10th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR B 24

TENTH SUNDAY, 09 JUNE 2024: GENESIS 3. 9-15; 2 COR 4.13 – 5.1; MARK 3. 20-35 Focus: “Where are you?’ 1. This Sunday, let us begin our reflection with this simple but crucial question. This was the question asked by God to the first parents. It is not a simple query seeking to know the location. It is a fundamental question that summons us for a profound selk-check. 2. Adam and Eve committed sin and so were afraid of God’s presence. They felt ashamed to face Him and stand before Him naked and transparent. They covered and hid themselves. 3. Today the same question is posed to each one of us. Where are you? Where do you stand? What is the state of affairs? What is the quality of life? What is the direction of our life-journey? Such a self-check must ultimately lead to self-renewal, as Paul exhorts us in the second reading that “our inner self is being renewed day by day”. 4. Now what are the components or requirements of this process? First of all, it calls for “Openness” against all our attempts to cover and hide our unpleasant reality. Often the problem is not so much the lack of goodness but the lack of openness to see it and encourage it. 5. There is so much blindness and stubbornness toward truth and good. Consequently, good is not only not recognized and appreciated, but it is presented as bad. This is what happened in the case of Jesus. Jesus in all benevolence heals many sick and demon-possessed. 6. Instead of recognizing God’s power in and through him, the Jewish people accuse him of healing with the help of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. They were so jealous, stubborn, and closed. Consequently, they will not accept and appreciate the good that surrounds them. 7. Still further, they will make wrong attributions even to the healing acts of Jesus. They wrongly attributed the miracles to Jesus’ coalition with Satan. They accused him, “he casts out demons with the help of Beelzebul, the prince of demons.” 8. Jesus makes it very clear that good cannot come from evil. Any trace of bad, division, weakness, and spiritual blindness is nothing but the work of the devil. At times, evil may promote itself in the disguise of good. But its ultimate result is harm and destruction. How foolish the people are not to see that all of Jesus’ holiness and goodness, all his power comes and can come only from God! 9. The devil is the strong man in the gospel. For a while, he is fully armed and has control over all. But once Jesus, the stronger one comes, the evil one has to give way. The power of God assails and overcomes the evil one. 10. But we need to realize that by ourselves and with our own human strength and capacity, we cannot resist, fight and overcome this strong one. We must know that we are weak, susceptible to fail and fall. We need to depend on God. Only with His strength can we stand firm against the evil one. Thus we need a total and humble “Surrender” to God. 11. Having been open and surrendered to God, we need to constantly “Belong” to the one spiritual family of God. It is no longer being conditioned and confined to our natural lineages and relationships. Rather we need to rise above to be the “mother, brothers and sisters” of a higher and larger spiritual family whose sole criterion is “doing the will of God”. 12. Further, we are called to be “Passionately committed” to the strengthening of the Kingdom of God. This implies in a way, being “mad” for God as Jesus was considered to be, because he was selflessly devoted to his mission even forgetting to eat. 13. Finally, this also urges us to be “Undivided and United” in working for the one kingdom of God. Jesus clearly indicates that any trace of division and disunity is a work of the devil and is destructive. Imperative: We are living in a world where there is a malaise of negativity and slander. Good is twisted and accused with wrong motives. It is here we need to bear witness to positive holiness and genuine goodness