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4th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME HOMILY Richard Leonard homily is unavailable today. Guest writer, Father Chris Hope, has prepared the following. We've all had to put up with boring speeches or sermons from time to time, whether it be from politicians, preachers, at school speech nights or the local service or sports club. Every now and then though we come across someone who really arrests our attention. It mightn't be only that he or she puts words together well; it's often a combination of that and something in the content that strikes a chord. Maybe we are even envious of the obvious gift that person has. This is surely how Jesus came across to those people in the synagogue. This was someone quite different; they had had their share of the run of the mill scribes with their tired old platitudes. Here was someone who really meant what he said and was able to back it up with fearless engagement with a power from which they shrank in ignorance and doubt. It is not without importance that this is the first public appearance of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. Over the next few weeks we will witness the popular acceptance of Jesus as he battles with a force that takes various forms – physical sickness, opposition from entrenched mindsets, the accusation of collusion with the enemy itself. This is the ‘gospel', the good news that Jesus invites the people to accept readily by changing their lives. The same ‘gospel' is offered to us for we are dealing with a power that can change our lives, not merely a set of nice, pious sayings. Too often we reduce the gospels to that and so remain relatively unmoved by the dynamic challenge they contain. As we know, in that society possession by ‘unclean spirits' was a general term that covered all kinds of conditions for which we today have medical or social explanations and sophisticated labels. We can therefore approach these stories with a type of superiority as if they either don't occur anymore or are best left to experts to deal with. Yet isn't it true that all of us are ‘possessed' in different ways by forces over which we have to admit to having little or no control? Some people are enslaved by addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, gambling and so on. Many of us suffer from more subtle addictions so that we don't even want to admit to ourselves, let alone to anyone else, that we are virtually powerless to control them. All of us know deep down that many of our habits and ways of dealing with others are so much a part of our make up that we can do little to change them. The people who acclaimed Jesus realised that he had something special that could influence them to change their lives. The authority and healing power of Jesus is present today in his body, the Church, through the Sacraments, but also in the love, care and compassion of every community of faith. We only have to look around us when we are gathered for the Eucharist to name it and accept it. It is when the Church is able to back up teaching and doctrine with the same concern for the troubled lives of ordinary people that it is most effective in continuing the mission of Jesus. That is why in the Gospels he is always accompanied by followers learning how to be genuine ‘fishers of men'. READINGS THIS WEEK Dt 18:15-20 |
MISSION STATEMENT We, the people of St Francis Xavier’s & St Clare’s parishes, seek to live Christ-centred lives, celebrating God’s presence & our faith values through worship, outreach, service, justice & hospitality. PARISH PASTORAL COUNCIL Pat Cleary Next meeting: 9th February 2012 2010-2011 PARISH ANNUAL REPORT here 2010 SFX SCHOOL ANNUAL REPORT TO THE PARISH PRIEST & COMMUNITY here MINUTES FROM THE 2011 AGM here PARISH SURVEY REPORT here Constitution for the Parishes of St Clare & St Francis Xavier |
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