Saint Blaise Bishop and Martyr &
Saint Ansgar, Bishop
Biographical Information about St. Blaise
Biographical Information about St Ansgar
Readings for Saturday of the 4th Week in Ordinary Time
Commentary:
Reading 1 Heb 13:15-17, 20-21
This selection from Hebrews gives us a definition of the kind of sacrifice to be offered by Christians; praise from the lips and works of love and kindness. This is followed by the beginning of the closing salutary prayer as the Pauline author ends the letter with a blessing.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
We are given what is probably the most quoted Psalm in Holy Scripture and perhaps one of the most commonly used of all the scripture, Psalm 23. It is both a song of praise and a prayer in difficult times.
Gospel Mk 6:30-34
Since yesterday’s celebration of the Presentation of the Lord did not continue the story in Mark’s Gospel, and today’s passage seems to pick up where Thursday’s story ended, we need to put one historical event in place so continuity is not broken. Between St. Mark’s account of the disciples being sent two by two, and today when they return and give Jesus a report, Herod has had John the Baptist executed at the request of his wife’s daughter.
Now we hear the disciples called “Apostles” for the first time being gathered to give an account of what they had accomplished. They will not assume this formal title until after Pentecost but St. Mark uses it here perhaps because they have now become Christ’s emissaries, not just his students.
They go off to a deserted place to rest but are followed by a large crowd, which means, since they were in a boat, they did not sail far from shore since the crowd knew where they were putting in and were there to meet them. The Lord looked at this new Exodus and saw them as sheep without a shepherd – He began to teach them.
Reflection:
There is a saying of some indeterminate age that goes; “If being a Christian was a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” The implication here is that our actions define our identity in an almost existential way.
If we lump together the three pericopes (the term means cohesive units of scripture); the story from Thursday where Jesus sends out the disciples; the story we missed about John’s execution; and the story today about the return of the disciples, we see a truth emerge that is important for us.
If we were the disciples sent by Jesus we might think; “Wow, this is going to be great. We get the authority to do the Lord’s work.” Off we go and our own fame starts to spread. Little do we know that King Herod hears about our exploits as well and begins to feel very threatened. Perhaps stimulated in part by our threat, he reacts, killing John the Baptist. We, being friends of his cousin, Jesus, go and bury the body and then return to Jesus to give a report of our first try at spreading the word.
The lesson for us is that when we do what we are called by the Lord to do, we are almost assuredly going to meet serious resistance. The great enemy, Satan, does not take the threat of God’s rule in our hearts lying down. He uses every trick in the book to derail our efforts and just as the disciples thought they had scored a victory, the evil one pushed back.
As we go forward now, armed with the strength of the Holy Spirit, let us not forget that we are struggling against a mighty foe. The same foe that moved Agricola, governor of Cappadocia, to kill St. Blaise whose only crime was curing the sick.
Pax
ALTRE
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