This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. In this week’s posts we returned to our consideration of the Gospel of Mark. Before we continue, it is perhaps good to consider a “bigger picture” and gather our thoughts. As Van Linden points out, Mark’s gospel had presented a series of six miracles and then suddenly we are in the midst of a controversy that at first seems like “making a mountain out of a molehill.” Why break up the flow? The miracles demonstrate the power of God and for the attentive, the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, but is there more that Mark is attempting to present? With that I will leave you with some final thoughts. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. 14 He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. 15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”…. 21 From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. 23 All these evils come from within and they defile.” Continue reading →

This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, lectionary cycle B. After five consecutive Sunday gospels addressing the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel, we again return to the primary source of gospel readings for the year: the Gospel according to Mark. When we last proclaimed this gospel we did so on the 15th and 16th Sundays. In those Sundays Jesus had sent the disciples out on mission “two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick— no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.” (Mark 6:7-9). Continue reading →