Mark 

3:20-35
REFLECTION

Quite a put down for Jesus’ family in the gospel: he says that his family is not just blood family but all of
us, doers and hearers of his word. His family had come to object to his mission and take him home,
thinking he had gone out of his mind. The family Jesus and Jesus himself would go through a few years
of alienation, except with his mother who was there with him to the end. At Pentecost they would be
united, with the apostles, and Mary and James, ‘the brother of Jesus’ together. Despite all this it’s good
to know that Jesus was part of an ordinary family who disagreed and even were distant for a while.
Family life, as the man said, ‘can be heaven or hell’, all in the one day. Family life is the place of
agreement and disagreement. It’s also the place of learning to live with the differences between us all.

Faith can unite. When we keep the word of God and live by it, then we are his true family. When we do
this, we get a lot of strength to keep going. It’s hard to look at the division and inner conflict within our
lives. The beginning of wholeness, however, is acknowledging our brokenness. Where is our own house
divided? How and to what extent have we created conflict and division within our relationships? In what
ways do we live fragmented lives, parceling out pieces here and there? What is it that shatters your life?
Anger and resentment, greed, insecurity, perfectionism, sorrow and loss, fear, envy, guilt, and loneliness
these are all sorts of forces, things, events, sometimes even people by which our lives are broken and
through which we are separated from God, others, and our self.

Christ is stronger than anything that fragments our lives. He binds the forces that divide, heals the
wounds that separate, and refashions pieces into a new whole. There is nothing about your life or my
life that cannot be put back together by the love God in Christ. Family life may be heaven or hell, but it’s
made each of us who we are. Energy for family life is gratitude – thank God each day for something in
someone of our family. It will often fill your day.
Mark 4:26-34 REFLECTION

In this Gospel, Jesus uses parables of the growth of a seed to describe the Kingdom of God. In both
parables, seeds, once scattered and sown, grow on their own accord. In the first parable, the scattered
seeds yield fruit, and Jesus proclaims that the harvest has come. In the second, Jesus compares the
Kingdom of God to the smallest of seeds: the mustard seed. When this seed is sown, it grows to be one
of the largest plants, a plant which provides shade for the birds of the sky. Very often we notice the he
ordinariness of Jesus. No big discourse on the kingdom of God. He Just looks around him and says it’s
like seeds growing and you can’t see them growing. People knew what he was talking about, seeds
growing down in the ground and you can do little about it. You just wait. They had little of the modern
quick ways even of sowing. All life was slow and that’s often the way. Like tiny beginnings of a baby. All
through life some of the best things are under our eyes and we do not see them. Coming to death there
is a slow journey often and it’s like growth is happening under the ground.

We are being grown by God always if only we would let him do it. And how we help others grow. You
may not know the faith that grows in your children. Jesus seems to imply that like a mustard seed, the
Kingdom of God has humble beginnings on Earth, but will soon grow to be larger than all else. We
cannot control the growth of a seed; likewise, we cannot control the growth of the Kingdom of God – it
is natural! The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem began this faith that we call Christianity, and it continues to
grow today, providing shade for many. Today’s reading challenges us to find the potential and the
beauty in the little things. Just as a mustard seed grows into a large, beautiful plant, the smallest of
actions and occurrences may be the beginnings of something much bigger. The Kingdom of God exists in
the smallest of seeds: a child’s laugh, a sunshine-y day, a “hello” to a stranger, a sharing of one’s faith
story, a sharing of a meal, an acknowledgement of someone’s humanity and the list goes on. Where can
we find the Kingdom of God today? Let us foster its growth and find comfort in its shade.

Faith is different for all of us in practice and specifics. Or the way children are taught to love and it
comes out in the next generation: seeing love in a marriage and learning from example to forgive, to live
in peace with each other. Seeds are sown and grow – how to love and forgive, how to share with our
neighbor, how to face death. When we remember our dead, what comes to mind is what they taught us
about life. A lot of the best in life is waiting. Important moments come at God’s time. So much of life is
on trust.
Mark 6:1-6 REFLECTION

It’s easy to think you know people. Then they can surprise you. We can find ourselves making opinions
and judgments easily on people on color, race or age. Or we know them for a long time and then
something happens like a marriage or a death and we see another side to them. We think the same
even about Jesus, was Jesus a carpenter? No. He could work in wood, metal or stone. So immediately
we are challenged by this gospel like they were. Here was the ordinary man, going every week to work
in Sepphoris, a few kilometers from his home, now taking on the role of preacher and prophet. Nothing
divine about that or maybe it’s one of the most divine things we can do.

Work and family bring us close to God who is working all the time and who is loving all the time. How
might you see God today, creation, love, silence, care? A new baby in the family, God’s creation of new
life with us, or someone who is very ill but in weakness of the body is also finding peace in the prospect
of heaven that is God at work. God is around in the depth moments of life. What does this gospel make
of Jesus? He makes sense of our lives with us and for us, teaching and healing with compassion and love.
We do not know him fully, we don’t know all he said, but live by the echo of his words. Times and
cultures change, of course, and I'm not advocating this practice as the best way to spread the Gospel
today. Still, it should give us some pause as many of us worship in well-appointed sanctuaries and live
with salaries, pensions, and any number of shoes and extra clothes. The text is not intended to be a
scolding, however, and isn't even the only model for ministry.

Would you agree that we are living in a world that is more and more characterized by unbelief? If so,
doesn't it feel as if we are living in a Nazareth-world? A culture that is, at best, disinterested in Jesus? If
so, isn't it utter folly to think we can change anything by preaching Christ? In fact, isn't any Christian
whose life has been transformed by Christ living defenseless in a world where security and status are
calculated commodities? We do have one thing those disciples did not, and it makes all the difference.
We have experienced the faithfulness of God in Jesus crucified and risen. So, we may marvel at the
unbelief around us, but still we go forth, proclaiming and practicing our faith in Christ.
Mark 6:7-13 REFLECTION

There is a certain freedom about accepting the word of God and the gospel of Christ. Jesus tells his
disciples not to force the truth of the gospel on people. If they don’t accept it and welcome it they are to
move on. The journey of faith is complicated and a long journey. People accept bits and pieces at times,
and remain open to further growth. We sometimes expect too much of people and forget that their life
stories and their struggles may make it too much to accept a lot of the gospel. Is the person whose
spouse left him or her condemned forever to a single life? Or some types of criminal people never to be
forgiven and welcomed back in the church?

The reason the apostles would walk away is that people would not listen to them, not that they would
not do what they said. We hope for openness to the gospel from people, as we hope for openness to
everyone’s life story when we try to share the word of Jesus. This is true for parents and teachers; we
open the word of God and the truth of Jesus to younger people, and hope that now or later they will be
followers of Jesus. It does not happen immediately. The prophet Amos seems to come from an ordinary
job to be a prophet; from the ordinary ways we try to follow Christ and live out the gospel we can share
the best of our faith with another generation.

Part of the growing-up experience of a child is to be summoned and instructed by his/her parents to do
this and that. As the child enters school the teacher will also play the role of the parents by summoning
and giving instructions to the child. The child will now become an adult and will be through with his
college studies. Perhaps he will tell himself: At long last! I am through from being summoned and being
instructed, but not yet. There shall be a very powerful voice that will perpetually summon, tell and guide
him on how he must properly live his life.

This very powerful voice is no other than the voice of Jesus who speaks to us thru the homily of a priest,
the voice of Jesus who speaks to us through the voice of a Godly relative or friend. And the voice of
Jesus who will speak to us the moment we read the bible with reverence. If we will listen to this
powerful voice of Jesus we would be assured of a worthy and well lived life in this world. In our gospel
the apostles were summoned, given authority and instructed by Jesus after whom He sent them to their
mission two by two. These were the instructions of Jesus: “Take nothing for the journey but a walking
stick-- no food, no sack, no money, wear sandals, wherever you enter a house, stay there until you
leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your
feet in testimony against them."

The apostles faithfully followed these instructions. That is why they were very successful with their given
mission. One of the countless concrete evidence of their success is the faith that we have right now. We
attribute the Catholic faith that we hold on today to their faithful discipleship to Jesus. They responded
to the voice of Jesus and faithfully followed His instructions. We too are being summoned and instructed
by Jesus to help Him and the apostles spread the faith.
John 6:24-35 REFLECTION

A lady came into the church and took the hosts form the offertory table and gave them to her children.
Someone reprimanded her, and she simply said they had no food for the last two days. This is a true
story and the way of life for so many hungry people today, in a world where this is enough food to feed
us all. The gospel today is a mixture of two foods – people came for more bread from Jesus. He knows
their need and many times he feeds people. He also knows the need of the soul and the life for the soul
which the food of the Eucharist brings.

Both are calls to feed the hungry and give meaning to the soul. Jesus meets both needs. He challenges: ‘I
was hungry and you gave me food’; through our feeding the hungry not alone do we feed him, but we
also do his will, which his kingdom of justice and equality may come. We feed the soul for him also in
our sharing faith, meaning in life and love in many ways with each other. Ordinary bread feeds the body;
the bread of life brings hope to the soul. Many well fed people need this hope; many hungry people, like
the mother feeding her children with the communion hosts, already have it. The crowd certainly
appears to seek Jesus. In the abundance of loaves and fishes they realized they were onto a good thing.
The search for more has moved them from one side of the lake to the other. Jesus looks to them like an
easy way to provide life’s basics. Everyday these 5,000 men and the uncounted women and children
seek ways to defeat hunger – people who work, cook, grow, forage and feed. Most if not all of their daily
work goes into providing life’s essentials. Luxuries may not come easily. Perhaps, for some, it is a good
day when there is enough.

That day with Jesus on top of that mountain was certainly a good day, a free lunch with food to spare, so
much so that brimming baskets were simply left behind. His provision was too abundant to overlook his
escape. And so they stand, hungry, before Jesus again. It looks like they have come. It looks like they
have believed. Neglected jobs, chores undone, energy spent hunting; surely these are acts of faith and
trust. But Jesus is quick to finger their motive. They merely seek more loaves. God’s presence and action
does not take precedence. They have seen the sign of God but not followed in the direction it indicates.
To be sure, it has led them to search. But they seek – not for God – but, merely for more signs. As Jesus
suggests, they are working for food that perishes. Jesus urges them to work for the imperishable. When
they ask what God wants they are told simply to ‘believe in the one God sent’. They request the
assurance of another sign – as though the loaves and fish are not enough. Ultimately, they are still
asking for the same thing: manna – like Moses in the wilderness.

I guess that is why the final verses of this passage are the peak of the story. As important as ‘daily
bread’ is, they offer more than temporary nourishment of the body. They offer Jesus himself described
as living bread that will ultimately satisfy: ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be
hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’
John 6:41-51 REFLECTION

Elijah needed food for both the body and soul, for forty days which in the Hebrew Testament is a
symbolic number for a journey of the soul. Food for the soul can be some prayer, a good chat at a bad
moment, the Mass. culture, art, music, prayer to feed the soul. The bread of life of Jesus is both Holy
Communion and other nourishment for the soul. This means that at our deepest we are spiritual. Our
essence is from God and for God, and the journey is human. Both are one.

In all of this is the presence of Jesus. The one who is our bread of life, and through us he feeds others in
many ways. In receiving the bread of life we commit ourselves to being ‘Eucharist People’ offering the
love and compassion of God to the world. In this Gospel, the Jews feeling disappointed by not getting
their stomach filled with worldly bread, murmured and complained about Jesus’ claims regarding his
identity. They could not comprehend what Jesus meant by “he came down from heaven,” because for
them it is contradictory. They knew his earthly background, his entire family members. He cannot be the
son of Mary and Joseph and at the time came down from heaven. It is obvious that the crowd could not
even see beyond the surface of the sign. Jesus responding to them says, “Only those who are chosen by
God will recognize him as the one that God sent”. Those who listen to God will recognize Jesus as the
one sent by God and those who believe will never hunger nor thirst but have eternal life.

In our modern world, most of Christians reflect the life of Jesus’ interlocutors in this gospel. Most people
fail to see Jesus’ true identity, they still treat Jesus like garbage or trash cans and bags valued only for
storing waste; they are coming and praying to him only for their selfish interests, and gratification of
material things. They murmur and complain about Jesus’ identity when things go wrong, accusing and
blaming him for allowing their suffering, but in rosy times, they don’t recognize him. So, Jesus is asking
us “Where do you belong?” As a Christian, do you recognize Jesus’s identity as the “Bread of life” at the
altar when we gather for Mass, or are you still doubtfully blinded by the wind of materialism?
Remember Jesus concludes today’s gospel with the central element of our Eucharistic theology, the
summit of our liturgical worship: the bread of life will bring eternal life to those who partake of it, and
the bread Jesus gives is his own flesh, given for the life of the world. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist
becomes a spiritual food that sustains us, renews our hope and leads us to eternal life.

Sometimes we have to wait, and maybe sift through different moods. In the awaiting is the feeding. We
are being fed all the time by God, and sometimes we don’t notice. The Eucharist is the summit of other
feedings and meals. Our hopes of life after death and our resurrection give the food that always lasts.
Your life can either bring people closer to God or drive them away from God. At the time of death we
need reminders of meeting God in the next life.