6^th Sunday Year B 2006

One of those troubling details in the Gospels, of which there are many, frequently recurs in Saint Mark. Biblical scholars have coined the term ‘The Messianic Secret’ to give a name to this very curious phenomenon in the Second Gospel. It seems that our Lord did not want people to know that He was the Messiah, and that He took careful means to keep this knowledge about His identity from general public knowledge. Our passage for today has a reference to this in our Lord’s clear directive to the man who had been cured to ‘tell no one anything’ about the miracle. The thing that is surprising about this, even shocking, is that our Lord seems to wish to hide the very information that the Gospel was meant to advance, namely the coming of Christ. The common explanation for this secrecy is that Jesus wished to avoid that sensationalism that would draw people to Him as a wonder-worker and instead prepare them to accept Him in faith.

The other very disturbing thing about this, at least to me, is the general disobedience to this command of Christ’s to keep something secret. Word instantly spread about His miracles, even to the point that our Lord had to run away from the publicity. My reaction, when I read such passages, is that, the people could hardly be blamed for their openness. I have even thought to myself that maybe God was privately pleased with the notoriety so that the fame of Christ could be spread wide. However, according to traditional Catholic understanding, our Lord did not actually mean to censure those who acted in a way seeming to be against His wishes because He did not really intend to bind the man cured to silence, but rather to teach us a lesson, namely that when we have done a good deed to another that we are to keep it to ourselves and not to boast of our accomplishments.

I know that this is not the main theme of this reading, nor of the Gospel of Saint Mark generally, but I have selected this feature of the Scripture in order to speak about obedience to God, even in little matters. Our Lord spoke specifically about this when He said that whoever keeps the least command of the Law would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. This idea of conformity with God’s will in small matters is perhaps not something we ponder very often. This is because our sweeping wish to get make it to heaven, which means, in practical terms, staying free of mortal sin. No one should want to minimalize that most necessary of all pursuits. Focusing only on the larger picture, however, may turn out to be a serious disadvantage. For it appears that our goal should be not only to make it to heaven, to be saved, but to become perfect (we will only get into heaven when we will be made perfect, in purgatory, if necessary). Conformity with God’s will aims to the resemblance of Jesus or of Mary who refused God nothing. It is not satisfied to observe only the great things, but also the lesser. Here is a lesson that we might devote ourselves to study somewhat more closely. Being made of one mind, rather of one will, with God in the little things of living, we can thereby become enabled to do the big things as well. Indeed, it may safely be said that those little refusals in that we call venial sins are frequently predispositions for falling into mortal sin. The old adage has it that ‘a little error in the beginning becomes great in the end’ applies well here. Once one has permitted himself a degree of latitude in small matters, that spirit of indulgence easily prepares itself for greater allowances, a freedom to act in a more serious way contrary to God’s will.

I suppose that this is a way of keeping onself on that narrow way that leads to heaven: the narrowness of keeping vigilance over one’s thoughts and desires, let alone giving in just a little from time to time on doing some things that are not so serious in nature. A well-regulated life is the expression of having cultivated that single-mindedness that pursues God will in things both great and small. While we all fail in many things and rather often, yet the work of perfection is an on-going process within the reach of everyone if it is motivated and guided by love. When one has love in his heart, deeds are more easily accomplished. If one were to love God as He deserves to be loved, then one would not fail Him at all. This is the love that was in Holy Mary; this is perfection. Even though it is a work seemingly unreachable, we ought to try to attain to it by examining ourselves in the light of the holy life of the saints and then applying that knowledge to the project of self-mastery.