4th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (B)

On the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.

Mk 1:21-28

EXPLANATION OF THE GOSPEL

Then they came to Capernaum.

It is located on the northern shore of lake Galilee. It is the home of Peter, An-drew, James and John and Matthew, the tax collector.

Jesus made it his headquarter. “When he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea” (Mt 4:12).

Jesus expressed great disappointment with the people of Capernaum: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sit-ting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, 'Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.'" (Lk 10: 13-15).

The site is a ruin today. You can find there a Catholic church built over the ruins of the house of St. Peter.

On the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.

The day of worship for the Jews is Saturday. No sacrifice was offered in the synagogue because only in the Temple in Jerusalem can sacrifice be offered.

The worship at the synagogue consisted of singing, reading of scriptures and teaching.
Since Jesus had become a famous rabbi or teacher, it was not unusual for the leader of the synagogue to invite Jesus to teach when he was present.

The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

When the scribes taught, they would quote famous rabbis to support their teaching. Jesus did not do that. He taught on the strength of his own authority. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and who-ever kills will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, 'Raqa,' will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna” (Mt 5:21-22).

His teaching was accompanied by works of power. Thus, the reaction of the people: "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the un-clean spirits and they obey him."

I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"

This is not to be interpreted as a confession of faith in Jesus Christ. It was really an attempt of the unclean spirit to ward off the power of Jesus. It was an ancient belief that by knowing the name of an opponent spirit you gain mastery over that spirit. That was why when Jacob asked the name of the angel with whom he wrestled the whole night, the angel refused to tell him his name.

Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

The New American Bible translates the command of Jesus as “Quiet! “ Liter-ally, Jesus was commanding the unclean spirit to “Be muzzled!” Muzzle is defined as a fastening or covering for the mouth of an animal used to prevent eating or biting” The picture that I get here is that Jesus is not merely giving a command to the unclean spirit not to speak. He was muzzling the unclean spirit so that even if the unclean spirit wanted to say something, he would not be able to do so.

Basing themselves on the description of convulsion, some are saying that Je-sus healed the man of epilepsy.

TEACHING

What do we mean by teaching? Who is a teacher?

Once there was an old lady who slowly made her way to the counter to pay for her groceries. She had been retired for some time and had not been feeling well lately. Ahead of her was a young man with long hair, tattoos and pierced ears and lips. The old teacher thought to herself, “What has become of our youth!” When the young man saw her, he politely invited her to go ahead of him.

“Why thank you, young man,” the teacher said in surprise. “Who taught you that?”

“Why you, Mrs. Richards. In second grade. I’m Bob, your student of long ago.”

By teaching we don’t mean teaching a subject but teaching something that has to do with life. A teacher is one who teaches something about life.

Parents

Parents are the first teachers of their children. They teach their children about life. For example, it is you parents who teach your children how to be a husband or a wife, how to be a father or a mother. It is you who teach your children how to raise a family or solve a problem.

Parents also pass on to their children lessons learned from life. These lessons from life are called wisdom. A writer told this story from his childhood. He was with his dad on a train. He adored his dad and thought of him as the wisest man on earth. To his surprise, he saw his dad talking to one of the train engineers. In those days, trains ran on coal and the train engineer was dirty all over with soot. When father and son returned to their seat, he asked his dad why he talked to that man. And his dad told him, “You can always learn something new from anybody.” That was a piece of wisdom father passed on to his son.

Life

All of us still go to school, even if we have already graduated many years ago. This school that all of us still go to is called the school of life. Unless we learn at this school, we are bound to lead unhappy and unproductive lives.

Ophrah shares one of the things she learned in the school of life. She says that there are no failures; there are no mistakes; there are only learning opportunities.

A philosopher learned how to deal with suffering. He says: “First, accept the fact that suffering is part of life. There is no way you can escape suffering. And second, focus on the positive.”

An executive of SM commenting on OFWs returning from Taiwan because of retrenchment said that what they need to do now is to learn another set of skills that will either make them employable or enable them to start a business of their own.

There is another lesson that life can teach us. Someone said: “Forewarned. Forearmed.” That is, if you don’t want the future to catch you flat-footed, you have to prepare for it. For example, if you get sick, are you ready for it? In five years time, your eldest will enter college, are you ready for it?

We can not always predict the future. But there are things that has a high probability of happening. Are we prepared?

Jesus

Jesus was called rabbi. In other words, Jesus was called a teacher. In today’s gospel, we find him teaching in the synagogue. Jesus does not do that anymore. But how can we attend the school of Jesus. How do we get to be taught by him?

1. Buy a bible with footnotes. The New American Bible or The New Jerusa-lem Bible. Read the bible regularly. Study the footnotes.
2. Listen to the readings and homily at Mass.
3. Radio and TV have programs about the Sunday Liturgy. Watch or listen to those programs. (For the Philippines, there is Bisperas sa Veritas every Saturday afternoon on Radio Veritas. For Italy, there is the program of Fr. Cantalamesa on RAI Uno.)
4. You can download the weekly reflection on the reading of the day on your mp3 player. You can find it at Pray as you go (http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/).

Teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin. We need to find a good teacher. But we need to be eager students as well, if we want to get anything from any good teacher. Jesus is there. Life is there. We only need to pay attention to them.

3rd SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (B). CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL

St. Paul is struck by a bright light on his way to Damascus.

The Call of the First Disciples

BAPTISM OF OUR LORD (January 11)

You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.

MK 1:7-11

One mightier than I is coming after me.

The image is of a procession or of a retinue. The first is lower in rank. The last is highest in rank.
The might or power of Jesus is revealed in his fight against Satan. Jesus is go-ing to destroy the kingdom of Satan.

I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.

This is the task of a slave.

I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

The work of salvation begun by Jesus is presented as eschatological (pertain-ing to definite establishment of God’s reign at the end of time) purification or sanctification through the action of the Holy Spirit.

It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

The interest of St. Mark is not in the event of Baptism but in the heavenly revelation that follows. This is the key to understanding the gospel of St. Mark.
Mark does not mention any other witnesses.

On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.

The heavens is being torn open as if it were a piece of cloth. This is the sign of God intervening in the history of man in order to fulfil his promises, in this in-stance, through the sending of the Holy Spirit.

The descent of the Holy Spirit identifies Jesus as the promised Savior.

There is no certainty as to the symbolism of the dove. It probably has no allusion to the dove that Noah released. Others see in the dove the symbol of the love of God coming down on the earth. Hebrew tradition saw in the dove the symbol of Israel. But there is also another Hebrew tradition that saw in the dove the symbol of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters at the creation of the world. If this is the meaning of the dove, then the Baptism of Jesus is to be interpreted as the beginning of the new creation.

You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.

Other translate “with you I am well pleased” as “I am pleased to choose you.”

At the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus, the Father recognizes Jesus as his Son.

Beloved Son has two biblical references. The first is the prophecy of Nathan of a royal son in 2 Sm 7:14, “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.”

The second is the Servant of Isaiah. “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations, Not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street” (Is 42, 1-2).

STO. NINO (JANUARY 18)

HISTORY

According to accounts, Magellan gave the image to Juana after the natives were baptized. Magellan was later killed while battling Lapu-Lapu and his men in Mactan.

Another Spanish expedition, under the leadership of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, returned to Cebu in 1565.

After pillaging and razing a village, Legazpi’s soldiers found in a house spared in the fire an image of the child Jesus, similar in looks to the made-in-Flanders statue that Legazpi believed was given by Magellan more than 40 years earlier to the wife of the chieftain of Cebu. A church was then ordered built on the spot where the image was found. This church was elevated to the rank of a basilica during the 1965 celebration of the 4th centennial of the Christianization of the Philippines.

SINULOG

The Sinulog festival is one of the grandest and most colorful festivals in the Philippines. The main festival is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño. It is essentially a dance ritual which remembers the Filipino people’s pagan past and their acceptance of Christianity.

The festival features some the country’s most colorful displays of pomp and pageantry: participants garbed in bright-colored costumes dance to the rhythm of drums, trumpets, and native gongs. The streets are usually lined with vendors and pedestrians all wanting to witness the street-dancing. Smaller versions of the festival are also held in various parts of the province, also to celebrate and honor the Santo Niño. There is also a Sinulog sa Kabataan, which is performed by the youths of Cebu a week before the Grand Parade.

Recently, the cultural event has been commercialized as a tourist attraction and instead of traditional street-dancing from locals, Sinulog also came to mean a contest featuring contingents from various parts of the country. The Sinulog Contest is traditionally held in the Cebu City Sports Complex, where most of Cebu’s major provincial events are held.

from http://www.sinulog.ph/index.php/about/

CAUTION

Using the Sto. Nino instead of venerating it.

The statue of the Sto. Nino just like all religious statues and images are meant to remind us of spiritual realities. In this particular case, we are reminded of the fact that God became man. In fact, he was born of the Virgin Mary. He started out as a baby and grew to be a child, then an adolescent and then an adult. And because the statue of the Sto. Nino is a reminder of a spiritual reality, it is to be ven-erated, that is, respected.

But it can happen that instead of respecting it, we use the statue of the Sto. Nino for non-sacred purposes. This happens when we turn the Sto. Nino into a good luck charm, a magnet for raking in money. We display the Sto. Nino in our store not as an expression of our faith but for making our business successful. The Sto. Nino de Cebu becomes the Sto. Nino de la Swerte.

Getting fixated

Babies are attractive creatures. They catch our attention. They call forth in us gentleness and a caring and protecting attitude. They’re just so lovable. Perhaps it is for this reason that it is easy to evoke devotion for the Sto. Nino.

But it might happen that we get fixated with the Sto. Nino. We might forget that this Sto. Nino is Jesus who did not remain a baby but grew in wisdom, age and grace before God and men. In fact, he reached the age of 33.

The Liturgical year begins with Advent. But it does not end with Christmas. The Liturgical year does not end with the baby Jesus in the manager. It continues until his passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. And it ends with the feast of Jesus, King of the Universe.

So also our devotion to Jesus should not begin and end with the Child Jesus. It should move on to devotion to Jesus the adult who is Lord and who calls us to be his disciples.

But it is not just our way of looking at Jesus that should grow. More impor-tantly, our faith should also grow.

GROWTH IN FAITH

Compare what you know about your faith 10 years ago to what you know now? Do you know more now than before? If there is not much difference, then you may need to do some reading. Buy a spiritual book. Do you already have a bible? Perhaps it is time to buy one now. And perhaps it is better to buy a bible that has footnotes such as the Jerusalem Bible or the New American Bible. These footnotes are important because they give you additional information.

How do you pray? Is your prayer ONLY about asking God for this and for that? Is your prayer ONLY formula prayers, such as the Our Father and the Hail Mary? Have you already learned different ways of praying? For example, have you already learned to pray by just sitting there in the presence of God without saying anything?

Have you learned to trust God more? When problems come, are you more confident now because you have learned to believe more strongly that God will be with you as you work out those problems?

CONCLUSION

In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, there is the wedding scene. In that scene, they sang this song entitled: “Sunrise, Sunset”. The beginning goes this way:

Tevye: Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play?
Golde: I don't remember growing older. When did they?
Tevye: When did she get to be a beauty? When did he grow to be so tall?
Golde: Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?
Men: Sunrise, sunset (x2), Swiftly flow the days.

It was like yesterday when the bride and the groom were just little kids. And look at them now. All grown up and just married.

Growth is a sign of life. When you no longer grow, you’re dead. So also growth in faith is the sign of a living faith. When your faith no longer grows, it is because your faith may already be dead.

The feast of the Sto. Nino invites us to check on the state of our faith. Is it alive and growing? Or is it stagnating and dying?