O. T. XX (B) Proverbs 9:1-6, Eph 5:15-20, John 6: 51-58

In October, 1972, a plane carrying 46 passengers of an Uruguayan rugby team and their families and supporters to an exhibition game in Chile crashed in the Andes. Nando Parrado, one of the survivors, tells the story of their 72 day struggle against freezing weather and dangerous avalanches in the book Miracle in the Andes. The author's mother and sister were among those killed in the crash. High in the Andes, with a fractured skull, eating the raw flesh of his deceased teammates and friends, Parrado calmly pondered the cruelties of fate, the power of the natural world and the possibility of his continued existence: "I would live from moment to moment and from breath to breath, until I had used up all the life I had," he wrote. The 16 survivors had nothing to eat except the flesh of their dead teammates. After two months, Nando, an ordinary young man – a rugby player - with no disposition for leadership or heroism, led an expedition of the remaining three of the survivors up the treacherous slopes of a snow-capped mountain and across forty-five miles of frozen wilderness in an attempt to find help. The party was finally rescued by helicopter crews. It was difficult for them to decide that eating human flesh was all right, even in those extreme circumstances! Hence, it is not surprising that Jesus’ listeners protested against his invitation to eat his flesh and drink his blood as described in today’s Gospel. 

That we cannot have everlasting life unless we eat Jesus’ Body and drink his Blood was a shocking message to the listeners. Indeed, Jewish law prohibited the eating of human flesh; and blood of any kind was considered to be the actual life of a living being. Drinking of blood, consequently, was prohibited in Judaism and in Christianity (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:10, 12, 14;cf. Acts 15:29). Some of Israel’s Old Testament neighbors apparently drank blood as a religious act, believing that if they drank the blood of an animal they took into themselves the strength and vitality of that creature because blood was life, and life was blood. Seeking life from the blood of an animal was idolatrous for Israelites because life comes from God alone. In addition, for the Jews, blood itself was a spiritual contaminant, and coming in contact with blood immediately rendered one ritually unclean. That was why a woman was considered to be ritually unclean for several weeks after she gave birth to a child. We saw in the Gospel how a woman with a chronic hemorrhage of blood dared not approach Jesus openly. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite on their way to the Temple would not contaminate themselves by contact with the injured man because he was bleeding. To this day, observant Jews will eat only kosher meat from which the blood has been fully drained.

 Eating the Living Bread, Jesus himself, allows us to participate in his life and to grow here and now in our eternal life with God. Jesus emphasizes the eternal-life dimensions of eating His Body and drinking his Blood.

Jesus reminds his listeners that this was not the first time in the history of salvation that God had provided his people with food. The people knew about the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness. They now must realize how that experience differed from Jesus’ feeding his followers with the Holy Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the eternal sacrifice of Jesus providing life to those who eat his Body and drink his Blood. Thus, the Holy Mass is the Sacramental act which transforms our lives into the Divine Life. In each Mass, Jesus transforms us into other Christs - ritually, sacramentally and existentially – thus keeping his promise: “I will be with you till the end of the world.”

When we receive Jesus in Holy Communion we accept a great challenge. We accept the triumphs and the tragedies, joys and the pains necessary to build up the Kingdom of God wherever we have been called to serve. 

No one would come to church to collect a morsel of bread, if that was all there was to it.  The only reason we come is that Jesus said, "Take and eat…this is my body; do this in memory of me."  All the other things we do, said Johann Tauler in the 14th century, can be so many paths to God, but in the Eucharistic Liturgy we are united with God in Christ, "with no intermediary."  "There is no difference between it (the consecrated bread) and God," he said. "In this gift he gives himself to us directly and not in any figurative way; he is united, simply and purely, with us. This is a feast indeed; there is nothing to compare with it."  We have to come to know this, he said, "by experience, by living… not by reasoning about it."

It is indeed a special experience to do or say something in Liturgy with full awareness that the only reason I am doing it is that God is God, and Christ is Christ, fully present, fully given to us.  This you might call the vertical axis.  Immediately there follows the horizontal, because Liturgy is not an escape or an alternative to our daily life.  But it begins from the vertical, not from the other.  It is like the way we make the Sign of the Cross: we make the vertical axis first.  And at the end of the Mass we are told, go and announce the gospel, and there we make the horizontal axis. So from the Sunday’s vertical axis, the Monday through Saturday horizontal axis should follow.

 May the reception of the body and blood of Jesus transform us into his body and help us to believe in the abiding presence of God in the Eucharist.

OT XIX [B] I Kings 19:4-8, Ephesians 4:30--5:2, Jn 6:41-51

At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the famous British Admiral Horatio Nelson was due to be buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. His sailors lifted his casket over their shoulders and majestically carried his body into the cathedral. Draping his coffin was a magnificent Union Jack. After the service, the sailors once more carried his body high in the air, this time to the graveside. With reverence and with efficiency they lowered the body of the world’s greatest admiral into its tomb. Then, as though answering to a sharp order from the quarterdeck, they all seized the Union Jack with which the coffin had been covered and viciously tore it to shreds, each taking his souvenir of the illustrious dead, a swath of colored clothe as a memento. It would forever remind them of the admiral they had loved. “I’ve got a piece of him,” one sailor remarked, “and I’ll never forget him.”

In like manner we now can have a piece of Christ - living bread - physically, spiritually, personally. Reaching out to receive him in faith is all that’s required.

Today’s Gospel describes Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum on his return there after his miraculous feeding of the five thousand. During the discourse, Jesus makes a series of unique claims: 1) “I am the Living Bread that came down from Heaven.” 2)”I am the Bread of Life.” 3) “The Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.” 4)“No one can come to me unless the Father Who sent me draws him.” 5)“I will raise him on the last day.” 6) “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God.” In short, Christ Jesus reveals himself as God and as the “Bread of Life from Heaven,” sent by the Father for our salvation.

The first reading describes the physical and spiritual hungers experienced by the prophet Elijah. In this reading, the Bread of Life Jesus speaks about is prefigured by the miraculous food with which the angel nourished Prophet Elijah in the desert while he was fleeing from the soldiers of Queen Jezebel.  After being nourished by the Lord, Elijah was strengthened for the long journey of forty days to Mount Horeb where God had given Moses the Ten Commandments. 

The lectionary compares God’s strengthening of his prophet by the miraculously-provided food with His strengthening of us in our pilgrimage to Heaven by the Bread from Heaven, namely, the Holy Eucharist. Jesus knows quite well that we need both spiritual and physical food for life’s journey. So, he offers both to us.

 Jesus wants us to eat him because he IS Bread. "You are what you eat" Jesus is Bread and he wants us to eat his Flesh. Thus, we bring him into the core of our being. He is ready to come into our lives, regardless of who we have been, or how unqualified we feel.

The Fathers of the Church explain that, while ordinary food is assimilated into man, the very opposite takes place in Holy Communion. Here man is assimilated into the Bread of Life. St.Augustine said since God is the superior principle he eats us and not we eating him. The superior principle eats the inferior principle. A tiger eats a deer; a deer doesn’t eat a tiger. A deer eats grass; grass doesn’t eat a deer. Grass absorbs minerals from the ground, minerals don’t eat grass. So, it is Jesus, God, the superior principle, who eats us, though externally looking we are eating Jesus in the bread. That is why when we receive him, we grow more into his likeness rather than Jesus becoming more into our likeness. All other food grows into our likeness.

When we receive the Holy communion we need to consciously receive him into our hearts to be more fruitful. In the case of any other food, without our consciously assimilating it, it becomes a nutrition for us. But in the case of the holy communion the more we accept him with faith and devotion it becomes powerful in us. So before we come to receive the holy communion it is good to consciously say some prayers of welcome to Jesus and after we receive him, give him thanks and have some intimate conversation with him. If we receive Jesus as a “thing”, it won’t do us any good. To receive Jesus as a spiritual food we have to have faith and receive him as God. Most of the time why we don’t feel not getting any better in our spiritual life is because we receive the communion very casually and without proper preparation.

St.John says that when Judas received the first communion at the last supper Satan entered into him. How come Jesus gave his own body to Judas and it caused him to welcome Satan into him? It is because he was bent on betraying and deceiving Jesus. When he received the power from God through the very flesh of Jesus, his evil intention got stronger and he went out of the supper room to betray Jesus. It can happen to us if we receive communion unworthily. We may be sinful, but we should have a repentant heart for that wrong we have done and the resolve not to do it again. Only then, our intention and mind gets changed to become good, and we grow in Jesus. Otherwise we will grow in the evil we have been doing and pondering on.

That is why St.Paul tells us not to receive communion unworthily. Sometimes for the sake of propriety we come to receive communion. But if we have that wrong attitude and intention to sin, it is in our interest that we don’t receive communion. It can do us the very thing that it did on Judas.

At the beginning of the mass when we do the act of contrition if we are really sorry for our sins and resolve to turn away from our sins that would help in our worthy reception of the Holy communion.

Today, let us be people who recognize Jesus, whom we consume, and who assimilates us into His being. Then, from Sunday to Saturday we will grow into Jesus, as he grows in us, our lives will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we will become more like him.

Thus, we shall share in the joyous and challenging life of being the Body of Christ for the world – Bread for a hungry world, and Drink for those who thirst for justice, peace, fullness of life, and even eternal life.

OT XVIII [B] Ex 16:2-4, 12-15; Eph 4:17, 20-24; Jn 6:24-35
 

During one of the busiest times at Houston's Hobby Airport, a flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem. Since they needed the gate for another flight, the aircraft was backed away from the gate while the maintenance crew worked on it. The passengers were then told the new gate number, which was some distance away. Everyone moved to the new gate, only to find that a third gate had been designated. After some further shuffling, everyone got on board. As they were settling in, the flight attendant made the standard announcement, "We apologize for the inconvenience of this last-minute gate change. This flight is going to Washington, D.C. If your destination is not Washington, D.C., then you should 'deplane' at this time."

A very confused-looking and red-faced pilot emerged from the cockpit, carrying his bags. "Sorry," he said, "wrong plane." What happens when the pilot does not know where he is headed?

There are people today who are very confused because they have looked to the wrong persons to help them find the meaning they seek. There are hundreds of Religions in today's world. New ones are born every year. Many people are blindly accepting strange theologies --- theologies that will not help them find the life that Jesus offers to you and me --- the Living Bread of God.

There are thousands of protestant denominations in the world today which provide to the faithful nothing more other than the sacrament of baptism. Because for any sacrament other than baptism, they need a validly ordained minister which they cannot have as they do not have a Church with tradition of validly ordained ministers. So they try to cater to the deepest needs of the heart with entertainment in their churches with good preaching and cup holders in the pew so they get satisfied with the peripheral needs. They satisfy the hunger of the heart with appetizers, namely the breaking of the word, but leave you without the main dish, the breaking of the bread: the Eucharist. To cover up this deficiency they will provide you with rock music and coffee and donuts so you won’t really notice what you are missing.   

In the gospel today we see, Jesus fed the people with loaves of bread and fish he had  miraculously multiplied. The next morning, it did not take long for the crowd to realize that Jesus had disappeared. As such, they set out to Capernaum where Jesus and His disciples were known to resort. The people were looking for a repeat performance of their miraculous feeding. When they found Jesus on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"

 In answer to their question about his arrival, Jesus told them that they looked for him for another free meal and that such meals would not satisfy them. The people had not perceived the true meaning of the signs but only considered the material aspect of the miracle, having failed to reflect on its significance. Hence, he instructed them to labor for food that would give them eternal life. Jesus continued, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."

This  echoes the words that are found in the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant..." [Is. 55:2-3] The Jewish people were very familiar with these words. Yet, the difficulty that Jesus was experiencing was the worldly mindedness of the people.

Material things do not necessarily bring us happiness. That is a fact of life. It is a hard fact to understand sometimes, especially in a society that tries very hard to teach us otherwise.

Buddhism is a religion based on seeking enlightenment, and not desiring material or tangible things. They believe that suffering is caused by desire. The principle is, we desire, we suffer because we do not own the thing we desire, and once we own the thing, we desire something else, so the suffering continues. There are too many desires in the world, and a human, will never be truly happy.

It is very common to get into a mode where you think, "If only I had object X, my life would be perfect and I would be happy." You  really want something: a new TV, a new car, a special pair of shoes, whatever. Then you buy it and you love having it for a few days. But over time you get bored or it wears out. You can see this pattern repeated constantly in our own life. For example, our parents and grandparents likely spent thousands and thousands of dollars on toys for us as we were growing up: Dump trucks and Barbie dolls and video games and electric cars and on and on and on. All of those toys got boring or broken or outgrown eventually. They brought happiness for a moment or a week, but over time they became worthless and our desire turned to a new object.

Jesus was asking His listeners to change their hearts and minds in order to see God in a new light. Instead of asking for bread for their stomachs as their ancestors did when Moses led them out of Egypt they should ask for the Bread of Life, the Bread Jesus was going to give them, His Body and Blood. 

As the Bread of Life from Heaven, Jesus claims that only he can satisfy man’s spiritual hunger. While bodily food helps us to stay alive in this world, spiritual food sustains and develops our supernatural life which will last forever in heaven.

Only God can satisfy our various forms of spiritual hunger. St. Augustine said: "O God, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” 

We believe that the Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian Life“(Lumen Gentium), because it contains the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Jesus Christ himself. 

Let us nourish our souls with this Heavenly manna and carry Jesus to our homes and workplaces, radiating his love, mercy and compassion all around us.

O.T. XVII [B] (July 29): 2 Kings 4:42-44, Eph 4:1-6, John 6:1-15

A man received a special pre- Christmas gift from his rich brother. It was a beautiful new car - fully loaded and ready to go. On Christmas Eve, when he came out of his office, a street kid was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it.  "Is this your car, mister?” the kid   asked. When he replied that it was and that his brother had given it to him for Christmas, the boy said, "You mean your brother gave it to you, and it didn't cost you anything? Free? For nothing? Gosh, I wish..." The boy hesitated, and the man knew what he was about to say.  He had heard it many times over the past few days. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the boy said shocked the man.  ”I wish", the boy said, "I wish I could be a brother like that." We can be a brother like that or a sister like that. All it takes is that we offer ourselves and what we have, to God.  All it takes is that we cease to worry about how little we have and begin instead to think about what it is that we can offer to others, as the little boy in today’s gospel story did by sharing his bread and fish with the multitude through Jesus.

 The first reading tells us how the prophet Elisha, by invoking God’s power, fed one hundred men with twenty barley loaves. This miracle foreshadowed the gospel account of Jesus' miraculous feeding of the crowd who followed him to hear his words. This is the only miracle, other than the resurrection, that is told in all the gospels, a fact that speaks of its importance to the early Church. The reaction of the people was immediate and unanimous; they interpreted the miracle as a messianic sign and gave Jesus two Messianic titles: "The prophet” and "the one who is to come." This miracle teaches us that God works marvels through ordinary people. Elisha’s servant and Jesus’ disciples distributed the bread, provided by God. Thus, God meets the needs of the people through the services provided by the members of His community.  

 One of the greatest tragedies of our time is the fact that millions of people are reduced to starvation throughout the world.  In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty". Every year 15 million children die of hunger. For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years. 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days! The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Nearly one in four people, ie.1.3 billion, live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people.

God has arranged the world in such a way, that every person may have the food he or she needs. God continues to work thousands and millions of miracles in nature to provide food for his children: the power to sprout which a seed contains, the way a grain grows and the way nature takes care of the crops. Food in the world should suffice to feed God's children but it will never suffice to fill the greed of men. Those of us who live in an industrialized society place a high priority on comfort and convenience. Our standard of living places a significant strain on the world economy. Certainly this is something Christians must consider in terms of their own economic lifestyle. At a time when people are not getting enough to eat, we are living a lifestyle far beyond what many could even imagine. We have a great challenge before us. We must not only consider what we can do to feed the hungry, but we must also consider what we should do to limit our indulgent lifestyle.

God blesses those who share their talents, with loving commitment. This is illustrated by Mother Teresa who went to serve the slum dwellers of Calcutta with just twenty cents in her pocket. When she died forty-nine years later, God had turned those original twenty cents into eighty schools, three hundred mobile dispensaries, seventy leprosy clinics, thirty homes for the dying, thirty homes for abandoned children and forty thousand volunteers from all over the world to help her. We can begin our own humble efforts at "sharing" right in our parish by participating in the works of charity done by organizations like the St. Vincent De Paul Society, Foresters, the Knights of Columbus and other volunteer groups. We may say, “I do not have enough money or talent to make any difference”.  But we need to remember that the small boy in the story had only five barley loaves and two dried fish. The Bible guarantees that every believer has at least one gift from the Holy Spirit. This is our one “tiny fish”. Perhaps our “fish” is not money, but a talent or an ability that God has given us. We all have something. If you have never trusted God with your time, or your talent, or your treasure...all your resources...this is the time to start.  Let us offer ourselves and whatever we have to God saying, “Here is what I am and what I have Lord; use me; use it.” And He will bless us and bless our offering, amplifying it beyond our expectations. When we give what we have to God, and we ask Him to bless it, it is then the miracle happens. And we can be distributors of God’s blessings to others.

OT XIV [B] (July 5) Ez 2: 2-5; II Cor 12: 7-10; Mark 6: 1-6

 There is a funny story about a bishop who was interviewing a senior seminarian before his ordination as deacon, and asked him where he would like to be assigned as a deacon for pastoral training. The seminarian said, somewhat boldly, "Oh, my bishop, anywhere but New Canaan!" "Why not there," the bishop asked? "You know," the seminarian answered, "That’s my hometown -- and we all know that ‘a prophet is not without honor except in his native place.’” The bishop replied, "Don't worry my friend! Nobody in your hometown is going to confuse you with a prophet."

 Today’s readings introduce Jesus as a prophet and explain how prophets and other messengers from God inevitably suffer rejection. The readings challenge us to face rejection and hardship with prophetic courage. 

The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, tells us about his call from God to be a prophet. Yahweh warns Ezekiel that he is being sent to obstinate and rebellious Israelites in exile in Babylon. Hence, as God’s prophet, he will have to face rejection and persecution for giving God’s message. In the second reading, St. Paul gives us the same warning from his experience that not only the prophets, but the apostles and missionaries also, will have to encounter hardships and rejection in their preaching mission. Paul confesses that God gave him a share in Christ’s suffering – a chronic illness which gave him pain, a “thorn in the flesh" – so that he might rely on God’s grace and might glory in the power of a strengthening God.

The story of Jesus' rejection in his own town is a story that we can identify with, because it is a story that has happened to most of us.  Often our friends, families, or childhood companions fail to listen to, and refuse to accept, the words of grace, love and encouragement that we offer to them, because they are too familiar with us. Hence, they are unable to see us as God's appointed instruments, the agents of God’s healing and saving grace. 

The father of a family introduced his children this way to his friend: 'This is Pete. He's the clumsy one of the lot.' 'That's Kathy coming in with mud on her shoes. She's the sloppy one.' 'As always, Mike is last. He'll be late for his own funeral, I promise you.' The dad did a thorough job of gluing his children to their faults and mistakes. People do it to us all the time. They remind us of our failures, our errors, our sins, and they won't let us live them down.

The Wright Brothers workshop in Dayton, Ohio, was restored in 1988. Years ago, no one believed that they would ever get their flying machine off the ground, especially their father who was a minister. He said that if God wanted people to fly he would have given them wings. Wilbur and Orville, looking to the future, not the past, went to North Carolina, where they would not be treated as the local boys, to test their dream.

But Sometimes we Need the Thorn to bring out the best in us. Someone once asked Abraham Lincoln why he wouldn't replace a cabinet member who constantly opposed him. Lincoln told the story about the farmer who was trying to plow with a very old and decrepit horse. Lincoln noticed on the flank of the animal a big thistle caught in the animal's hair. Lincoln started to pull it off and the farmer said, "Don't remove that thistle, Abe! If it wasn't for the sticker, this old horse wouldn't move an inch!" That means, treat your problems as challenges. People who are difficult to work with, problems that seem insurmountable - notice how they keep you digging inside yourself for greater strength. In the end, you accomplish great feats, not in spite of, but because of your problems.

We need to handle rejection in the right spirit: We need to avoid magnifying the rejection. We need to avoid allowing rejection to derail our dreams. Every rejection can be a lesson if we stay open to new possibilities and new opportunities. Someone has said that plants grow best in the darkness of night just before dawn. Our failures can be the door to a new success.

Let us check also the other side of the coin. How often do we discount God’s agents through prejudice? How often do we fail to see God’s image in them because of our own hard heartedness? We must realize that God's power is always available to transform even the most unlikely people.

 There is a story about an old monastery which was down to just three monks. Years had passed since anyone joined the order. Its time had passed and these three monks figured they would be the last. The abbot in charge shared his sadness with a friend, the neighboring rabbi. The rabbi looked surprised. "Oh no," he said. "Your order will not die. Your monastery will not close. I have had a revelation that the Messiah is among you. So, no, you will not close." The Abbot returned to the other monks scratching his head, and told his two colleagues. They were all astonished. And suddenly, they began to see each other in an entirely new light. They began to take care of each other as never before, as if they were taking care of the Messiah. They listened to each other as they had never listened before, as if they were listening to the Messiah. They blessed one another as they had never blessed one another before, as if they were blessing the Messiah. Visitors to the monastery noticed the quality of the monks’ care for one another. It was beautiful. And it was contagious. People wanted to experience what they experienced. People wanted to join, and when they did, they were told the secret: "Sh-h-h-h-h! The Messiah is here among us!" And each met the Messiah in the other until all were drawn close in the love of God. The messiah is among you, in this parish, in your family.

XIII. O.T.[B]: Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24; 2 COR 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mk 5:21--43

 The whole world was saddened when Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died in a medical clinic in Mexico. What was she doing in Mexico? It's simple. Doctors in the United States had told her they could do no more for her. The clinic in Mexico offered hope. That hope may have been an illusion, but who can blame her?

Two years ago the day I reached home for vacation, my 26 year old nephew who had been going through cancer treatment discontinued his treatments, because his treatments gave him more pain than his sickness gave, adding to the fact that there was no improvements with the treatments but grew worse. With all hope lost he was waiting for death to come and in less than a month’s time there came a Charismatic retreat in our parish, conducted by a healing minister. My dad forced my nephew to attend the retreat. On the first night of the retreat, he thought that was his last day on earth because of the severity of pain. But he survived that night and so he went the second day too. And finally he made all the 5 days retreat and at the end of the retreat he felt he got healed. He went back to his college and finished his studies and was about to start on a job last month and he found out that the cancer came back. Further tests showed that it was in a little advanced stage now. Doctors told there isn’t much to do with treatments but could try. He is waiting now to start on the treatments.

Someone who has lost all hopes would be willing to make any sacrifices to get some hope.

The two people in today’s gospel find Jesus because they lost all hope and they found hope in him.  The woman had lost all hopes for cure after 12 years of treatment with no improvements and the father of the 12 year old girl who had lost all hope of her survival comes to Jesus.

This story tells us a lot about this man who was the ruler of the synagogue, a person of some considerable importance. He was one of the most important and most respected men in the community. But something happened to him when his daughter fell ill and he thought of Jesus.

First of all, his prides were forgotten. There can be no doubt that he might have regarded Jesus as an outsider and as a dangerous heretic. But he was big enough to abandon his prejudices in his hour of need. "Prejudice cannot see the things that are because it is always looking for things that aren't” When Jairus shed his prejudice, he was able to see what Jesus was able to do for him. He realized, none but only Jesus could help him.

The woman’s boldness in touching Jesus' garment -- which, according to the Law, made Jesus unclean -- could have angered him. Further, because her “chronic bleeding disease” rendered her ritually unclean, and any contact she had with others in the crowd, made them also ritually unclean as well. But her Faith in the healing power of Jesus was so strong that she risked breaking all the social rules to seek what she believed He could do for her. I think one of the reasons she touched the garment was not to make Jesus unclean by her touching, but that would be sufficient enough to get her healing. That may be also why she delayed acknowledging she touched him.

By affectionately calling her "daughter," Jesus established a relationship with her and gave her the assurance that she was healed: “Daughter, your Faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.” In addition, she gained a personal relationship with Jesus as a member of his family (3:35). By trusting in the power of God and doing His will, she was not only physically cured but was also fully restored to a normal religious and social life. It was her deep Faith in Jesus - symbolized by her touching the tassel of his garment - that was a major factor in her healing.

Though the ruler may have trusted Jesus out of desperation and the woman’s Faith may have been a bit superstitious, even their perhaps defective Faith was amply rewarded.

 Even after Jairus received the shocking news of the death of his daughter, Jesus insisted on going to Jairus’ house and consoled the father saying, "Do not be afraid; only have Faith." The phrase, "Do not be afraid,” appears in the Bible 366 times, the same number of days we have in a year. Meaning, everyday Jesus tells us do not be afraid, but have faith.  When we have faith in the Lord the fear has no place in our life, because Jesus takes away all the fears.

Each patient carries his own doctor inside himself: The great missionary physician, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, said it simply and realistically, "Each patient carries his own doctor inside himself. They come to us [physicians] not knowing that truth. We are best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to work." Are we giving the "doctor who resides" within you the chance to work? Are we moving the greatest doctor in us a chance to do his healing work in us?

At the end of this Mass will we find Jesus walking down the aisle, turning left and right looking for people who touched him? Will he find anyone in this community who touched him by his faith? Or will we be one of those who walked around and jostled him, but never caught Jesus’ attention by touching him by faith?

Tomorrow is the solemnity of Sts.Peter & Paul and today the Church invites us to support the Holy Father in supporting the poor in the world by Peter’s Pence collection. Jesus’ mission was helping the poor and the needy and that is the whole message of the gospel is. Let’s respond positively and wholeheartedly to this mission of the Church.

OT XII [B] SUNDAY: Job 38:1, 8-11; II Cor 5:14-17; Mk 4:35-41

Once a man approached a Guru, and said that he wanted to be his disciple and learn from him. The Guru asked him, "Who are you?" He replied, "I am Peter." The Guru said, "That is your name. But who are you?" He said, "I am an engineer." The Guru said, "That is your profession.

But who are you?" He said, "I am a man." The Guru said, "That is your gender. But who are you?" The man said, "I do not know." It happens in our lives too. We do not know who we are. When Jesus calmed the sea, the disciples wonder who Jesus was.

The Gospel says that in the evening Jesus was crossing the lake in a boat with his disciples. Then it began to blow a gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped….. The disciples cried, "Master we are going down." This is the common complaint of most of us when we are under trial. Our faith in us falters. Our faith in Jesus falters, and we start doubting about it.

We face storms of sorrow, doubt, anxiety, worry, temptation and passion. The storms we encounter in life are often what make us or break us. These storms can either bring us closer to God and one another or alienate us from God and others. And it is only Jesus who can still these storms for us. Jesus can give us real peace in the storm of sorrow. 

Many of the Fathers of the Church consider this miracle story as an allegory of the early Church.  The boat in the stormy lake is a symbol of the Church facing challenges from inside and various forms of suppression and persecution from outside. The faithful in such situations wondered if Jesus had deserted his Church. But in their desperate cry for help they were able to experience the inner peace and strength of Jesus.  Very often the Church and the faithful have no control over the political and social developments of our society.  But, no matter what we are experiencing, we can -- with the help of Jesus -- find peace. 

Jesus used just four simple words to calm the wind and the waves. "Quiet now! Be calm!" The rebuke is meant for us too; we must believe in ourselves; we must understand the potential that God has given to us; we must show our absolute trust and faith in Jesus. In the first reading Job shows absolute trust in God’s power.

Job represents a good person who must deal with the agony of undeserved suffering.  God tells Job that He is the Creator and Lord of the sea and the waters, and only He can control the wind and the sea and the other elements. "I set limits for the sea and fastened the bar of its door.” The Book of Job, taken in its totality, teaches the lesson that God has plans and purposes which mortal men cannot grasp. It also states that, although the wicked prosper and the innocent suffer for a time, YAHWEH finally redresses the wrongs suffered by the innocent!

This is father’s day weekend. Job is a perfect example of a good father, trusting in God even when he went through great sufferings. He kept patience in trials. A good father would hold his peace in stormy weather in his family.

A man stopped in the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up a couple of items for his wife. He wandered around aimlessly for a while searching out the needed groceries. As is often the case in the grocery store, he kept passing this same shopper in almost every aisle. It was another father trying to shop with a totally uncooperative three year old boy in the cart.

 The first time they passed, the three year old was asking over and over for a candy bar. Our observer couldn't hear the entire conversation. He just heard Dad say, "Now, Billy, this won't take long." As they passed in the next aisle, the 3-year-old's pleas had increased several octaves. Now Dad was quietly saying, "Billy, just calm down. We will be done in a minute."

 When they passed near the dairy case, the kid was screaming uncontrollably. Dad was still keeping his cool. In a very low voice he was saying, "Billy, settle down. We are almost out of here." The Dad and his son reached the checkout counter just ahead of our observer. He still gave no evidence of losing control. The boy was screaming and kicking. Dad was very calmly saying over and over, "Billy, we will be in the car in just a minute and then everything will be OK."

 The bystander was impressed beyond words. After paying for his groceries, he hurried to catch up with this amazing example of patience and self-control just in time to hear him say again, "Billy, we're done. It's going to be OK." He tapped the patient father on the shoulder and said, "Sir, I couldn't help but watch how you handled little Billy. You were amazing."

Dad replied, "His name is Wesley. I'm Billy!"

During this Father’s day weekend let’s pray for fathers in our families to keep the storms calm in their families. In times of pain and struggles be trusting and patient like Job. And be good role model like St.Joseph the foster father of Jesus who protected him from enemies like Herod and always listened to the word of God and lived accordingly and helped his Son grow in wisdom and the favor of God.