'Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’ Sunday Reflections, 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Young Jew as Christ, Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel Mark 3:20-25 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)
Then Jesus went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’
Beggar Resting, Giacomo Ceruti [Web Gallery of Art]
The note that goes with this painting on Web Gallery of Art - a wonderful website - says: The stick of the sitting figure of about seventy years of age, the knapsack on his shoulders, and the wicker basket all identify him as a pilgrim rather than as a beggar seeking alms.
Pilgrims often are beggars in the sense that some depend entirely on the goodness of others for food and lodging along their way. The Columban seminarians in the Philippines usually go on such a pilgrimage as part of their spiritual formation as Kurt Zion Pala, now ordained and serving in Myanmar, describes in The Road to Agoo.
But sometimes we can see individuals simply as beggars and, in a sense, dismiss them from our thoughts, never knowing their stories, never knowing their humanity. That has been my experience a number of times down the years.
One such experience was during my seminary years, in the summer of 1964, while working for two weeks at The Morning Star Hostel, run by the Legion of Mary, about ten minutes' walk from where I lived in Dublin. It was a place of refuge for 'down and out' men. It was far from being a luxury hotel but was a place where every man, whether short-term or long-term, was respected. The facilities have improved since then.
While at the Morning Star I had a couple of long chats with a man I knew by sight. I'll call him Michael. He was a street singer, going around different parts of the city singing popular songs and hoping that people would give him a few pennies. Anytime I saw him he was just another beggar to me.
But in our conversations I met in Michael a man who had a spirituality that in a real sense was beyond me. He was highly intelligent and reflected on life. He wasn't from Dublin and didn't tell me how he had ended up in the Morning Star. But I got sense of a person for whom God was very real. I wondered if he was somewhat out of his mind or if he was some kind of mystic. I felt blessed by knowing him and figured that more likely he was a mystic, certainly a man close to God. And I saw his dignity as a person made in the image of God, the serene dignity of the beggar/pilgrim that Giacomo Ceruti captured in his painting, the serene dignity of the young Jew expelled from his native country captured by Rembrandt.
When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ These words in today's Gospel remind me of Michael. It is clear that the perception of some of those who knew Jesus was that he was somewhat 'off-centre'. Jesus is here identifying himself with every person who is, in some way, 'off-centre' or perceived to be such. Such persons are not always taken seriously by the rest of us. They are on the margins.
The note that goes with Rembrandt's Young Jew as Christ says, The sitter of the painting is a young Jew evicted from Spain and settled in Amsterdam in the neighbourhood of Rembrandt. Another person on the margins, evicted by followers of Jesus from his native country because he was ethnically the same as Jesus and his mother.
I once showed a very poor black and white copy of this painting during a Sunday homily at a Mass in a home for girls in the Philippines where most of the girls had been sexually abused. One, aged 14 or 15, asked if she could keep the copy. I later had a proper print made and framed and gave it to her. I asked her what had drawn her in Rembrandt's painting. She replied, 'He looks so human'.
In today's gospel we see the utter humanity of Jesus, God who became Man. We see his utter vulnerability, allowing himself to be dismissed by some as one who has gone out of his mind.
And then the extraordinary statement by Jesus: Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
Whatever our nationality, our ethnic origins, our social standing, our level of education, our intellectual or physical abilities, our language, Jesus calls us his brother and sister and mother. His own Mother is the only one, apart from Jesus himself, who carried out God's will perfectly. Nevertheless he considers all who desire, with God's grace, to carry out the Father's will his brother and sister and mother.
Jesus showed himself to me 54 years ago through Michael, whom I had seen only as a beggar before I met him. He shows himself to me through Ceruti's Beggar Resting, through Rembrandt's Young Jew as Christ. And Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, showed his humanity to my young friend in the Philippines who had been so badly treated through a very poor print of Rembrandt's painting!
Jesus reveals himself to us in the words of St John the Apostle in the hymn below, composed by a Pole and sung by a church choir in Indonesia in the ancient Latin language that is the heritage of all Roman Catholics.
May the words of Jesus and his presence among us in so many ways fill us with courage and hope!
Pilgrims often are beggars in the sense that some depend entirely on the goodness of others for food and lodging along their way. The Columban seminarians in the Philippines usually go on such a pilgrimage as part of their spiritual formation as Kurt Zion Pala, now ordained and serving in Myanmar, describes in The Road to Agoo.
But sometimes we can see individuals simply as beggars and, in a sense, dismiss them from our thoughts, never knowing their stories, never knowing their humanity. That has been my experience a number of times down the years.
One such experience was during my seminary years, in the summer of 1964, while working for two weeks at The Morning Star Hostel, run by the Legion of Mary, about ten minutes' walk from where I lived in Dublin. It was a place of refuge for 'down and out' men. It was far from being a luxury hotel but was a place where every man, whether short-term or long-term, was respected. The facilities have improved since then.
While at the Morning Star I had a couple of long chats with a man I knew by sight. I'll call him Michael. He was a street singer, going around different parts of the city singing popular songs and hoping that people would give him a few pennies. Anytime I saw him he was just another beggar to me.
But in our conversations I met in Michael a man who had a spirituality that in a real sense was beyond me. He was highly intelligent and reflected on life. He wasn't from Dublin and didn't tell me how he had ended up in the Morning Star. But I got sense of a person for whom God was very real. I wondered if he was somewhat out of his mind or if he was some kind of mystic. I felt blessed by knowing him and figured that more likely he was a mystic, certainly a man close to God. And I saw his dignity as a person made in the image of God, the serene dignity of the beggar/pilgrim that Giacomo Ceruti captured in his painting, the serene dignity of the young Jew expelled from his native country captured by Rembrandt.
When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ These words in today's Gospel remind me of Michael. It is clear that the perception of some of those who knew Jesus was that he was somewhat 'off-centre'. Jesus is here identifying himself with every person who is, in some way, 'off-centre' or perceived to be such. Such persons are not always taken seriously by the rest of us. They are on the margins.
The note that goes with Rembrandt's Young Jew as Christ says, The sitter of the painting is a young Jew evicted from Spain and settled in Amsterdam in the neighbourhood of Rembrandt. Another person on the margins, evicted by followers of Jesus from his native country because he was ethnically the same as Jesus and his mother.
I once showed a very poor black and white copy of this painting during a Sunday homily at a Mass in a home for girls in the Philippines where most of the girls had been sexually abused. One, aged 14 or 15, asked if she could keep the copy. I later had a proper print made and framed and gave it to her. I asked her what had drawn her in Rembrandt's painting. She replied, 'He looks so human'.
In today's gospel we see the utter humanity of Jesus, God who became Man. We see his utter vulnerability, allowing himself to be dismissed by some as one who has gone out of his mind.
And then the extraordinary statement by Jesus: Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
Whatever our nationality, our ethnic origins, our social standing, our level of education, our intellectual or physical abilities, our language, Jesus calls us his brother and sister and mother. His own Mother is the only one, apart from Jesus himself, who carried out God's will perfectly. Nevertheless he considers all who desire, with God's grace, to carry out the Father's will his brother and sister and mother.
Jesus showed himself to me 54 years ago through Michael, whom I had seen only as a beggar before I met him. He shows himself to me through Ceruti's Beggar Resting, through Rembrandt's Young Jew as Christ. And Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, showed his humanity to my young friend in the Philippines who had been so badly treated through a very poor print of Rembrandt's painting!
Jesus reveals himself to us in the words of St John the Apostle in the hymn below, composed by a Pole and sung by a church choir in Indonesia in the ancient Latin language that is the heritage of all Roman Catholics.
May the words of Jesus and his presence among us in so many ways fill us with courage and hope!
Antiphona ad communionem Communon Antiphon 1 John 4:16
Deus caritas est, et qui manet in caritate in Deo manet et Deus in eo.
God is love, an whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
The setting above of extracts from 1 John 4:7-21 and 1 John 3:1 is by contemporary Polish composer Henryk Jan Botor and is sung byCappella Victoria Jakarta. This Sunday's alternative Communion Antiphon is used as the refrain. The text is from the Nova Vulgata Latin translation of the Bible.
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
Diligamus invicem, quoniam caritas ex Deo est; et omnis, qui diligit, ex Deo natus est et cognoscit Deum. [Let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.]
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
In hoc apparuit caritas Dei in nobis, quoniam Filium suum unigenitum misit Deus in mundum, ut vivamus per eum. [In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.]
In hoc apparuit caritas Dei in nobis, quoniam Filium suum unigenitum misit Deus in mundum, ut vivamus per eum. [In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.]
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
Si sic Deus dilexit nos, et nos debemus alterutrum diligere, et nos debemus alterutrum diligere. [If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, we also ought to love one another.]
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
Si diligamus invicem, Deus in nobis manet, et caritas eius in nobis consummata est. [If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.]
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo. Nos diligimus, quoniam ipse prior dilexit nos. Et hoc mandatum habemus ab eo, ut, qui diligit Deum, diligat et fratrem suum. [And this is the commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also. We love, because he first loved us.]
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
Videte qualem caritatem dedit nobis Pater, et filii Dei nominemur et sumus. [See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.]
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
Deus caritas est, Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, in Deo manet, in Deo.
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