Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I
Hos 2:16b, 17b, 21-22

Thus says the LORD:
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.
I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13

R. (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
He pardons all your iniquities,
he heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
he crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Merciful and gracious is the LORD,
slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.

Reading II
2 Cor 3:1b-6

Brothers and sisters:
Do we need, as some do,
letters of recommendation to you or from you?
You are our letter, written on our hearts,
known and read by all,
shown to be a letter of Christ ministered by us,
written not in ink but by the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Not that of ourselves we are qualified
to take credit for anything as coming from us;
rather, our qualification comes from God,
who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant,
not of letter but of spirit;
for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

Gospel
Mk 2:18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.
People came to him and objected,
"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?"
Jesus answered them,
"Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."

COMMENTARY

According to the prophet Hosea, Israel must return to the desert.  Not just in the literal sense of the hardship of lack of water and other provisions, but rather the point is that Israel needs to reestablish its relationship with God.  The desert is not a place for permanent withdrawal, but an ideal place to seek God.  The prophet continues to express God’s covenant under the image of a marriage contract.  To espouse means in effect to pay the bride price – in other words, the gifts the groom offers.  God’s therefore gives dispositions and not demands.  Justice: literally means judgment, or the concrete working out of “right”.  in love and mercy: the word for this love in the Hebrew text is hesed, which means loyal adherence to the covenant partner.  To know the partner is to keep his law.  Knowledge of the Lord is religious knowledge in a comprehensive sense, and knowledge of God is especially knowledge of traditional Hebrew morality.

Paul addresses the criticism he received from opponents.  They accused him of recommending himself, which he had done to distinguish himself from other itinerant preachers (1 Thess 2:1-12), whereas they had come recommended by another church, probably Jerusalem.  letters of recommendation: Illustrated by verses 1-2 of Chapter 16 of the Letter to the Romans and mentioned in Acts 9:2; 18:27.  The existence of the community guaranteed the authenticity of Paul’s ministry (1Cor 9:2).  written in your hearts: the better attested “our hearts” produces only nonsense.  The heart is understood as the source of all human activity.  As Paul’s letter is different in kind, so it comes from a much higher authority.  Paul has been empowered by God to carry out his mission, which is beyond the capacity of fallen human nature.  Paul is forced to distinguish two types of new covenant, because his opponents were using the new covenant theme to insist on the law.  To this extent the new covenant participated in the destructive power of the old covenant.

Today’s Gospel presents yet another confrontation with Jesus.  This time the opponents are John the Baptist’s disciples and the Pharisees, and the controversy concerns fasting.  Their question leads to Jesus’ identification of himself as the messianic “bridegroom” and the claim that his public ministry is a unique time.  This is followed by the first hint about his death and the consequent permission for Christians to fast.  Whatever the original context of the sayings about the cloth and the wine may have been (2:21-22), now they appear to contrast the new and the old forms of religious practice.  The real focus of the passage as it now stands is not so much religious practice as Jesus the messianic bridegroom; his public ministry is a special time in which the old forms of religious practice were not appropriate.

That the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting: the only fast stipulated in the Old testament was the Day of  Atonement (Lev 16:29), but additional fasts were observed by the Pharisees (see Luke 18:12) and presumably by John the Baptist’s disciples.  But your disciples do not fast: the assumption of the debate is that Jesus’ disciples did not fast during his public ministry, though Matt 6:16-18 assumes that they did.  The bridegroom: by applying this term to Jesus, the author gives messianic overtones, since the Old Testament repeatedly depicts Yahweh as Israel’s husband (see Hos 2:19; Isa 54:4-8; 62:4-5; Ezek 16:7-63).  As long as the bridegroom is with them: the rationale for Jesus’ disciples not fasting is the unique character of the time of his earthly ministry.  When the bridegroom is taken away from them:  is definitely an allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus.  An old and well-worn garment cannot be repaired with a patch of new cloth; nor can new wine be poured into old wineskins. Those who attempt to do so will be left with a ruined garment and spilled wine. So also with the reign of God as established by Jesus; it must be welcomed with a new spirit and an open heart, unclouded by preconceptions, unbiased by traditions and willing to welcome whatever shocks and surprises God may have in store.

REFLECTION

Recently my wife and I traveled to the Caribbean Islands on business.  It was just us, the kids stayed at home with their grandparents who welcomed the opportunity to spend the time with them.  On one of the flights, the flight attendant brought us a bottle of champagne and two glasses and said it was complimentary because we were on our honeymoon.  It really surprised us especially since we have been married for 16 years and have three children.  When we told this to the flight attendant she said we just looked like we were so much in love that she thought we were newlyweds.

I think that’s great, that after so many years our relationship is so full of love that we can still get mistaken for newlyweds.  The reason for this is that newlyweds are first of all, affectionate, and secondly they see beyond the mere “humanness” of their partner and see their beloved.  When we are able to see this, when we are so much in love with the other person, sacrifices stop being obstacles and become welcome things to do for our beloved.  That’s why the new bride goes to so much trouble to prepare that special dinner for her new husband and why the new groom goes out of his way to please his new wife.  But sadly, for many people the honeymoon only lasts as long as that special trip does and they forget to live their honeymoon every day.  Their lives become a routine and they stop seeing their beloved and just see their same old spouse.

This is exactly what Jesus is telling the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist.  They find adherence to the Law of God as something cumbersome – an obligation if you will, and therefore expect everyone to do it as a sign of love.  The true sign of love, however, is enjoying the beloved – doing those things that pleases the other so that we may penetrate the mystery of love itself.  Jesus’ disciples were in the presence of the beloved and were indeed celebrating that love with him in the form of a meal.  There was no need to abstain from things as an obligation because by merely enjoying the company of their beloved, which was Jesus himself, they were doing something much greater than whatever any ascetic practice could have done.  Those practices are fine when put in their correct place, but what is important here is their response to the love of God which they demonstrated by sharing of themselves with Jesus.

Today’s Gospel, then calls us to a greater unity with God.  Not just any unity, but rather the union that transforms us into the lover and the beloved.  Our relationship with God cannot be one of routine practices.  Whatever we do must be done out of love and not fear or habit.  Our relationship with God has to be a perpetual honeymoon where we see each other through the eyes of love.

Biblical Sources:

New American Bible; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Commentaries: Andersen, F. I. and D. N. Freedman, “Hosea”.;  Commentaries: McCarthy, Dennis J., S.J. and Murphy, Roland E., O.Carm; Murphy-O’ Connor, J., “St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology”; Theissen, G., “The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth”; Schelkele, K. H., “The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians”; The Collegeville Bible Commentary; Kingsbury, J.D., “The Christology of Mark’s Gospel”; Schweizer, E, “The Good News According to Mark”; Tucket, C. (ed.), “The Messianic Secret”; Brown, Raymond E., S.S., “Introduction to the New Testament”; Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy (ed.) “The New Jerome Biblical Commentary.

Reflection:

Deacon Lazaro J. Ulloa