Monday, Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, Year C

Hebrews 11:32-40/ Mark 5:1-20

The ongoing AFCON has continued to highlight African football heroes and sprout a number of surprises. The defending champions had failed to make it to the knockout stages; the host, South Africa had crashed out to Mali; and now the tournament’s favourites, the mighty Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire, the number one in Africa, has bowed out rather ungracefully to the less-esteemed Super Eagles of Nigeria. The deciding moment of the latest encounter came at the 78^th minute when the homeboy, Sunday Mba, made a solo run and rifled the ball into the Ivorian goal. Obviously, he was the hero of the match.

Talking about heroes, we have a number of them mentioned in the first reading of today. The eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews gives us an interesting catalogue of faith heroes in the Old Testament. We hear of Gideon and Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises... won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, and put foreign enemies to flight” (Heb. 11: 33-35). They were real heroes in their days and we have a record of their feats.

In the gospel reading, we see a no less heroic occurrence. It happened in Gennesaret where there was a demon-possessed man. So terrible was his condition that he was almost totally reduced to a beast by the malevolent spirit that controlled him. At the sight of Jesus the tormented man began to cry out. He ran and prostrated before the Lord and the evil spirits in him began to negotiate their exit for they knew that their oppression and bullying of that ‘son of Abraham’ had come to an end. They begged to be granted a soft landing: “As you are driving us from this man that we have maliciously reduced to an animal, let us at least enter these animals so that we can reduce them to nothing”. Well, Jesus granted them leave and 2000 pigs were drowned almost immediately. What a loss! But why did Jesus take that decision? Why did He not command those ‘yeye’ spirits to go to hell? May be He wanted to teach the guys of that village an important lesson, the lesson that a single human soul is worth more than thousands of pigs and thousands of dollars. Unfortunately they didn’t get the message. They asked Him to leave their territory because they prized the economic loss higher than the spiritual gain. We learn from their miscalculation and we adjust our ways.

Have a nice day and God loves you.

Friday, Third Week of Ordinary Time, Year C

Hebrew 10:32-39/ Mark 4:26-34

It seems Jesus likes talking in parables. He uttered about 50 recorded parables in the course of His public life. It was his privileged method of teaching. In fact, parables cover more than one third of the spoken words of our Lord. The interesting thing about Jesus’ parables is that they were both simple and profound: simple in their presentation but deep in their meaning or significance. They concern simple everyday events, like a farming going out to plant or a woman who losing one of her coins. People could easily relate well to those stories. But not many of them were able to grasp their deep spiritual significance. Even the disciples had to ask for clarifications on some occasion.

Today’s gospel reading is a typical illustration. Jesus gives two seemingly simple parables: one about a farmer planting grains and the other about a mustard seed. The disciples understood the story but they did not get the message until He explained it to them privately.

Jesus likes to talk in parables; it’s seems to be God’s favourite pedagogy. And He still speaks in parables even today, in the very ordinary events of our lives.  The happy moment you shared yesterday with your friend; what your wife told you this morning; the sad event of the loss of your pet; the malfunctioning of the ceiling fan; the facebook post you just read... these may be God’s parables, His way of communicating some spiritual truths to you through the very ordinary. You want to understand what the parables mean? Go to Him privately as the disciples did and ask Him to explain Himself.

Have a nice day and God loves you.