Read: 1 Sm 24: 3-21 Mk 3: 13-19

“He then went up the mountain and summoned the men he himself had decided on, who came and joined him. He named twelve as his companions whom he would send to preach the good news.” (Mk 3:13-14)

Jesus chose the Twelve from among His many followers, contemplating His decision through prayerful reflection (Lk 6:12). The Spirit moved the Gospel’s author to share this detail with us so to understand the importance of prayer while making life decisions. To make good and holy decisions, we must seek His Presence, know His holy will, and beg His protection. Above all, we must strive to unite ourselves with God, following His precepts, and submitting to His Word.

He “summoned the men he himself had decided on.” We can only imagine the joy and weight of the moment, as the Lord called out the men who would form His “inner circle.”

What a solemn moment for those men, having demonstrated their love, fidelity, and openness to the Master. From this day forward, they will be His most intimate students and companions — a family of faith.

It would be presumption to pretend to merit the friendship and trust through which the Lord Himself honored His Apostles… Yet, we must be open to that level of divine intimacy, that friendship, with the Lord: “Come. You have my Father’s blessing! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.” (Mt 25:34)

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 139: 23-24 “Probe me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; see if my way is crooked, and lead me in the way of old.”

Read: 1 Sm 18: 6-9; 19: 1-7 Mk 3: 7-12

“Jesus had cured many, all who had afflictions kept pushing toward him to touch him.” (Mk 3:10)

The Lord used miracles and healing to convince the people that He was indeed the Messiah. Yet, He was not the political Messiah that the people desired to liberate them from the oppression of the Roman occupation. Rather, He was the true Messiah announced through the prophets. The Messiah was to be the Servant of Yahweh: “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.” (Is 42:1)

The sick were moved with hope by Jesus, they closed in on Him shouting: Son of David…” thus recognizing His great power.

Divinity cannot be seen with the eyes of flesh but can be seen through the heart.

Those closest to Jesus saw the abundant miracles He performed in His own Name, with His own person, authority, and power. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” (Mt 16:15) and, in the end, all testified to the veracity of their convictions through martyrdom.

God’s goodness is manifested daily on an ordinary day as we are showered with His great gifts. And, in accord with His Holy Will, with a miraculous intervention. If we seek Him fervently, “push toward him to him to touch him” we can see Him with our heart’s eye and receive His great healing Hand.

His miracles keep on coming.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 91:14 “I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in distress.”

Read: 1 Sm 17: 32-33, 37, 40-51 Mk 3: 1-6

“‘Is it permitted to do a good deed on the Sabbath or an evil one? To preserve life—or destroy it?’ At this, they remained silent. He looked around at them with anger, for he was deeply grieved that they had closed their minds against him.” (Mk 3:4-5)

Two things leap out of today’s Gospel. Jesus’ detractors’ haughtiness, and our misunderstanding of the sabbath proscriptions.

What is the sabbath day? Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:27) So, if it is for us, what do we do? We tend to like rules (so we can break them) and guides to know exactly how far we can go. Yet, as St. Paul’s “law-free” teaching tells us, Jesus is all about freedom. Not freedom to live and serve and give and sacrifice as we see fit. To do “good deeds” and “preserve life.” To foster love, family, prayer, harmony, unity, kindness, etc. Sabbath is to build up the community of the Lord. We worship, praise, and exalt, we serve and give and foster our living church and commune with the Lord.

The Sabbath is not for selfishness, nor for slavish nitpicking about what “not to do” — the Sabbath is life-giving.

Haughtiness and pride are the opposite of Jesus’ liberty. The Pharisee’s attitude left a burden so great and unbearable that the people raced to slavishly serve a concept: “A DAY,” rather than “a relationship” with their God and neighbor.

This does not remove the admonition in Exodus (10:19-20), “The Sabbath of the LORD.” Rather, it should serve to clarify our true place in His (our) day.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 40:1 “I have waited, waited for the LORD, and he stooped toward me.”

Read: 1 Sm 16: 1-13 Mk 2: 23-28

“It happened that he was walking through standing grain on the Sabbath, and his disciples began to pull off heads of grain as they went along. At this the Pharisees protested: ‘Look! Why do they do a thing not permitted on the Sabbath?’” (Mk 2: 23-24)

The Jews had good reason to observe the Sabbath: “You must keep the Sabbath as something sacred. Whoever desecrates it shall be put to death. If anyone does work on that day, he must be rooted out of his people. Six days there are for doing work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of complete rest, sacred to the LORD. Anyone who does work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. So shall the Israelites observe the Sabbath, keeping it throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.” (Ex 31:14-17)

Do we see among most Catholics today even a sense of the sacredness of Sunday – a day that has been consecrated to the Lord? In reality, is it not a day when many think even less of the Lord… and place themselves in all sorts of compromising places (theaters, beaches…), where the near occasion of sin – in thought or deed – might actually separate one from the love of the Lord? We have either lost, or we don’t care, about the force and sense of the precept expressed in the book of Exodus.

Minimally, to begin with, we must attend and participate in Sunday Mass, but Sunday has 24 hours in it. God is with us and blesses us every moment of every day.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 31:23 “You heard the sound of my pleading when I cried out to you.”

Read: 1 Sm 15: 16-23 Mk 2: 18-22

“People came to Jesus with the objection, ‘Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast while yours do not?’” (Mk 2:18)

God designed us to appreciate nature, to seek happiness, and to ease our pain. The desire for happiness and the desire for joy is often our only motivation. And even in our most difficult efforts and tasks, we try to seek out a way of making our jobs easier, with just a little joy.

The Christian life is a journey to God that is not always easy. Rather, it is austere, a figurative and literal fast and renunciation of worldly satisfactions and pleasures.

Why can human pleasures and human happiness in, for, and by themselves be sinful? Why is suffering for others, a virtue? Then, why do we ask God to make us happy amid pain and suffering?

Certainly, we were destined for happiness, much as the bird was meant to fly. Yet we were made by God to know the true and supreme happiness by knowing His love.

The bad part of purely human happiness is that it easily separates us from the love of the Lord. And worse, it puts us against God when we try to order our lives according to our whims and vices while not in accord with the will and desires of the Lord.

For this reason, we must atone for our disorder and seek austerity, fasting, and a renunciation of even legitimate satisfactions to seek discipline in the spiritual, and thus physical, life.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 6:9-10 “The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will receive my prayer.”

Read: 1 Sm 3:3-10, 19 1 Cor 6:13-15, 17-20 Jn 1:35-42 (Pss II)

“’What are you looking for?’ They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come, and you will see.’” (Jn 1: 38-39)

“What do you want?” Perhaps this is not the greeting we would like to hear as the first words directed at us from the Lord. But, they are good words.

What do you want? What are you looking for in your relationship with God? A cosmic insurance policy against hell and damnation? A bit of economic security? A divine maid who cleans up all your moral and ethical messes? A divine doctor who will cure your every ailment?

It is a very relevant and important question. What do you want?

When those men chose to follow Jesus, there were no guarantees. They weren’t going to get a salary or a pension. There was no “deal” in the offer. It was “come.” You want a part of me and this? Come. Trust. Work. Give. And then?

The Disciples got greedy on various occasions. (Mk 10:28) Yet Jesus’ response was always clear, your reward will come… later. In the meantime: “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep.” (Mt 10:7-10)

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 89:28 “Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him, and my covenant with him stands firm.”

St. Hilary

Read: 1 Sm 9: 1-4, 17-19; 10: 1 Mk 2: 13-17

“When the scribes who belonged to the Pharisee party saw that he was eating with tax collectors and offenders against the law, they complained to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with such as these?’ Overhearing the remark, Jesus said to them, ‘Healthy People do not need a doctor; sick people do. I have come to call sinners, not the self-righteous.’” (Mk 2: 16-17)

The Pharisees considered Levi a corrupted sinner because he served the Roman government. Jesus, for simply sitting at the same table as Levi and the other tax collectors, was considered a sinner.

Jesus knows the deepest recesses of the heart and our true intentions. Not only did He not look down on Levi, but He called Levi to conversion and to become one of His most intimate disciples, he who is known to us as Matthew: the Apostle who wrote one of the four gospels.

Jesus can change any heart: Even a heart buried in sin, no matter how deep, serious, or habitual, if there exists some small bit of goodness and love for God. “Healthy People do not need a doctor; sick people do. I have come to call sinners, not the self-righteous.”

They are consoling words. All of us sinners, who fall because of our weakness into the clutches of sin, need Jesus as our hope.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 22:10 “You have been my guide since I was first formed. To you I was committed at birth, from my mother’s womb you are my God.”

St. Hilary of Poitiers, d. 367; married and converted from paganism; a leading opponent of Arianism in the West; most noted work: De Trinitate.

Read: 1 Sm 8: 4-7,10-22 Mk 2: 1-12

“‘My son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves: ‘Why does this man talk in that way? He commits blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God alone?’” (Mk 2:5-7)

Some of the great “evils” that befall humanity are based in physical pain and suffering, and moral or spiritual pain and suffering. We are seemingly more terrified of, more susceptible to, and more affected by, physical problems than over spiritual ones.

The ones who brought the paralytic to Jesus, and the paralytic himself, were seeking a physical cure for a physical ailment… not a spiritual healing—a healing from sin. As opposed to the woman in the Pharisee’s house who sought only her moral and spiritual rehabilitation from the Lord: “She stood behind him at his feet, weeping so that her tears fell upon his feet.” (Lk 7:36-50)

But Jesus, seeing into their minds and hearts the openness and desire to be whole and forgiven, first forgave their spiritual illness, which was greater and more important, even if not felt in the same way: “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

There are still those who deny Jesus’ power over the ravages of sin and His power to cure. They are those who downplay confession and its power to cleanse the soul.

They do not believe in Jesus’ capacity to cure the soul of sin, before the priest in the Holy Sacrament of Confession.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 51:4 “Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me.”

Read: 1 Sm 4: 1-11 Mk 1: 40-45

“Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said: ‘I do will it. Be cured.’” (Mk 1:41)

A good prayer must be humble. In that genuine prayer our own desires are made subject to the divine will.

Yet we want the Lord to grant our desires as we perceive. And in the depth of our heart, it hurts when the Lord does not cede to our whims.

We ought, like the leper, say with total sincerity of heart: “If you will to do so, you can…” (40) Saying this, we predispose ourselves to accept and preserve in our hearts serenity and peace – we recognize that the Lord knows what He is about, and He knows what is best for us.

Jesus Himself, in the garden praying to His Father said: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Still, let it be as you would have it, not as I.” (Mt 26:39)

Humility in prayer does not go against trust and confidence in God’s good and holy will. Humility strengthens our confidence in the goodness of the Lord, recognizing that we have no “right” or merit to demand anything from Him. And in true humility our most fervent prayer must be that the Lord shower us with His tremendous forgiveness, grace, and love – before presenting any petition or favor. “For the lowly may be pardoned out of mercy…” (Wis 6:6)

In our sinfulness – that which comes from turning God’s gifts away from what He intended – we capriciously demand and insist, like spoiled children before their astonished parents.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 138:8 “The Lord’s mercy endures forever. Never forsake the work of your hands!”

Read: 1 Sm 3: 1-10, 19-20 Mk 1: 29-39

“Those whom he cured, who were variously afflicted, were many, and so were the demons he expelled.” (Mk 1:34)

When one of these modern miracle workers holds a prayer/healing service with the stated purpose of seeking miraculous healings, they easily fill stadiums and convention centers.

Sickness, pain, and the anguish of the human heart are the direct consequences of sin. “Through one man sin entered the world and with sin death.” (Rom 5:12)

“Remember, now, you have been cured. Give up your sins so that something worse may not overtake you.” (Jn 5:14)

The conviction that all sickness is a result of sinful living was very strong among the Jews. Because of this, Jesus’ presence defeated these sicknesses and expelled demons showing the power of God to liberate us from sin.

Jesus made His own the bitter fruits of sin — which are pain and death — to show us His pardon that He offers.

“Jesus gave himself for our sins, to rescue us from the present evil age, as our God and Father willed.” (Gal 1:4)

“In his own body, he brought your sins to the cross, so that all of us, dead to sin, could live in accord with God’s will. By his wounds you were healed.” (1 Pt 2:24)

Not every miraculous healing will bring us to repentance and the correction of our lives. That is how hard we are of heart before Almighty God.

We must rejoice that Jesus gives us the ability to repent seek His pardon… and receive His love in our hearts.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 138:6 “The LORD is exalted, yet the lowly he sees, and the proud he knows from afar.”