The gospel for this coming Sunday, the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time ( Year B), is the Markan account of the calming of the storm waters on the Sea of Galilee. This gospel account appears in the context of parables and miracles.
In 4:1-34 Jesus teaches in parables, which keeps those “outside” from understanding (4:11-12), but Jesus “Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.” (4:34). However, we will see that even with the special instructions, the disciples don’t get it. But parables are not the only method of teaching. In 4:35-5:43 Jesus teaches with miracle – stilling the storm (4:35-41); the demonic legion (5:1-20); raising Jairus’ daughter and healing the woman with a flow of blood (5:21-43 – the text for next week). However, following these displays of Jesus’ power, the responses are not positive: Continue reading
This coming Sunday’s 
This coming Sunday’s 
The 
Mark alone records this parable: He said, “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)
Salt is important. It has its own Wiki page and even has a history book (Mark Kurlansky: 
The 
This coming Sunday the Church returns to “Ordinary Time” – not ordinary as regular and everyday, but from the Latin meaning to count. We celebrate the 
Too many irons in the fire, so to speak. I have a whole folder of work-in-progress articles, posts, studies, musings, and a “digital attic” of things in the folder “Interesting ideas.” One of the items in the attic was an introduction to St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians – or rather his on-going somewhat rocky relationship with the community at Corinth.
