First Reading
Numbers 11:25-29
The Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses. Taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, the Lord bestowed it on the seventy elders; and as the spirit came to rest on them, they prophesied. Now two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad, were not in the gathering but had been left in the camp. They too had been on the list, but had not gone out to the tent; yet the spirit came to rest on them also, and they prophesied in the camp. So, when a young man quickly told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp, ” Joshua, son of Nun, who from his youth had been Moses’ aide, said, “Moses, my lord, stop them.” But Moses answered him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!”
Second Reading
James 5:1-6
Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous one; he offers you no resistance.
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
At that time, John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'”
The readings today are perfect for speaking about the relationships between all the Churches that follow Jesus Christ. So often in our Christian history the Churches that follow Jesus Christ have spoken ill of one another and even condemned one another. Today we are challenged to think in new ways without losing the truth of our Catholic faith.
The challenge seems to be this: how to be authentically and completely Roman Catholic and yet have enormous respect and love and honor for all those who follow Jesus Christ and who are not Roman Catholics. Today this sounds fairly easy, but it is not as easy as it seems. What has happened too often is that we Roman Catholics really compromise our faith, no longer accepting the teachings of our Church. This is not the way of dialogue nor the way of ecumenism, but the way of losing faith entirely.
Sometimes we Catholics see other Christians who have energy and drive and a wonderful commitment to Jesus Christ. Instead of admiring those gifts and bringing them into our own life of faith as Catholics, we leave the Church because we see something that we think is better elsewhere. Sometimes we Catholics see in other Churches an openness to the values of our times that we think that our own Church lacks, and so we either leave the Church for another Church or begin to accept those values as though they could be our own when they are clearly against the teachings of our own Church.
It is not easy to be a Roman Catholic! We accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. We accept the Scriptures. Yet we also accept a teaching authority in the Church and it is this teaching authority that often causes us scandal or against which we rebel.
For those of us who remain faithful to our Roman Catholic Church, it is a matter of deeply and profoundly accepting whatever teachings of our Church have already been defined, knowing also where and how we might disagree with various disciplines of the Church but always wanting to live in the heart of the Church, allowing the teachings of our Church to form us as followers of Jesus Christ.
Even in the Hebrew Scriptures, which become our “Old Testament” there are times when people follow one teacher or another. In the Christian Scriptures, our “New Testament” we can hear already Saint Paul saying: are you for Paul or Apollos? We are all for Jesus Christ!
Our Gospel today is very clear that we can cause others to sin by our own actions. Our believing affects others. We can mislead or we can lead to Christ. We can draw others away from the Church or deeper into the Church. What is so deeply important is to continue to seek Jesus Christ and His kingdom and to strive to do His will every day of our life.
Let us ask today that we may grow more faithful in following Jesus, in knowing and accepting His Church and in all of those things that will make us more profoundly and truly Catholic as members of the Roman Catholic Church. And may we always respect those who walk on other paths.