XII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE B – 2015

·         The first reading and the gospel invite us to trust, to have faith in the unconditional love of our Father.  

·         Because he knows our smallest needs and he is pleased in taking care of them.  

·         Like the apostles we also are in awe when we realize the care that God has of us.    

·         Let us open our heart to trust, love and joy.   

FIRST READING  – Jb 38:1.8-11

WISDOM BOOKS

v  The book of Job is included among the wisdom books.  

v  The Israelite wisdom cannot be understood apart from the concepts of order “in creation” and the process of socialization.

v  Everything was organized, programmed by God who was a creating and preserving God.  

v  But the Israelite also perceived that with this order some disorder coexisted, a continuous threat coming from negative and destructive forces. 

v  This order is manifested already in the first pages of the Bible. “In the beginning… and God said… evening came and morning came…”   

v  The biblical wisdom is a consequence also of the process of socialization, that is to say, the process which each culture has to integrate a person into the life of a given people.    

THE BOOK OF JOB

ü  The date is probably between the VI century (500) and the III century (200) a.C. 

ü  In this book we find poetry and prose.   

ü  In the book of Job the doctrine of retribution is questioned. For the Israelite a good and ordered life is blessed with prosperity,   and  on the contrary a sinful life, even if the sins are hidden, is known by the poverty and the misfortunes of people.    

ü  The book of Job wants to question this, since the people had already discovered that it was not so simple, and that sometimes is the other way around.    

ü  But in reality what Job questions is much more serious, it is the justice of God. Is God just when he sends so many sufferings to the just man?   

ü  We will have to wait for the coming of Jesus, the just who suffers for his brothers and sisters, to be able to discover among shadows this justice of God which goes beyond our understanding,  

Let  us see the message of today’s Reading

      Some chapters before, Job has questioned God, putting him to the test, having him accountable of the suffering of Job, because Job was a just man.    

      And now in this chapter, after all the friends have dialogued with Job, God speaks from the midst of the storm, we may say that God confronts Job.   

      And he asks him about the creation of the sea:

o   Who shut within doors the sea?  

o   And God speaks in a poetic way as if the sea were a newborn baby  

§  God made the clouds its garment   

§  And the storm clouds its swaddling bands.    

o   God put a door and also a boundary to the sea and said to the sea:

§  Thus far you shall come but no farther     

§  And here shall your proud waves be stilled.    

      What a poetic and beautiful description, so tender and nice!   

      If we allow our imagination to be free, we will enjoy of so much beauty contained in these words and in these descriptions about the creation of the sea.    

      If we continue Reading the last chapters, we will sea how Job humiliates himself before God and says to him these wonderful words “I knew you from hearsay, but now my eyes have seen you…”  

      But this sentence is not found in today’s reading, because today’s theme is trust in God even without understanding

RESPONSORIAL  PSALM     Ps  107:23-24. 25-26. 28-29. 30-31

GIVE THANKS TO  THE LORD, HIS LOVE IS EVERLASTING. ALLELUIA

They who sailed the sea in ships, 

Trading on the deep waters  

These saw the works of the Lord    

in his wonders in the abyss.

His command raised up a storm wind  

which tossed its waves on high   

They mounted up to heaven; they sank to the depths 

Their hearts melted away in their plight.   

They cried to the Lord in their distress

From their straits he rescued them

He hushed the storm to a gentle breeze

And the billows of the sea were stilled.  

They rejoiced that they were calmed

And he brought them to their desired haven

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness

And his wondrous deeds to the children of men.  

§  This is a thanksgiving psalm, of which we read only 4 stanzas. 

o   The first tells us that who has travelled by sea has seen the works of God   

o   The second speaks of the strength of God’s word, and also how the human heart fears before so much power manifested in the storm.    

o   The third speaks of how the human heart when in danger calls to God, and He rescues him.   

o   The last stanza describes how the human heart rejoices when it is heard by God and his need taken care of.   

o   And thus sing and give thanks for the wonderful works of God.    

SECOND READING   2 Cor 5:14-17

v  The love of Christ impels us, once we know that he died for all, and that in him we all have died. 

v  Thus if the died for all, we cannot live anymore for ourselves, but for the one who died for us, for our good, for our salvation.    

v  From now on we regard no one according to the flesh, from the present reality, even if in the past we had known Christ according to  the flesh,   

v  By sure that Paul is taking here about his knowledge about Christ before encountering him on the way to Damascus, and had been transformed by this encounter.  

v  Thus who is in Christi s a new creation, a new creature, the old things have passed away, because new things are coming.   

v  This is the newness of Christ which we need to dare to look at and welcome and transform in action in us. 

GOSPEL  Mk 4:35-4

Jesus has been teaching the people about the Kingdom of God, using parables.  Now, once he has finished his teaching on the sea shore, his disciples taken in him in the boat. When they are in the open sea   

ü  A storm raises up so strong hat the waves fill the boat. 

ü  Meanwhile Jesus is sleeping peacefully.  

ü  In contrast with his peace and trust, the disciples are scared and they wake him up.  

ü  Teacher do you  not care that we are perishing? 

ü  He wakes up and speaks with authority to the wind: Be still.”    

ü  The wind ceased and there was a great calm.

ü  And he asked them, why were you so terrified? Do you not yet have faith?    

ü  They were so filled with awe that they could say nothing to Jesus, but only among them.   

ü  They asked themselves: who is this?    

ü                     Many centuries after, with a history of 20 centuries, we continue to ask ourselves, who is this? Why does that thing happen? Where are you God when we call and you do not answer?   

ü  The human being is slave of his fears, probably the human being lives taken by fears, probably due to his/her insecurity or because while we are in this world, we ae being built because we are incomplete.   

ü  And to trust and go about being happy and calm we cannot walk led by vision, but by faith, according to a quite clear definition: faith is to accept to believe what we do not see.   

ü  Or, how they told us when we were young sisters in formation, faith in Jesus is like a  person jumping into the sea without knowing how to swim, or it is like giving him a blank check signed by us, and letting him put the amount.      

 

CLARETIAN CORNER 

 About the vision which God our Lord deigned to grant me on All Saints’ Day of 1854, there is nothing to say since it is written in two note books that I gave to my prelate and it is also written in these notes that my confessor commands me to write in order to give him an account of the favors and graces God our Lord was pleased to communicate to me , by his infinite mercy , without any merits of this vile sinner. What do I have to say about any merits of mine! Rather, I have to confess, full of confusion, my great ingratitude that, writing these very favors and graces from the Lord, I have had the shamelessness to offend him in many ways, as the one who commands me to write knows very well, and it is very clear in my conscience. María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters.  Autobiography 231.

 I came down from the pulpit filled with the greatest fervor, and at the end of the service we left the church to go to my lodgings. I was accompanied by four priests, my attendant, Ignacio, and a sacristan who carried a lantern to light our way, since it was 8:30 in the evening and it had already grown dark. We had left the church and were walking down the broad and spacious main street. On both sides of the avenue there were large crowds, and all were greeting me. A man stepped forward, as if to kiss my ring, when suddenly his arm flew back and he brought the razor he was holding down upon me with all his might. I had my head down and was touching a handkerchief to my mouth with my right hand, and so, instead of slitting my throat as he had intended, he slashed my face across the left cheek, from the ear to the chin. The razor also caught and wounded my right arm in passing because I was holding it up to my mouth, as I said. Antonio María Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 575.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, Antonio María. Autobiography.

PARIS, María Antonia. Autobiography

Sagrada Biblia oficial translation of the Conference of Catholic Bishops from Spain.