Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B - Sunday, July 7, 2024 (EPISODE: 486)
Licensed Image. Stock AI-generated image ID: 2462373915 - Jesus in the synagogue --Important information - This image was generated by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system. AI-generated image Contributor: Shutterstock AI Generator.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B - Sunday, July 7, 2024
(EPISODE: 486)
Readings for Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B
FIRST READING: Ezek 2: 2-5
Ps 123: 1-2a, 2bc, 3-4. "Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy. "
SECOND READING: 2 Cor 12: 7-10
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (cf. Luke 4: 18). Alleluia, alleluia! The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he sent me to bring the Good news to the poor. Alleluia!
GOSPEL: Mark 6: 1-6
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Please listen to the audio recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B - Sunday, July 7, 2024, by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-14th-sunday-ordinary-time-year-b-episode-486/s-VifQQhhGRJT
(EPISODE:486)
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* (Prologue: Fr Paul Kelly)
In Australia, this is also, (Annually on the first Sunday in July), when Catholics come together across Australia to acknowledge and celebrate the unique and beautiful gifts of Australia's First peoples. On this National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Catholic Sunday, we pray for ever-increasing harmony and respect among all who share in this beautiful land of the Holy Spirit.
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When Jesus visited his hometown, he had a very poor reaction. People could not cope with him. Like all the prophets before him, he spoke the message of the kingdom faithfully, irrespective of popularity, and even in the face of rejection.
Also, the people did not believe that he was the Messiah or anyone special for that matter. In some ways, our Lord was too ordinary for them. He was not enough for them.
Jesus the carpenter? How could he be a prophet, let alone more than a prophet? The Messiah? The long-promised Messiah? It can't be. We know him too well. We've seen him growing up.
We know his family. There isn't anything special enough about him, they would have objected. They couldn't see anything in him, and they wouldn't look for it either.
He seemed too ordinary, too normal, and not special enough. So in one of the most bizarre incidents in the gospel, we hear that our Lord could work no miracles there, and then almost as an afterthought, it says he could only heal a few sick people. Only heal a few people? That's amazing! But considering what he could have done if they'd opened their hearts and minds to him, you sure know you've got a tough crowd in front of you, and even the beautiful things he was achieving were not impressive enough for them.
And that's the beauty of this gospel message today. Even today, we still can fall for the trap of thinking that the divine, the special, and the exciting can only be found in the different, in the unusual, the dramatic, and the new. So we fail to see the wonders right under our noses.
We don't see the blessings and enormous graces that are hiding in plain sight, as the saying goes. And so here comes Jesus, one who was ordinary just like them, who grew up in their hometown and performed the same daily chores as everyone else. He ate with people, he worked, he laughed and cried just like everyone else.
What's so special about that, they ask? How can this ordinary person be so extraordinary? Essentially, they said, how can the promised messiah be quite that human? They failed to understand the mystery and the miracle of the incarnation. But here's the true miracle, the miracle of the incarnation. God was made flesh in Christ.
It's precisely in the exercise of all the virtues of ordinary human life and relations, in trust, acceptance, patience, faithfulness, that we all too experience the building up of the kingdom and the power of the Christ. If we live our lives with faith, hope, and love, then Christ, God at work in our lives, remakes and refashions us in the image of God's kingdom through the ordinariness of our daily virtues and actions. The ordinary are major foundational building blocks for the extraordinary.
Our Lord even said in frustration, it's a wicked generation that asks for a sign, none will be given to it. Jesus didn't want people to believe in him only because he provided them with spectacles and miraculous supplies of bread and fish, or even because he could calm storms, heal sick people, or do exceptional actions that stunned them. Instead, he wanted them to learn about his message, the ways of God, the principles and foundations of the kingdom of God.
He wanted them to live the gospel message in all its beauty, and truly in its inclusiveness, its mercy, justice, practical charity, and compassion. He wanted them to live it in its miraculous ordinariness. The gospel was not about smoke and mirrors, but about the divine that could be found in the everyday of life, in the incarnate moments of life.
His message was not about lightning and earthquakes, but about the gentle breeze of God's presence in and through the ordinary events of people and action in our lives. This gospel reminds us to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary, to seek the wisdom of God wherever it's found, especially in unlikely and unexceptional situations. These two readings challenge us today to perceive the presence of God in one another, to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts and in the hearts of others, and to have hearts that are open to one another.
Although our Lord was unique and His divinity derives from His very nature as the Son of God, who is eternally one in being with the Father, our Lord also tells us that God's Spirit dwells within us and allows us to share in this divine life of God. So whilst we do not expect to find divinity in one another precisely the same way divinity was fully present in our Lord, we know that God is truly present in every human being. Too often we can ignore that presence, or even deny it by our actions and attitudes, that God has made truly His home in us.
St. Paul in the second reading has a very different problem. He is so aware of the divine presence within himself that he must concentrate on his weaknesses so that he might keep paying attention to his utter reliance on God's grace and mercy, and the real needs and struggles of others. He realises that his incredible spiritual gifts can tempt him to go astray if he gets too proud or self-absorbed in the graces God has given to him.
So Paul focuses on his weakness and brokenness. St. Paul has learned a very important lesson and wants to share it with all of us. We tend to assume that the way to achieve important things in life is naturally under our own steam, by our own talent and our own strengths and virtues.
But God says to St. Paul and to us, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is revealed in weakness. But what does that mean? When I am weak, I am strong. How can that be? It sounds as contradictory as it seems.
When we rely solely on our talent, strength and competence, as good as that may be, it's easy to reinforce that it's all about me, and it's all about us. It's unclear how this relates to God's way of thinking and God's way of acting. If God's ways, as we're often told in the scriptures, are love and freedom, mercy, choice, inclusion and persuasion, not force or overwhelming strength or control, those things have no place in God's ways.
The opposite of force is what looks like weakness to the world. Compassion, charity, mercy, vulnerability, grace, forbearance. When we experience weakness or realize what we lack, there's the opposite situation.
Our weakness creates an ample space for God to come in and work in us. If we're filled up to capacity with what we can do and what's good about us, it doesn't leave a lot of space for God to come in and do God's work. God can work wonders in the space that's not about us, not about me, but about the other.
Our lack creates space for freedom, which is one of God's great values. People are free to listen or not. People in our Lord's time, even in our time, want God to reveal himself in dramatic, powerful and obvious ways, but that stops us from looking for God's presence in the ordinary, in the people on the margins, and in those who are seen to be weak or judged to be weak.
We might be tempted to think that spreading God's word and proclaiming the gospel of Christ must require the best, the strongest, the most charismatic people and the most perfect people, and yet that's not the way God thinks. A quick look through the Bible indicates that God has called people to serve him, people who were often notably flawed, confused and even downright self-interested and sinful at times. Many, many people who are now official saints of God's church served God despite some astounding barriers.
Many had really serious physical, spiritual or emotional obstacles that would have seemingly made it impossible for them to achieve anything, let alone a holiness and greatness in God's eyes, without relying on and cooperating with God's grace. This can't be a coincidence. We can be so clearly aware of the teachings of our Lord in all of today's readings.
Practically, these teachings invite us to look for the divine in others and be aware of our weaknesses and brokenness. Isn't it true that we so often fall into the trap of doing the things the other way around? We can see the brokenness and sinfulness of others while failing to deal with our own weakness, our own brokenness and sinfulness. There's a danger that we can spend too much time searching for the divine within our own lives and not spend enough time exploring and finding it alive and well in those around us, especially the most unexpected people.
When we learn to see the divine in others and our brokenness, we are ready to form communion with others and that's what the Church is, the Body of Christ. Let's ask our Lord today to send His Holy Spirit on us and strengthen us so that we may never fear to speak the truth and speak this truth always with love, compassion and consistently build up the Body of Christ. And may we continue to ask the Lord for the healing of our sinfulness and brokenness so that we might be wonderful instruments, even if slightly cracked, of God's grace and love pouring in.
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REFERENCES:
FR. PAUL W. KELLY
O'Flynn, S. (2002). Sunday seeds. Dublin: Columba Press.
Gutiérrez, G. and Dees, C. (1997). Sharing the Word through the liturgical year. 1st ed.
Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Sandell, J. (2004). Seasons in the Word. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press.
Abbot's Homilies - Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert. (2012). [online] Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert. Available at: https://christdesert.org/updates/abbots-homilies/
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References:
Homily –Fr Paul W. Kelly
Licensed Image. Stock AI-generated image ID: 2462373915 - Jesus in the synagogue --Important information - This image was generated by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system. AI-generated image Contributor: Shutterstock AI Generator.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B (Sunday, July 7, 2024) (EPISODE: 486 )
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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{{May Our Lord's gift of dignity and community enliven you. }} welcome everyone, we gather - Reflect upon the Holy Scriptures and the values of the Lord.
Coming together as brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pause and reflect upon our sins, in order to celebrate the Holy Eucharist.
Lord Jesus, you are the image of the unseen God: Lord, have mercy.//You are the firstborn of all creation: Christ, have mercy//You are the head of the body, the Church: Lord, have mercy//
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation
2. When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your Death, O Lord, until you come again.
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Ps 123: 1-2a, 2bc, 3-4. "Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy. "
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (cf. Luke 4: 18). Alleluia, alleluia! The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he sent me to bring the Good news to the poor. Alleluia!
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PREFACE: 4
EP II
(theme variation: 2 )
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{Thank you for giving generously of your time and prayer.}
go and announce the gospel of the lord
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
To listen to our weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks
Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly
Prayers and chants — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)
Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)
"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009, The Grail - Collins publishers.
Prayers of the Faithful - " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'. E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993) . (Sydney Australia).
Sung "Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" - By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. The Gloria, Copyright © 2011 ccwatershed.org.
- "Faith, Hope and Love" theme hymn - in memory of William John (Bill) Kelly (1942-2017) - Inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Music by Paul W. Kelly. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.
"Quiet Time." Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.
- "Today I Arise" - For Trisha J Kelly. Original words and music by Paul W. Kelly. Inspired by St Patrick's Prayer. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.
[ Production - KER - 2024]
May God bless and keep you.
