St. Anthony & Our Lady of Fatima

Jesus healed the man of the unclean spirit, and the people called this action of Jesus a “teaching”: “[They] asked one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority.’” It is God’s presence and power that is the lesson not only to learn but to encounter.  Ultimately we are all students of the one teacher, whose authority is ordered to our salvation. From this school we never graduate; this teacher is always guiding us. This education is perfected for our final purpose: to know God.

Jesus does not issue orders to his followers like a charismatic military leader; he offer no rallying call to a revolutionary war, but he does make promises. Do we live as though we believe these promises? How constant, how radical are we in our following of Jesus to which we are invited by our baptism? How discerning of its demands are we in our contemporary society, and has Jesus priority in our lives?

This gospel proclaims that all discipleship is an active and involving relationship with Jesus: a following, seeking, staying, finding, and dialoguing with him.  We hear how each decision to follow Jesus is a response to a statement about Jesus’s identity as Lamb of God, Rabbi, Messiah, by people whose ears and hearts are open to the Word of God, who hear his invitation through the words of friend or stranger, through events of joy or sorrow, or who discern a moment of religious significance in the everyday.

This gospel is a declaration of who Jesus is to Mark’s church, a statement of their self-understanding as disciples of the new messianic times who are sons and daughters of the Father because they are baptized into the Spirit-filled and Beloved Son, and commissioned to serve in his name. Throughout Mark’s gospel, those who follow Jesus will struggle to understand what is revealed to Jesus as he rises from the waters: that humanity, despite its sinfulness, is loved with the prodigal love of God.