The Gospel for this Sunday, the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the end of Chapter 7 of St Mark. Earlier in this Chapter Jesus has had a confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees (last week’s Gospel), and has then travelled to Tyre and Sidon, healing the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, and seems to be taking the long way through the Decapolis region back to Galilee. So this miracle of Jesus, healing the deaf and mute man, may have taken place outside the territory of Israel- where gentile culture held sway. Living according to the Law of Moses in this culture would have been very challenging.

Three years ago I opted for thinking the ‘they’ bringing the deaf and mute man to Jesus had friendly intentions. That’s still possible, and the verbs (parakalousin) and (epithe) back up that interpretation; reminding us of paraclete (Holy Spirit) and epiclesis (hand gesture for calling down the power of the Holy Spirit).
http://www.societyofsaints.net/blog/gospel-reflection-mark-731-37

But what if ‘they’ had hostile intentions?
What if ‘they’ being not defined deliberately permits both interpretations, friendly and hostile?

We know from earlier in the Chapter that Jesus wanted this journey into foreign territory to be incognito. But He was still getting recognised.

We could surmise that Jesus is on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, and that He has already attracted enough attention for a crowd to start forming around Him.

If you were hostile to Jesus, what would be a good way to discredit Him?
Bring Him an impossible case; and do it publicly, expecting to gloat when He fails.

The deaf man who can’t talk properly does not have any right to transact his own affairs. He is at the mercy of others, and sometimes those people will be kindly and sometimes they will take as much advantage as they can get away with.

He was unable to act of his own volition, according to the Law, so he couldn’t bring himself to Jesus. But he has been led/brought/conducted, possibly against his own will, to Jesus.

The crowd is naturally agog to see what’s going to happen.
Jesus doesn’t do the expected thing. He doesn’t say, ‘be opened’, with a grand gesture and hey presto, big miracle.
He goes off to a private place.

Why?

It may have been to recover an atmosphere of prayer, away from heckling and gawking.
It may have been to reduce the onslaught to the senses when the man regained them.
It may have been to reduce scrutiny/mockery of the unusual actions Jesus did, fingers in the man’s ears, and spittle on his tongue.
It may have been a counter measure against effectively becoming a performing porpoise;
It may have been to give the deaf man personal time with Jesus,
It may have been trying to preserve the incognito
or a full or partial combination of these reasons.

The healing happens at the pace Jesus has chosen.

It is a complete healing, of both hearing and speaking.

And Jesus wants it kept quiet?
Why?

And He insists on it, even though the witnesses to the miracle disobey.
Why?

Jesus must have had very good reasons, because He rarely insists on anything.
So it must have been extremely important.

Yet the witnesses, His followers, and the crowd are unable to restrain themselves.

Do we trust Jesus enough to do what He says, even if it doesn’t make any sense to us?
It is an important question, because obedience aligns ourselves with God’s plans
and disobedience delays, obstructs God’s plans and prevents the full good He intended.

So many of us are in lockdown (again), feeling helpless and useless by turns,
living in a secular society that is hostile to the Gospel.

The underlying intention of the lockdown has been to separate us from God, to crush our faith, to reduce our trust in God to nothing, to bring to naught our communities of faith, to make those with faith even more of a laughing stock than they were before.

The malice is the same, the intention is the same.

That’s what would have happened if the deaf and mute man had remained unhealed.

But God is so much bigger than anything malicious aimed at Him or His people.

Lockdown is meant to crush and destroy us.

But God has been working in secret, just as He did with the deaf and mute man.

The feeble faith we went into lockdown with is being transformed by His grace, that little faith, disabled and threatened in so many ways, is being fully restored, resurrected by Jesus, in the hiddenness of lockdown.

What was meant for evil is being transformed by God into a complete restoration of our faith in Him; into a complete resurrection of His Church as He had always intended her to be.

The powers that be expect us to emerge from lockdown even more enfeebled than when we went in. Jesus had a surprise for them back then, and He has a surprise for them today too.

We are coming out fully restored, completely restored by grace.
Unrecognisable compared to how we went in.
A force to be reckoned with, empowered by God,
fully attuned to His voice, completely clear in transmitting His Good News.

His full process is almost complete in us.
We will be emerging soon.
Trust in Him.
He knows what He is about.
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The change will be so remarkable, so complete,
that it will be described as a New Pentecost
as a world-wide Resurrection.

On 16 Jul 2021 Pope Francis issued a Motu Proprio about the Roman Liturgy used prior to the Reform of 1970 with new guidelines for when (and to some extent how) it can be legitimately celebrated.
​https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/20210716-motu-proprio-traditionis-custodes.html

More colloquial ways of referring to this Liturgy are the ‘Latin Mass’ or the ‘Tridentine Mass’ or ‘Traditional Latin Mass’ or ‘TLM’.

As you might expect, there’s been a bit of a social media storm about these new regulations, and there’s been a lot of hot-off-the-cuff ink spilled about it already – most of it without due reflection on the positive sides of the document.

Because this document is about pruning the TLM movement for its own health, and for the health and unity of the Church.

And this pruning has been needed.

When Summorum Pontificum was issued by Pope Benedict XVI; many times in his excellent blog Fr John Zuhlsdorf requested that adherents to the Tridentine Mass be exemplary in their conduct, be helpful to clergy and parishes, and to not give any cause for offence lest these permissions be withdrawn.

Not everyone heeded him, hence this need for pruning so that the good may be preserved and the diseased parts be separated away lest they infect the whole Church.

Pope Francis does spell out clearly what the issues are, and the criteria by which local bishops are to do any necessary pruning, viz:
*The concord and unity of the Church
*Ecclesial communion
*That those who deny the validity and legitimacy of the 1970 liturgical reform put that unity, concord and communion at risk
*That the risk has reached levels requiring the removal of TLM from parochial churches so that there is no confusion about the validity and legitimacy of the Novus Ordo Mass (1970 liturgical reform).

(Note: Mass centres, oratories, chapels, retreat centres would then still be OK, including designated mass centres within say a cathedral parish which has several mass centres in addition to the Cathedral. ie. It cannot be celebrated at the principal church of a parish.)

Those TLM communities which are in full communion with the Church, and are animated by ecclesial communion, will be preserved.

The risk of new TLM communities forming has been deemed to be too great.

Healthy and wholesome expressions of TLM will remain, be preserved, and even encouraged.

How did it get to this? People forgot Fr Z’s advice.

There has been far too much public criticism of the Pope and far too much questioning of the legitimacy of the papacy, leading far too many believers to distrust the Pope, to distrust God’s choice of the Pope, and thereby opening the door to distrust of God and from there to loss of faith. (There are private ways of seeking answers and clarifications.)

Where has this criticism and questioning been the most vociferous? From those attending the Tridentine Mass. Some have just been the usual hot heads that every community that aspires to a radical life attracts, but some have been publicly well respected in education, theology, journalism, blogging, apologetics etc and among the clergy.

It hasn’t been here and there either; it has become a consistent questioning of every action and motive of the Pope - which would do the Pharisees proud.

Where protest has become normative and taking pride in ‘being more Catholic than the Pope’ takes hold, then those communities have exited out the other side of being Protestant.

Above all else, hear and listen to this:
Unity with the Pope is our sole guarantee of remaining in the true faith of the Apostles and not getting shipwrecked in error and heresy.
Unity with the Pope is our sole guarantee of the whole Church being guided by God.

This is so because Jesus said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will never hold out against it’.

Yes, I fully understand the flight to the TLM given the continuing abuses of the liturgy that are happening in the Novus Ordo Mass. I understand in a time of uncertainty, that flight to where things are whiter than white, and blacker than black, and no grey in between is really attractive. I understand that being with others trying to take God seriously is really attractive.

But the TLM was never meant to be a flight-from-the-world option, a la St Benedict.

Permission for the TLM was to preserve the patrimony living in the Tridentine Mass from centuries past for future generations to be able to love and appreciate in living form. It is to be fueled by love for the Church, and love for the patrimony of the Church, not fueled by protest.

An analogy might help. The reason people volunteer to help keep steam engines alive on heritage railways is to keep the memory alive of the amazing engineers and workmen that formed that heritage, and for the beauty and majesty of those locomotives in action – not because they want steam to replace diesel electrics anymore, nor because they are protesting at the pollution caused by diesel-electrics.

That’s why Pope Francis is calling a ‘motive check’ on those priests who already celebrate or wish to celebrate the Mass in its pre 1970 form, and on those religious communities set up precisely for the preservation of this liturgical form.

This Motu Proprio is pruning the TLM for the health of the Church, and for the health of the TLM.

Should it be successful in its intent, healthy communities of TLM will remain, and will remain healthy.

As one would expect, only when this has occurred will it be possible to consider new TLM communities, and that could be 10 years away or longer, and only if they don’t fall into the same errors in the meantime.

Instead of grouching, let us be extremely thankful to God for giving us a Pope, and the bishops united with him, who are willing to do this pruning for the sake of the Church, and for the sake of the salvation of souls, despite the enormous backlash they are experiencing, and will experience in the times to come.

To God be the glory, in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen.

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Lent Year B, comes from the second half of chapter 2 of St John and contains an account of the cleansing of the Temple.

In the other three Gospels this account is part of the final visit of Jesus to Jerusalem, but with John it occurs very early in His ministry just prior to the first Passover after His encounter with the Holy Spirit in baptism at the Jordan river.

Why?

Part of the answer is in the traditional preparations for the Passover. In the preparation time all of the yeast and all leavened products are expelled from Jewish homes. The whole family does it, but the father of the family has the most authority to do so.

Yeast, if you have ever worked with it, is a rather stinky pungent substance. Getting rid of the yeast is symbolic of getting rid of anything offensive to God, especially our sins, and the whole of Lent has this purpose.

So we can see in this event Jesus with the authority of the Father cleansing the Temple of the things that didn’t belong in a place of worship and prayer.

Jesus was bringing the Temple back to its original order and purpose, and making the place more conducive to finding God during the years of His public ministry.

It was a very confronting and dramatic thing to do, and it took a deal of courage.

The rest of us would probably complain and grumble privately and never do anything to fix it because fighting ‘city hall’ is never easy.

Why do it that way?

Well how did things get that way in the first place?

To me the following seems like a plausible scenario:

In the beginning all the animals and stuff were outside the Temple walls, a short distance away. Then one day it must have rained hard, and the merchants moved their unblemished animals closer to the Temple for shelter. The dove and pigeon sellers possibly got just inside the front door, and then they got more business because of the better/closer location, sellers and buyers were happy and the birds made next to no noise. But one pigeon table became two tables, and two tables became more tables. Not too long after the lamb sellers thought they’d see if they could muscle in too. The slow creeping encroachment continued. By the time the presence of the sheep had been accepted as normal, the cattle sellers made their move. Time passed and the presence of the doves, pigeons, lambs and cattle in the outer Temple precincts became tradition. No one remembered that it had ever been anything different. People occasionally grumbled about the noise and the smells and the mess, but it was what it was, and it was still convenient.

So how do you fix something like that?

Obviously an incremental approach; remove the cattle, then remove the sheep, then remove the birds isn’t going to work. Why should I move my stall if the other bloke isn’t moving his?…etc.

How do you fix it so that no one dares to even think about creeping back in for a very long time?

You have to do it dramatically, and emphatically, and all at once.

And that is exactly what Jesus did.

We might even see Him do it again.

We have seen a lot of creep over the years ourselves, no fault divorce, contraception, abortion, cohabitation, redefinitions of marriage, gender fluidity, euthanasia. Young people today cannot even imagine a time when these things weren’t accepted and weren’t celebrated.
 
Likewise an incremental approach to fixing it is unlikely to work.

Something bold, dramatic, authoritative and emphatic that brings us back to God’s original vision for marriage and family and contains enough awe for us to never to consider that other stuff again for many centuries. That’s what would work. Something only God can do.

In history we see that whenever societal norms have swung too far one way, the pendulum swings back the other way. Similarly the ying yang concept of the orient implies that if you go too far ying then everything becomes yang, and if you go too far yang then everything becomes ying, and quite dramatically so.

Lent is a time for us to work on clearing out any compromise and any increasing levels of compromise in our lives, in order to put God emphatically first.

But we also shouldn’t be surprised if God does some dramatic and emphatic spring cleaning too; individually, in families and parishes, and on a worldwide basis.

It is wonderful that God has this kind of zeal for our salvation, and that He is willing and able to clean everything up and restore it to original order and purpose.
​
May He have His way in us, and in our troubled world. Amen.