READINGS : 1st Reading: Josh 24.1-2, 15-18: We will serve the Lord, for he is our God.
Resp. Ps 33; Taste and see that the Lord is good.
2nd Reading: Ephesians: 5.21-32; Christ loves the Church, because it is his body.
Gospel: Mark: 6: 60-69: Who shall we go to? You are the Holy One of God.
REFLECTION
1. “Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.” When we read the gospels, there are so many little touches included by the evangelists that reveal the humanity of Jesus. Not just His human compassion, His human preference for some people rather than others, His human affection for His special friends, such as Lazarus, Martha and Mary. I mean rather, His human nature. Our Lord Jesus Christ was truly man, fully human. The paradox for us is that He was and is also divine. He knew and loved as man. But He also knew and loved as God.
2. Many theologians and many pious souls have tried to fathom out this unique admixture. Just what this unique blend of knowledge and love meant as regards Our Lord’s psychological unity is something we may never know. It is very difficult, indeed, impossible, for us to understand completely the full implications of those words from today’s gospel: “Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.”
3. Many people have a highly developed intuitive faculty. They can ‘see’ what others are feeling. Sometimes they can even ‘see’ with a fair degree of accuracy, what others are thinking. It is reasonable for us to suppose that Our Lord in His humanity possessed these intuitive gifts to a pre-eminent degree. In His case, the natural powers of the human mind which perhaps we all possess, at least potentially, were not weakened by any deviation of His human will from the will of His Father. Christ had a sinless human insight into the working of men’s hearts. He could no doubt see in a single glance, a glance unclouded by any sort of malice, which of His followers would come to faith. But this natural human ability to read hearts and minds is not the full story. “Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.” The gospel here opens up the intriguing question of His divine omniscience. Being God, no less, Jesus Christ knew all things about all human lives, past, present and to come.
4. The omniscience of Jesus is baffling to us. Our grasp upon the structure of human knowledge is so very partial. Take our human experience of memory. In the first few years of our little lives, we are hardly aware of any memories. Only as the years go by and we develop as children do we start to remember things. In our maturity, in our prime, we generally recall things quite clearly. Memory, normally speaking, comes easily. Then as the years advance, as our bodies get old and tired, our memory fades, little by little. Our knowledge probably remains in our minds, but we do not recall it easily or accurately. We forget. Knowledge grows dim, and sometimes fades away altogether.
5.Perhaps all He sees, all He really cares to see, is simply the moral and spiritual quality of our act of faith – or doubt. Perhaps His timeless gaze encompasses in a single omniscient blink, the totality of our lives. Perhaps He sees the patchwork quilt for what it is; a motley jumble of contingent factors which are so many shadowy, insubstantial, irrelevant items compared with the hard spiritual reality of actual Christian faith. Might it not be that in the dusty and untidy lumber-room of our lives, all but hidden amid the junk and broken cast-off toys, there is a single shining translucent jewel, a small but priceless nugget of faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith that He is the Son of God. Faith that He is our Maker and our Saviour. Faith that He does hold our lives in the palm of His love-pierced hands. Faith that He is calling us to struggle through the lumber-room, into the splendid banqueting hall, whose beauties and pleasures we can hardly even guess at. The presence in our souls of that supernatural faith is what the Lord looks for, and as He looks for it, in the same single moment, from His vantage point, He knows it, and He loves it.
6.The tiny flame of faith in any soul, however small, is the sign that such a soul is already on the way to salvation. But the way is long. And the flame is small. It has to be tended and nurtured. If not, there is the appalling danger that it might be extinguished by the heap of dust and dirt for which we forgetful humans have such a propensity. Fortunately for us, the omniscient Lord never forgets. At our baptism, He Himself kindled the flame of faith in our souls. With our co-operation, the Holy Spirit will fan that flame to a golden blaze. Then, when the Lord comes, we shall go out to meet Him, with all the saints, in the heavenly kingdom.
Osho
