Cycle B 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30

Today’s Gospel passage from Mark 10:17-30 speaks of the Cost of Discipleship and the Challenge of Wealth. In this passage a rich man approaches Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. His question is genuine, and he has lived a righteous life, following the commandments. Yet when Jesus calls him to deeper sacrifice—selling his possessions and giving to the poor—the man goes away sorrowful. Jesus then teaches his disciples about the difficulty of entering God's kingdom, particularly for those attached to wealth.

The challenge of wealth and attachment can be found in the Old Testament. Consider the story of King Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-11). Initially blessed with wisdom and wealth, Solomon’s heart gradually turns away from God because of his attachment to his riches and foreign wives. Though he started with a vocation as a wise ruler, his love for wealth and power caused him to lose his focus on God. He becomes an example of someone who, though gifted, strayed from his calling due to material attachments.

Another example is Lot's wife (Genesis 19:26). When God commanded Lot’s family to flee from Sodom without looking back, Lot’s wife couldn’t resist turning her gaze back to the life she was leaving. Her attachment to her past life, possibly her

Cycle B 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gen 2:18-24; Heb 2:9-11; Mk 10:2-16

Marriage has been a mystery throughout human history. From the time immemorial philosophers have reflected on this mystery, poets have sung about it, and religious men have glorified it. They realized that marriage is a union of man and woman in physical, mental, religious and social realms.

In their attempt to give a convincing explanation for this mystery the wise men of the ancient past gave rise to many legends. According to a Greek legend,” The original human nature was not like the present, but different.  The sexes were not two, as they are now, but originally the man and woman were together.  The primeval man was called Androgyne. He was round, his back and sides forming a circle; one head with two faces looking in opposite ways, set on a round neck and

Cycle B 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Numb. 11:25-29; Jas. 5:1-6; Mk. 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

The conflict between good and evil is one of the precepts of the Zoroastrian faith, first enshrined by Zarathustra over 3000 years ago. It is also one of the most common conventional themes in literature, and is sometimes considered to be a universal part of the human condition.

In the Bible this battle has been vividly explained by the story Kain and Abel. Kain becomes filled with jealousy and kills his brother.

There is a battle going on in the lives of each of us, a battle between good and evil. At the end of that battle we will either hear Jesus say, "you are mine" or “Go away." Through his cross Jesus has won the battle but it is up to us now to accept his grace and live as those redeemed by Jesus. There are manifestations of grace and manifestations of evil all around us but we can take the side of Jesus in the battle for our lives by overcoming sin and temptation.

How do we overcome sin and temptation? In the Gospel Jesus said, "if your hand should cause you to sin cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have two hands and go to hell… if your foot should cause you to sin