My Mother and My Brothers

                                    10th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                    

           

In the last three weeks we have celebrated the three great feasts, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, that mark the end of the Easter season. Now we return to what the Church calls Ordinary time, that period of the liturgical year that is not associated with the great feasts of Christmas and Easter.

The priest dons a green colored vestment (a symbol of hope) that will be worn for practically every Sunday until the start of the season of Advent. Ordinary comes from a Latin word and doesn’t exactly mean what we mean by ordinary but still, most of the readings in Ordinary time deal with the ordinary day by day events in the mission of Jesus.

However, our first reading goes back to the beginning where we have the familiar story of Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis. In today’s passage we read of the first consequences of original sin. We do not like to talk about original sin anymore, but it is good to define the term. Sin is a very blunt English word, but the Latin equivalent is peccata which means a stain or imperfection. None of us likes to be called evil or sinful but we can all agree that everyone is imperfect. Original means from the origin or beginning.

In other words, we can find imperfection not only in ourselves but also in every human being from the dawn of time. The greatest saints have acknowledged their imperfection and claimed that they were sinners who only had been saved by the grace of God. Even the Moslem Koran says that only Jesus and his mother, Mary, entered this world without being touched by Satan.

Because we all are imperfect, we can instantly recognize and understand how Adam and Eve reacted when their disobedience was discovered. They blamed someone else! Adam blamed Eve. “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” In turn, Eve blamed the serpent. “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”  

Interestingly, this passage ends with a phrase that has long been misunderstood. The Lord says to the Serpent:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

And between your offspring and hers,

He will strike at your head,

While you strike at his heel.

In times past the “woman” became associated with Mary, the new Eve, and artists often depicted Mary standing on the head of the serpent who vainly attempted to strike at her heel. Today, as our translation indicates, it is the offspring, Jesus, who will strike at the head of Satan, and destroy his kingdom.

In today’s gospel passage we actually see Jesus in combat with the serpent, Satan. This passage picks up right after Jesus had embarked on his mission of  teaching and healing. In particular, he had been driving out demons from those who were in their power. Moreover, in the previous verses, he had just called his apostles and given them the power and authority to combat demons as well.

His success had attracted large crowds, and Mark tells us that immediately on arriving back home with his apostles from this first journey, Jesus was surrounded by a crowd to the extent that his own relatives could not even get in to see him. It may be that the relatives were alarmed by the charges that Jesus himself was possessed by the Devil.

There were scribes or biblical experts from Jerusalem in the crowd who claimed that rather than opposing Satan, Jesus actually derived his power to drive out demons from Satan. In effect, they were saying that He, himself, was possessed with “an unclean spirit.” The reply of Jesus is simple. “How can Satan drive out Satan?"

Jesus then goes on to say that while all the bad things that humans can say and do can be forgiven, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness.” In the feast of Pentecost, we saw the Holy Spirit come down upon the disciples. The feast of the Holy Trinity showed us that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus himself. 

To call His Spirit unclean is to say that it is an evil spirit with no power to save us from our own imperfect nature. If we deny the very power of the Spirit of God to forgive our sins, how can we find salvation and happiness?

Finally, some in the crowd tell Jesus that his mother and brothers are outside waiting for him. Scholars tell us that in the Aramaic language there is no separate word for brothers, sisters or cousins. In any case Jesus informs the crowd that “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” All of us who bear the fruits or marks of His Holy Spirit will be of his family.

In no particular order, these fruits of the Spirit are modesty, patience, peace, chastity, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, charity, joy, generosity, and kindness. As St. Paul said in today’s passage from the letter to the Corinthians we are all of one family.

Since we have the same spirit of faith,…

We too believe and therefore we speak,

Knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus,

Will raise us also with Jesus

And place us with you in his presence.

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Reading 1.  Genesis 3: 9-15

Reading II. 2 Corinthians 4: 13—5:1

Gospel. Mark 3: 20-35 (my mother and my brothers)