The Gospel for this Sunday, the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B, comes from the first chapter of St Mark and recounts the healing of the leper and its aftermath.

When the leper comes close enough to Jesus to beg for healing, Jesus is deeply moved with compassion to heal him at once. It is one thing to feel pity for an unfortunate soul, and quite another to reach out and touch someone who is probably contagious with a horrible disease. Jesus does not baulk at touching the leper.

Images of Jesus being compassionate are frequent.
Images of Jesus being stern are not, and this is one of those infrequent times.

Jesus goes to some considerable length to remind the former leper of the official process of being reinstated as clean and healed through the priests, and to not tell anyone about how he was healed.

Why?

Because under Jewish law anyone who touched something considered unclean became unclean themselves and had to go through a lengthy process to be reinstated as clean again. If someone touched a dead body, they would be ritually unclean for 7 days.

Someone who had touched a leper would be ostracized until a reasonable quarantine period had been observed.

Any days of ostracism mean days where Jesus is unable to minister to people, to preach and to heal.

If the former leper had been obedient and kept silent about how his healing was accomplished, many more people could have been ministered to by Jesus. That’s a serious matter. God only asks us not to do something if it is important and has consequences.

Keeping silent is a legitimate request. It is not asking the former leper to lie.

Quite possibly if Jesus had been at prayer in a lonely place when the leper approached Him, the disciples didn’t know about it, and only the leper and Jesus knew what had happened.

We know what happened because the story was preserved in this Gospel and in Matthew and Luke as well. The man could not contain himself, even though Jesus had asked him so specifically to refrain from telling the story.

When God tells us not to do something, we need to take it seriously.

When Solomon in his younger days had a profound experience with God, God sternly warned him to not follow any other gods. But as Solomon got older he forgot. In order to please his foreign wives he set up altars to other gods, and incurred the anger of God. Justice came in his son’s reign when only 2 tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were left to the hereditary kingdom of David, and the other 10 tribes went with a military leader who then set about distancing those 10 tribes from worship of the true God. Those 10 tribes are still lost. This was serious stuff.

We don’t know all the ramifications of the leper being disobedient, only that it was serious enough for Jesus to be stern with him. Maybe if the leper had kept silence he would have been greatly honoured by God. Maybe if the leper had kept silence, several thousand more people may have been healed and brought into God’s kingdom. How many people didn’t get to meet Jesus in person, because the leper didn’t keep silence? Maybe the silence was a reparation for the leper being a chatterbox earlier in life.

Most of us are conflicted about this because it is one of our favourite stories of Jesus, and because we think the request for silence was too hard or too impractical. In essence we think the request was utterly unreasonable, and that Jesus was a bit touched in the head for even thinking of requesting it; we think our ways are much better than God’s ways.

The problem is: that’s how disobedient people think; that’s how the serpent in the garden of Eden thought; that’s the thinking that set Adam and Eve up for failure.

God puts a premium on obedience. Obedience pleases Him. Disobedience doesn’t, and never will.

May this Gospel account give us the grace to decide to be obedient to God no matter what. Amen.
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#GospelReflection

​Recent days have been full of rare treats, an Ordination Mass for two Dominican priests and a Dominican deacon, and one of the first Masses of Fr Matthew Boland O.P.
 
Treats like that deserve to be shared, so here are some of my amateur photos and some notes from the homilies:

​The Ordinations took place at St Benedict's Broadway on 9 July 2016. It is a beautiful church, with a lot of history and currently part of Notre Dame University campus. Some of the WYD Sydney events took place here (for anyone who thinks it looks familiar).
 
Ordained Priest were Matthew Boland and James Baxter, and ordained Deacon was Robert Krishna.

​The readings were from Jeremiah 1:4-9 Do not say 'I am a child', go to those whom I send you ; Psalm 89 I will sing forever of the goodness of the Lord / I have chosen David my servant and with oil anointed him ; 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 The love of Christ overwhelms us. He gave us the work of handing on the news of reconciliation ; Luke 22:14-20, 24-30 The Last Supper narrative, Here am I among you as One who serves.
 
The homily was given by Archbishop Anthony Fisher O.P. and this is a rough transcript:
 
'What does it mean to be a priest of Jesus Christ? If we look at some of the great Hollywood movies from the 1950s onward, the priestly characters are depicted in a romantic and heroic light. A bit too far from reality in places, but they did manage to capture the spirit of sacrifice with some accuracy. Jesus turns our notions of leadership and greatness up-side-down when He reveals that He is among us as one who serves. Every priest is called to serve after the example of Jesus. If this is how Jesus acts, then we must do the same; we must empty ourselves and empty ourselves for others. Thus we may preach Him as His ambassadors. We are members of the Dominican order, called to preach Him, an order that is essentially clerical, but hopefully not clericalist. This year we mark the 800th anniversary of the Dominican order, and see these three as a special gift to us. Dominicans made their mark in the colonial period of Australia, even before the Benedictines. There is a patch of land nearby that is still called Blackfriars Estate. By the 1880s much of the original land was taken by the education office and acts of parliament. Those school buildings and the former teachers college now form part of the UTS campus (University of Technology Sydney). A Dominican is currently chaplain at UTS and our newly ordained Fr Baxter will be chaplain to Notre Dame campus. There is a story about how St Dominic spent all night in a pub conversing with a heretic, in order to convert him. Who knows, perhaps Matthew's experiences of working in a pub might prove advantageous as well. James had an experience in Year 2 of primary school of the truth and reality of the resurrection of Jesus. Time spent in his Year 11 days with an elderly priest caused James to ponder on the worthwhile life this priest had lived. He went off to Uni to study law, and it was only then that he started questioning whether law was the right path. An end of year retreat in 2003 started him thinking more seriously about the mission of the Church and what his own role in that might be. Matthew studied Maths and Physics and walked the Camino. The influence of Fr Dom Murphy began his attraction to the Dominicans. We know that Matthew has a particular passion for introducing others to the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. Robert has had a long journey too. At various times he has been a Hindu, an agnostic, an atheist, Anglican and finally a Catholic after a long intellectual search. For him, too, that end of year retreat in 2003 was a turning point in his vocational journey. Aquinas said that we should be awestruck that God should grant such graces in sacraments through human agency. No one can fully express the sweetness of this Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is the Sacrament of Sacraments. It is not just a sign of Christ's love, but Christ Himself, present body and soul, humanity and divinity to bring about communion with us. The hour has come for the three of you to take your place in a new way at the altar of the Lord. You are called to be heroes, to self-sacrifice, to put others first. You are called to serve, for that will prove your true greatness.'

​One of Fr Matthew Boland's first Masses as principal celebrant was at St John the Baptist, Woy Woy, on 11 July 2016. This parish was home base for him during his early adult years and the long process of discerning God's vocational call. He was often at morning Mass at Woy Woy when visiting his parents on study breaks.

​11 July was the memorial of St Benedict, and the readings were from Monday Week 15 of Ordinary Time Year II : Isaiah 1:10-17 God desires worthy sacrifice from hands clean of evil deeds : Matthew 10:34-11:1 Turn away from things not worthy of Me.

Again, this is only a rough transcript of Fr Matthew Boland's homily:

​'Some may think of St Benedict as a remote and distant figure from 6th century Norcia, but his story still resonates today. As a young man Benedict went to Rome to study, and saw the dissolute life of the city. His response to that was to begin a search for silence and a search for God. After a while a dying monastery asked for his help in getting it healthy again. The monks there were living a rather loose monastic life, and Benedict came to them bringing added strictness to their lives. Unhappy some of the monks tried to poison Benedict. However as he said the blessing, the cup containing the poison broke. That's a good reminder to pray grace before meals – just in case – isn't it? St Benedict is not without his influence in Australia. We have the monastic town of New Norcia near Perth together with the AFL Oval at Subiaco. The first archbishop in Australia was Bede Polding, a Benedictine. What can St Benedict teach us today? That we need silence in our lives in order to hear the Word of God and His message to us. That we need time to be with Him in silence, to listen. The prophet Elijah had his own search for God, going up a mountain (whenever the scriptures talk about going up a mountain, that's code for 'something really important is going to happen – pay attention'). It was in the gentle breeze that Elijah met God. If we don't give time to God, it is very hard to hear what He has to say. God has to be number 1 – even above family – and then everything else will fall into place. Take advantage of the silent moments at Mass, at adoration and at other times of prayer. Lectio Divina is a good way of meeting God in His Word. We ask that through the intercession of St Benedict before God, that His peace may come into our lives. Let us imitate St Benedict and include a bit more silence in our lives.'
 
St Benedict, pray for us.
St Dominic, pray for us.