples:‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward.‘But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck. And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out. And if your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die nor their fire go out. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is a good thing, but if salt has become insipid, how can you season it again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.’

Gospel (USA)Mark 9:41-50It is better for you to enter into life with one hand, than with two hands to go into Gehenna.

Reflections (7)

(i) Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

The letter of James was written by a very straight-talking person who wasn’t afraid to rub powerful people up the wrong way, if that was needed. In our first reading he has in his sights the wealthy landed class who gained their wealth by exploiting the poor who worked on their land, ‘Labourers mowed your fields, and you cheated them’. They were deaf to the cries of their exploited labourers, but James reminds them that the Lord wasn’t deaf to their cries, ‘the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts’. The Lord also wasn’t blind to the heartless injustice of the landowners; they will face the Lord’s just sentence. The kind of heartless human behaviour that James exposes is the opposite to the kind of behaviour Jesus refers to at the beginning of the gospel reading, ‘If anyone gives you a cup of cold water to drink, just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly they will not lose their reward’. The giving of a cup of cold water to someone may seem like a very small act of kindness, but it can be a very precious gift to a thirsty person on a scorching day. Jesus is suggesting that even the smallest acts of kindness have eternal significance. We have just celebrated the feast of Pentecost. Saint Paul speaks of generosity and kindness as the fruit of the Sprit. The smallness of kind and generous gestures can reveal the fullness of the Spirit of God’s love. In the remainder of the gospel reading, Jesus, using exaggerated language, suggests that if our lives are to be shaped by the Spirit, we need to look to ourselves, to keep in check all those forces within us that pull us in the opposite direction to the pull of the Spirit. In this inner struggle, the pull of the Spirit will always be stronger and if we surrender to it we will be empowered to live in ways that correspond to the Lord’s will for our lives.

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(ii) Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

We have all found ourselves stumbling from time to time, hitting the top of our shoe against a raised kerb, perhaps, and falling forward, sometimes with damaging results. In the gospel reading this morning, Jesus speaks about stumbling blocks. He is very critical of those who are a stumbling block to the faith of others, those who undermine and weaken other people’s faith. He issues a warning against leading others astray, leading them away from God. Part of our baptismal calling is to nurture the faith of one another; to do the opposite is considered by Jesus to be a very serious matter indeed. He moves on from how people can be a stumbling to others in their relationship with God to how we can be a stumbling block to ourselves. The hand, the foot, the eye can be a stumbling block to our own relationship with the Lord. When Jesus says, ‘if your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out’, he does not intend to be taken literally. It is simply a striking image to bring home the seriousness of what he is saying. The positive calling of the gospel reading is that every aspect of our embodied existence is to serve and nurture our relationship with the Lord. Our calling is to give our whole selves to the Lord and to his way, to gather up all the elements that go to make us up and point them all in the one direction, the direction of the Lord and his will for our lives. That will not happen all the time but it is worth striving for. When our whole selves point in the direction of the Lord, then one of the beatitudes will come to pass for us, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’.

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(iii) Thursday, Seventh week in Ordinary Time

I have often been struck by those words of Jesus at the beginning of this morning’s gospel reading, ‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward’. Giving a cup of water to someone seems a very small gesture indeed. Yet, for someone who is really thirsty, a cup of water could be the greatest gift imaginable. Jesus is reminding us that the smallest gesture of kindness towards someone has enormous value in the sight of God. We can sometimes get discouraged because we may feel that we are not doing enough. Yet, Jesus is suggesting that God does not measure success in the way that the world tends to measure success. The love which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit can express itself in ways that are seemingly small and insignificant by normal human standards. This morning’s gospel reading encourages us never to underestimate the significance and life-giving impact of even the smallest of loving gestures. If the Lord can work powerfully through the young boy’s few loaves and fish, feeding a multitude with them, he can work powerfully through our own gestures of loving kindness, no matter how small they are.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading the word translated ‘hell’ is ‘Gehenna’, a valley just below the city of Jerusalem which stood on a hill. It served as the city dump and so was characterized by worms and fire. This is the imagery that is behind the translation ‘hell’. In language that is deliberately provocative and exaggerated Jesus is saying that it is better to end up in Jerusalem’s rubbish dumb than to give in to forces within ourselves that lead us astray, that turn us away from God. The hand, the foot and the eye are metaphors for those faults and failings that are very close to us, as close as those limbs of our body. We all have faults and failings that come between us and God, that take us in a direction other than the one God desires for us. Jesus is declaring very clearly that they need to be dealt with. The wider context of the gospels suggests that we can only deal with our faults and failings with the Lord’s help. We come before him in our weakness and open ourselves up to the strength that only he can give. As Jesus will go on to say in the next chapter of Mark’s gospel, ‘for God all things are possible’. Growing in virtue is a daily struggle but it is not one that we engage in on our own. We need the support of the Lord and we will find his support above all in and through the community of believers. We have a responsibility for each other in the faith, which is why Jesus is so critical in the gospel reading of those believers who undermine the faith of others, those who are an obstacle or stumbling block to other believers, those who give scandal.

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(v) Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

The language of Jesus in today’s gospel read can seem very strange and somewhat extreme to our ears. What are we to make of this talk of cutting off limbs and tearing out eyes? Clearly, this is one time where Jesus does not expect to be taken literally. Jesus is using vivid imagery to make his message more forceful. We could perhaps summarize what Jesus is saying as ‘moral integrity is of greater value in God’s eyes than physical integrity’. That way of putting it sounds rather bland alongside Jesus’ striking, if shocking, imagery. There is a strong emphasis in Jesus’ teaching on moral behaviour. He calls on us to relate to others as God relates to them. We are to love others, as God loves them. We are to be merciful as God is merciful, loving as God is loving. This is part of what it means to live out of the image of God in which we have been created. The opening words of Jesus in the gospel reading suggests that loving others with the love of God does not always find expression in grand gestures or bold initiatives. Jesus declares that anyone who gives someone a cup of cold water to drink will not lose their reward. The smallest gesture can reveal the depth of God’s love. Jesus then gives an example of behaviour which is devoid of love, putting an obstacle in the way of those who have faith to bring them down. To undermine the faith of others in some way is a betrayal of the love to which we are called. We all fail in this art of loving that Jesus embodies by his life and teaching. However, another key aspect of Jesus’ message which is to be found in many other gospel passages is that failure is never the end of the road for us. When we fail, the Lord is always there to help us begin again down that path of love which brings life to others and to ourselves.

And/Or

(vi) Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus sometimes spoke in a way that was intended to shock people, and today’s gospel is an example of that kind of speech with its reference to cutting off hands and feet, and tearing out eyes. Jesus is referring to those faults and shortcomings that are very close to us, so close that they can be depicted as parts of our bodies. He is concerned with forces within ourselves that lead us astray and need to be dealt with. Jesus spoke initially about the possibility of anyone of us leading others astray, becoming an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones, in the language of the gospel reading. He then goes on to speak about the very real danger of leading ourselves astray, allowing forces within us to shape our lives in ways that lead us away from God. The implication is that if we don’t allow ourselves to be led astray we won’t lead others astray. How we are in ourselves determines how we relate to others. Jesus goes on to use a further image or metaphor, that of salt. ‘Have salt in yourselves’. Far from causing others to fall, we are to be like salt in the community, preserving and enhancing what is best in others. Jesus recognizes in that gospel reading that salt can become insipid, losing its ability to preserve and flavour. That is the danger that Jesus is warning us against. A small quantity of salt can flavour a large amount of food. Jesus is suggesting that a relatively small number of faithful disciples can have a huge impact for good in the world.

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(vii) Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

When it comes to our relationship with the Lord we are all very much interdependent. We don’t come to the Lord on our own. We need the support of other people of faith. We bring each other to the Lord. However, today’s gospel reading also recognizes that we can lead each other away from the Lord. In the language of the gospel reading, we can be ‘an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith’. The ‘little ones’ suggests people of faith who are not fully mature in their faith, which is really all of us. We are all on a journey towards a fuller and deeper faith in the Lord and we all need each other’s support on the journey. We can also hinder each other, becoming an obstacle to each other, on that shared journey, and that is the concern of Jesus in today’s gospel reading. As often with Jesus, he speaks in stark, exaggerated, language, not to be taken literally, to in order to draw attention to an important message. He declares that if anyone proves an obstacle to others on their journey of faith, it would be better if a milestone were hung around their neck and then thrown into the sea. He further declares that those who are an obstacle to the faith of others would be better off without a physical part of the body rather than put their own eternal salvation and that of others at risk. The word ‘Synod’, which we are hearing a lot about, comes from two Greek words, ‘with’ and ‘way’ or ‘journey’. It means journeying together. The word reminds us that we are on a shared journey towards the Lord and that we have a responsibility to support one another on that journey.

23rd May >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Mark 9:41-50) for Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will mos (2024)

23rd May >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Mark 9:41-50) for Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward’.

Thursday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Reflections (7)

Fr. Martin Hogan.