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“The leprosy left him immediately...”
Time and time again throughout the four Gospels, we witness how Jesus cured people on the spot – their infirmity was healed, removed or eradicated immediately. In the case of today’s Gospel selection from Mark, Jesus immediately healed a person afflicted with leprosy.
But not all miracles happen in an instant. Some require several steps. Others require more time.
In Chapter 9 of the Gospel of John, Jesus cures a man born blind by first mixing spittle and mud before applying the mixture to the man’s eyes. In Chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel, the healing of another blind man requires two satges. In Chapter 2 of John’s Gospel Jesus turns water into wine seemingly as a last resort. And in the Gospels of Mark (7:25-30) and Matthew (15:21-28) Jesus agreed to heal the possessed daughter of the Syrophoenician woman only after what sometimes appears to have been a protracted negotiation. For that matter, in the Old Testament (2 Kings 5) Naaman the Syrian was cured of his leprosy only after bathing seven times in the River Jordan.
Whether in an instant, over several stages or the course of a lifetime, all miracles share one thing in common – they begin by asking God for help. If even only as a first step, from what might we need to be healed, freed or liberated by God today?
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“Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord...”
In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“Anthony was the son of a wealthy Egyptian family. When his parents died, he inherited a fortune, which he gave away to the poor and then moved to the desert west of Alexandria to live as a hermit. St. Athanasius – Anthony’s contemporary and the author of his biography – says that the devil tried to break Anthony’s resolve by tempting him with the pleasures of indolence, fine food and wine and beautiful women. Through intense prayer, Anthony resisted all these temptations, at which point the devil attacked him, beating him into unconsciousness.”
“On rare occasions Anthony returned to civilization - once to encourage martyrs during a period of anti-Christian persecution, and on another occasion to publicly refute the heresy of Arius. In the last decades of his life, Anthony accepted disciples and organized them into a religious community over which he eventually presided as abbot. He remained with his monks until the day he died at the age of 105.” (This Saint’s for You, p. 325)
Be it in the business of society or the solitude of the desert, St. Anthony appears to have developed a knack for discerning which voices he might have been hearing at any given moment in time. He eschewed the suggestions of the devil and he embraced the promptings of God. In doing so, Anthony demonstrated that the only way to sing forever of the goodness of the Lord – that is, to follow the promptings of the Lord – is to by doing so one day at a time.
How can we sing of the goodness of the Lord just this day?
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“For there were many who followed him…”
As word of Jesus’ reputation for helping those in need spread, we are told in today’s Gospel that lots of folks (including Levi, a customs official) from lots of places travelled lots of distances to see him, to behold his face, to hear his voice to experience his healing power and to know his love.
In one of his Conferences to the Sisters of the Visitation, Francis de Sales remarked:
“It is very good for us to know and feel our misery and imperfection, but we must not allow that to discourage us; rather, our awareness of our miseries should make us raise our hearts to God by a holy confidence, the foundation of which ought to be in Him…The throne of God’s mercy is our misery; therefore, the greater our misery the greater should be our confidence in God.” (Living Jesus, page 45)
Today’s Gospel challenges people in need not to avoid God but to pursue God. Awareness of our sinfulness should not drive us away from God but should draw us closer to God. Have confidence that God will help us. Have confidence that God will heal you. Have confidence that God will empower us.
Why? Because God loves us! How? In the person of his Son, Jesus.
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“You have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be a holy…”
St. Francis de Sales believed that all people are called to be saints. In other words, all people are called to be holy. We have read or heard it many times before, but some things - most especially, important things - bear repeating: “When he created things God commanded plants to bring forth their fruits, each one according to its kind. In like manner, God commands Christians, the living plants of the Church, to bring forth the fruits of holiness, each according to one’s position and vocation.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part I, Chapter 2)
Striving for perfection - growing in holiness - “living Jesus” - is a formidable challenge. Embracing a life of virtue requires strength and courage. Renouncing sin requires strength and courage. Turning a deaf ear to temptation requires strength and courage. On any given day, our progress in devotion is marked by both success and setback.
However, this striving to be holy is made even more difficult when we attempt to be holy in a way that doesn’t fit our state or stage of life - a way of living that doesn’t fit who we are. While we are all indeed called to be holy, we are not called to be holy in the in exactly the same way as others. Francis reminds us:
“Devotion (holiness) must be exercised in different ways by the gentleman, the worker, the servant, the prince the widow the young girl and the married woman. I ask you, is it fitting for a bishop to want to live a solitary life like a monk? Or for a married man to want to own no more property than a monk, for a skilled workman to spend his whole day in a church, for a religious to be constantly subject to every sort of call in service to one’s neighbor, which is more suited to the bishop? Would not such holiness be laughable, confused and impossible to live?” (Ibid)
Francis de Sales put it another way in a Conference (On the Virtues of St. Joseph) to the early Visitation community: “Some of the saints excelled in one virtue, some in another, and although all have saved their souls, they have done so in very different ways, there being as many different kinds of sanctity as there are saints.” (Conference XIX, p. 365)
A more contemporary reflection on this issue comes from Nobel prize-winning author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel: “There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his or her own gate. We make a mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate other than our own.” (Night, Page 3)
To be sure, if there is indeed one model of Christian holiness, we find it in Jesus Christ, the one in whom all of us are consecrated. But to be holy - like Jesus is holy - is not about trying to be like someone else. Rather, being holy is about having the strength, integrity and courage to be who and how God wants each one of us to be, precisely in the places, circumstances and relationships in which we find ourselves each day.
Be who you are and be that well.
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“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, and your disciples do not fast?”
What distinguishes your run-of-the-mill comedian from a truly great comedian? Well, aside from having good material, the almost-universal answer is: “Timing”. Successful comedians are gifted with – or learned to develop – an incredible sense of timing.
The point that Jesus is trying to make in today’s Gospel is no laughing matter. In many cases, timing is everything. Fasting and feasting (among other things) are both good things. The challenge is to develop the sense to know the proper time to do one or the other. Recall the words found in the Book of Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1: “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven…”
In the Salesian tradition, developing this sense of timing goes hand-in-hand with the practice of virtue. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“A great fault in many who undertake the exercise of some particular virtue is thinking they must practice it in every situation. Like certain great philosophers, they wish either always to weep or always to laugh. Still worse, they condemn and censure others who do not practice the same virtues they do. The apostle (St. Paul) says, ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep,’ and ‘charity is patient, is kind,’ generous, prudent, discreet and considerate.”Jesus’ sense of timing - his knack for reading a situation, for recognizing his surroundings and for knowing what was called for with a particular person – enabled him to do the right thing at the right time in the right way. Unlike the “one-size-fits-all” approach of the disciples of John and the Pharisees, Jesus shows us that the authentic practice of virtue must be “tailor-made”.
Indeed, “there is a time for every purpose under heaven.” What time is it now? What are the things that God may be calling us to do today?
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Notwithstanding the increasingly common trend these days of removing all things religious from the public square, did you know that St. Agnes is still on the books as the patron saint of the Girl Scouts? In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“St. Agnes was chosen because not only was she martyred when she was barely in her teens, but she also possessed many of the qualities the Girl Scouts attempt to cultivate in themselves: courage, honesty, respect for self and for others, and service to God and neighbor.”
“Agnes came from a Christian family in Rome. She was about thirteen years old when she was arrested and hauled before a magistrate for the crime of being a Christian. He threatened to burn her alive, but Agnes would not deny her faith. Next, he tried to force her to join the virgins who served the goddess Vesta, but Agnes refused to perform any function in a pagan temple. Finally, the magistrate ordered the early adolescent to be exposed in a brothel and then beheaded. Despite the fact that Agnes was but one of tens of thousands of Christians martyred during the emperor Diocletian’s persecution of the Church, devotion to her sprang up and spread almost instantly after her death. In imagery and art, Agnes is frequently portrayed with a lamb, a symbol of her innocence and purity as well as a take-off on her name: in Latin, the word for ‘lamb’ is agnus.” (This Saint’s for You, p. 192)
Perhaps Agnes should also be portrayed with a lion in addition to a lamb. She was innocent and pure as a lamb, but she also was a lion insofar as saw God as her father, her rock and her fortress, the one helped her to be courageous and tenacious…to the death.
Today, how might we imitate her example on both scores?
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On this anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s decision, Roe vs. Wade, all dioceses in the United States are encouraged to observe a “Day of Prayer” for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. It is suggested that the faithful throughout the country celebrate the Mass “For Giving Thanks to God for the Gift of Human Life.”
Over 400 years ago St. Francis de Sales made the following statement in his Introduction to the Devout Life: “Consider the nature God has given us. It is the highest in this visible world. It is capable of eternal life and of being perfectly united to God’s Divine Majesty.” (IDL, Part One, Chapter 9)
What is more precious – what is more profound – what is more promising – what is more powerful – than the God-given gift of life? What better way to express our gratitude for this greatest of gifts than to treat life in all its forms with profound respect and reverence from conception until natural death!
And at every single step in between!
