Monday January 17

Monday of 2nd Week in Ordinary Time

 

ANTHONY, Abbot

“If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you own… and come, follow me.” Saint Anthony (251-356) heard these words, gave away what he had and withdrew into the desert, as he thought that this was the place where the evangelical way could be practiced in all its purity. Later Anthony organized monastic life for the “fathers of the desert” who had followed him and for whom he wrote a rule. For a while he left the desert to defend his faith against Arianism and to strengthen those suffering for the faith. Then he retired again to the desert.

 

First Reading: 1 Sm 15:16-23

“Enough!” interrupted Samuel. “Let me tell you what God told me last night.”

Saul said, “Go ahead. Tell me.”

And Samuel told him. “When you started out in this, you were nothing—and you knew it. Then God put you at the head of Israel—made you king over Israel. Then God sent you off to do a job for him, ordering you, ‘Go and put those sinners, the Amalekites, under a holy ban. Go to war against them until you have totally wiped them out.’ So why did you not obey God? Why did you grab all this loot? Why, with God’s eyes on you all the time, did you brazenly carry out this evil?”

Saul defended himself. “What are you talking about? I did obey God. I did the job God set for me. I brought in King Agag and destroyed the Amalekites under the terms of the holy ban. So the soldiers saved back a few choice sheep and cattle from the holy ban for sacrifice to Godat Gilgal—what’s wrong with that?”

Then Samuel said,

Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—
    empty rituals just for show?
He wants you to listen to him!
Plain listening is the thing,
    not staging a lavish religious production.
Not doing what God tells you
    is far worse than fooling around in the occult.
Getting self-important around God
    is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors.
Because you said No to God’s command,
    he says No to your kingship.

 

Gospel: Mark 2:18-22

The disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees made a practice of fasting. Some people confronted Jesus: “Why do the followers of John and the Pharisees take on the discipline of fasting, but your followers don’t?”

Jesus said, “When you’re celebrating a wedding, you don’t skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but not now. As long as the bride and groom are with you, you have a good time. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!”

He went on, “No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match. And you don’t put your wine in cracked bottles.”

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
though he was a rich young man, 
Saint Anthony did not refuse the invitation of Jesus
to renounce his material riches
and to follow your Son radically.
Through the prayers of St. Anthony, 
may we too put our riches
not in what we have 
but in what you give us and make us
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Install new programmes for your new computer

For the Jewish religion, fasting was one of the three most important religious duties, along with prayer and almsgiving. In today’s gospel, the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees have a problem: Jesus does not endorse the practice of fasting. Jesus has a simple explanation. There’s a time for fasting and a time for feasting (or celebrating).

Remember, the Gospel of Mark begins with saying, “the Good News of Jesus Christ”. The whole gospel speaks of a celebration, because Jesus, the Christ, is among us and speaks to us, and makes our lives happy. There is no time for despair and crying. To be a disciple of Jesus is to experience a whole new joy of relationship similar to the joy of celebrating a wedding party with the groom and bride.

God is with us, and he will not give up on his children. Jesus goes on to warn his disciples about the problem of the “closed mind” that refuses to learn new things. Jesus used an image familiar to his audience — new and old wineskins. How do we understand today the examples of new patch on old cloth and the new wine in old wineskins?

In today’s terms We should be talking about “Do not install outdated or pirated programmes into your new computer”. The Lord has offered us the new wine – his forgiveness, mercy and the good news of salvation; but unfortunately we refuse to change the wineskin, we refuse to forgive, refuse to be merciful. Despite praying the Lord’s Prayer numerous times a day, we continue to believe that punishments for the wrongs is the best way to serve justice. Gospel values of forgiveness, mercy, love etc. are the new wine of Jesus. Our stubbornness ruins so many of us who are good, but we enter into a spirit of vanity, of pride, of being seen…

In any case, the message is clear: the Good News of Jesus invites us be joyous people, people of celebration: because God is near. His mercy and forgiveness are available for everyone. God does not want us to be afraid of him.

When I consider myself to be a good Catholic but I fail to worry about the problems of others – their poverty, hunger, illnesses and the many sufferings, I am merely a hypocrite, trying to do some patch work on my age-old clothing. If the clothing is already worn out, it is high-time to change and put on the new clothes of the Beatitudes: meekness, humility, patience in suffering, love for justice, ability to endure persecution, not judging others.

 

Video available on Youtube:Install new programmes for your new computer