Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Whose Authority?
At one time or another, each of us has sought a mentor or a guide when it comes to making moral decisions—when seeking to do the right thing. We seek someone with experience, with wisdom. We seek someone who will be honest and compassionate, someone who wishes us well. A mentor or guide may tell us things that are hard to hear, but upon deep reflection, our hardened hearts can listen again.
Jesus was human, just like us. As a teacher, Jesus taught the people as one having authority, an authority very different from that of the scribes. The scribes were famous for winning arguments and destroying their opponents. Jesus, on the other hand, invited his followers—his disciples—to see as God sees, to love as God loves.
Jesus spent his life teaching about the kingdom of God, what God sees and what God loves, what God desires on this earth as much as in heaven. Notice who Jesus spends time with, who he pays attention to—who matters to Jesus? Not the usual persons we would think of, I dare say. In that attentiveness, that ministering to “outcasts” we might identify some of the demons inside of us that need to “come out” or need to be cast out.
By whose authority do we live? Are there any scribes in our lives? When does Jesus’ authority prevail?
Alice Camille proposes 5 new mysteries of the rosary in a new article in U.S.Catholic.
The first healing mystery:
Jesus restores the outcast to community
“Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” (Luke 17:17)
They were lumped together as “unclean.” Nobody knows what afflictions they suffered. These lepers couldn’t be touched, were thrust from home and family, and were forced to live apart. Whatever infected them couldn’t have been worse than this awful isolation, as we know intimately.
Jesus, heal us from this pandemic. Restore our community to health and wholeness. May we remain grateful for the privilege of human gathering.
The second healing mystery:
Jesus rewards the woman of courage
“Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” (Matt. 9:22)
She wasn’t supposed to be out in public, touching a man’s clothes, or cause a stir that would embarrass her family. But the hemorrhaging woman had suffered too much for too long to behave by social norms that didn’t serve her and couldn’t save her. She trusted Jesus. Good for her!
Jesus, bless the courageous ones who won’t sit quietly by and suffer without taking their destiny in their own hands.
The third healing mystery:
Jesus frees the imperiled child
“Lord, have mercy on my son, for . . . he suffers terribly.” (Matt. 17:15)
This poor child fell often into fire and into water. He reminds us of all our children now suffering the effects of conditions they did nothing to cause and are powerless to change.
For all the ways in which the world’s children suffer—hunger, domestic abuse, impaired learning conditions, depression, anxiety, shame— Lord, rescue our children and restore their hope.
The fourth healing mystery:
Jesus heals the person suffering mental distress
“But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ ” (Mark 1:25)
Demons haunt us all. But some, like this man who cried out to Jesus, are especially burdened. People who are emotionally fragile, or whose mental health was already compromised, suffer exceptionally from the pandemic conditions of stress, upheaval, and isolation.
Lord, we ask you to keep our vulnerable loved ones in your special care. Hold them in the palm of your hand and let them feel your constant protection.
The fifth healing mystery:
Jesus heals the Earth’s abundance
“So they cast [the net], and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.” (John 21:6)
Behind the realities of pandemic looms the greater danger of a world enduring the cumulative effects of exploitation, greed, indifference, and ignorance. Climate change is changing the rules of our future survival.
Merciful Lord, this creation is your first and best gift to us. Give us the wisdom and the will to transform our global commitment to the planet that is our home.