Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we celebrate the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Opening Prayer Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honor your with all our mind and love everyone in truth of heart through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the book of Deuteronomy, 18th chapter 15, 20th verse Moses spoke to all the people, saying, a prophet like me will the Lord your God raise up for you from among your own kin. To him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the Lord your God at Harb on the day of the assembly, when you said, let us not again hear the voice of the Lord our God, nor see the great fire any more, lest we die. And the Lord said to me, this was well said.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth. He shall tell them all that I command him. Whoever does not listen to my words, which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name, an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die. The Word of the Lord. Response to Oil Psalm if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

A reading from the New Testament from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 7th chapter 32, 35th verse brought brothers and sisters, I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he can please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her Husband, I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.

The word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Verse the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death. Light has arisen. The gospel for this fourth Sunday in ordinary time is taken from St. Mark 1:2128 verse.

Then they came to Capernaum. And on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit. He cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?

I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Jesus rebuked him and said, quiet, come out of him. The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, what is this? A new teaching? With authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.

His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee. The Gospel of the Lord this is the year of Mark. And we have the beginning of the ministry of Jesus described in the experience of Mark. And what he’s opening us up to and what he wants us to understand is how different, how different this time is when Jesus entered the world and became the prophet that was promised that we had a whole new way of hearing who God is and what God longs for us. There’s an Old Testament and a New Testament. They’re both essential for us to understand.

But there must be a transition from the Old to the New, which is not always easy. I see in the opening prayer a reflection of both Testaments. In the Old Testament we honor God with all our mind. We listen to him, we recognize who he is. He created us and he teaches us about justice. And the mind understands justice.

It’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It makes sense to the mind. It works. And what we see so much in the Old Testament is a God who reveals himself as one who is there to teach us about who we are and how we should treat one another. And he begins with the most basic level of evolution of human beings from self centered beings to other centered. In the middle of that place is a place of justice.

We understand that we have a an obligation to be fair. And the mind understands fairness. It’s why it is sort of made for justice, but also in A way the mind is made for revenge because that’s a way of imagining justice. Someone does something bad to you, you can do something bad back to them. And in a way, that’s what God describes himself as in the Old Testament. Listen to this first reading.

You know, the first reading is about God who is saying, all right, you people are asking for something more. You don’t really want to hear my voice directly. I love that image. Because one of the things that is interesting about God’s voice in the minds of the early followers of Jesus is that it’s a harsh voice, it’s a scary voice, it has fire in it. And so they’re saying, we’d rather have somebody reach us that understands a little bit more about who we are. It isn’t so harsh on us.

And so God said, okay, I will do that for you. But listen to the way he describes giving them a prophet who is like them, who would be more compassionate and understanding of what it means to be human. But you’ll still hear something in that Old Testament passage that’s so perfect for you to realize what the Old Testament is really trying to do for people. Give them a sense of obligation to a power greater than them, that if they displease this power, that power gets angry and punishes. So listen to the way he said, if you. You want this prophet, okay, I’ll tell you, I’ll send you one.

But if you don’t listen to the prophet that I’m sending, I’ll take care of you. I will hold it against you. Implied is that. That’s what’s implied. But then he’s a little harsher on the prophet. He said, if you’re a prophet and you prophesy in my name, but you’re not really teaching what I told you to teach, I’ll kill you.

I’ll get rid of you. I’ll. I’ll destroy you. Now, I know I’m saying that rather dramatically, but still, I’m trying to give you a sense of how people would have listened to this, how they heard it. You say what God is really saying is that a prophet that isn’t able to do what I give him to do will no longer be a prophet. That’s a death.

But I think you really have to look at the Old Testament and see how it impacts people to know that there’s a God in the Old Testament that is someone that needs to be feared. And if you don’t do what he says, he is going to crush you, send you to hell. Forever. And that isn’t who God is. It’s a part of God. Because the God of the Old Testament that speaks to the mind is speaking to things like logic and justice.

And that’s where we began and that’s how we evolve slowly from that. So in a way, the Old Testament had to be what it was in order to reach the people that it was destined to reach. It worked. It was needed to be what it was. But I think back to that opening prayer. It also said, along with honoring God with our minds, we have to love everyone in truth of heart.

Notice the Old Testament is about honoring God, worshiping him, doing things for him. The New Testament is more about how we treat one another. So we are called in the New Testament to a new way of seeing. Our eyes are open to a truth. The truth resides in our heart. And what the heart is made for, it goes beyond justice.

It’s called mercy, understanding, compassion, forgiveness. The two really do work together. One is the foundation, the other is the perfection of that foundation. And so as much as we’re called to being people who do what they’re told and obey the truth, we’re also called to be instruments of something that goes way beyond truth. Well, let me say way beyond justice, but enters into the depth of truth. And the truth is we are human beings made in God’s image.

And the fullness of the image of God is revealed in Jesus. And Jesus is the one who comes into the world without an intention of judging and condemning those who are not who they are, but loving those who are not who they are so that they can be transformed. Justice frees the innocent and can only punish the guilty. Mercy can free the innocent, but also free the guilty by not punishing them, but transforming them. Listen to the second reading with this image of Old Testament, New Testament. It’ll help you.

Because Paul is caught. You know, he was a Pharisee and he’s caught in a lot of the Old Testament. I mean, caught in it. He was trained in it. You just don’t all of a sudden become somebody radically different. Because God enters your life.

You still have a part of you that lives in the past. And we still have that ourselves. A part that’s more selfish, more self centered. We live with it, it doesn’t go away, but we learn how to be different than that. We’re empowered to be different than that. But listen to the way Paul is imagining that Jesus is coming back again.

He’s coming back next week, maybe the week after. And so he’s saying, we should be paying attention to that. But what I find interesting is he’s saying what God would really like is for you to give him your full attention. Just make him the only concern you have. And ignore the people around you. Don’t pay attention to your relationships.

Pay attention to God. Now that is just so interesting when you think about it, because that would be the antithesis of the New Testament. A mystic, Saint Catherine of Siena, was asked, how can I love you, God? How can I love you? I want to love you more and more and more. And he said, I don’t need that kind of love from you.

But the way you would please me, the way you would be, who I want you to be, is love each other. Then you’re showing me that you become who I’ve called you to be through my love for you and my acceptance of you as you are. And do that for each other. Because I want you to pay more attention to your love of your neighbor than for me. Not in the sense of saying the two don’t go together. But a lot of people go around saying, I love God, but I hate my neighbor.

And Jesus calls them liars. You can’t do that. If you love God, if you are. No, if you are loved by God, understand his mercy and his acceptance. You will have that same thing for your brothers and sisters. It’s just natural.

It just flows that way. So let’s go to the heart of the gospel. Jesus comes into the world, and he is the prophet that was promised. He’s the one that’s going to change the world. And when he comes in, he astounds the people that he’s listening to him because he has something different than the scribes and Pharisees. What do we know about the scribes and Pharisees?

They were hypocrites. They were saying what was right, but they weren’t living what was called for. And you know what that’s like. Those crazy making people in your life that act and speak the truth, but in truth, in reality, they’re anything but the truth. They’re liars and they’re users, but they speak the right language. Jesus has something that is essential for anyone who is going to be in the world, affecting change in the world for the good.

And that is authenticity. Another word, authority. He’s living the truth, not a lie. Truth has one major impact on the people that are engaged in it. It unifies, makes one. The opposite of truth is lies.

And lies are always going to have a profound effect on those who are engaged in it. And it will be separation and isolation. When you find out somebody has been lying to you, it immediately separates you from them. It’s a very, very frightening experience to have someone in your life that you’ve trusted and find out that they’re not telling you the truth. And the relationship then becomes deeply, deeply damaged and in a sense, divided. And the only thing that can unify it again is forgiveness and understanding.

But the forgiveness and understanding is offered only because it can be effective in changing someone. If the person doesn’t change, the relationship can’t exist. So here’s Jesus coming into the world and revealing himself as different. And the difference is authority, authenticity. And what does that mean? His intention.

Intention is felt from someone. Your intention is something that we underestimate. Because if you have an intention to be with someone and to give them life versus you’re with someone and you want to impress them or use them, or demand from them something that you need, the difference of that is the difference between authenticity and being a fake. So what are we looking at here? We’re saying Jesus comes into the world with an authentic heart who has an intention that all he wants to do is bring people to life. And how is he going to do that?

How is he going to bring people them to life? Speak the truth. Okay, when he speaks the truth for the first time in the Gospel of Mark, what does Mark say? That is the first sign for the disciples to watch. Because the disciples were told by Jesus, follow me, watch me, see what I do. The first experience in Mark’s Gospel is they’re watching him walk into a synagogue, into a holy place.

And in that place there is a liar, someone possessed, someone with an unclean spirit. And the fascinating thing about this passage is that that unclean spirit knows instantly that Jesus has power over him. And he said, I know who you are and you’re here to destroy us. Right? And I think that’s so fascinating when you think about it. Here’s a human being speaking in the name of evil.

That means evil has a way of becoming a part of us where we’re not even aware that it is the source of things. But whenever something comes out of the core of our being that is designed to destroy, to use, to abuse, it’s evil. Not that I’m saying we are evil, but the evil is in us. That’s something I want to try to get to and as how many I hope I can, that we are this strange combination of good and evil, selfishness and self centeredness. We’ve got to embrace it. All it is part of the work of being an integrated human being.

We’re not good or bad, we’re both. So here it is, this unclean spirit recognizing that. That a person who has the intention of nothing but love is so intolerant to evil that their very presence shakes them and destroys them. So when the disciples see a man who comes into the world who they believe is the Messiah, and they see that he is filled with something called truth, called love, called mercy, the minute it comes into contact with evil, evil knows it is busted, it is destroyed. Imagine the power we have when we stay in the truth, in love and in mercy, to overcome the influence of evil. Evil can’t stand to be around love and mercy.

It lives in hearts and minds that are bent on revenge and anger and fear. So we have this new teaching with authority, so his fame begins to spread everywhere. And if you continue in the Gospel of Mark, and we probably will, as in the next couple of readings. But what is interesting, not only does he show that he has power over evil, but he has. He is able to heal people of distress and disease. So from this experience, he goes and heals Peter’s mother in law.

And then he goes to the neighbor, and all the neighbors come and they fill. They line up outside, you know, and saying, here’s a man that can heal us. It’s like the lines for vaccines. It’s like they were here. I want this man. I want him to give me whatever he has so that I can be immune from the.

The infection of evil and revenge and hatred. And I love the fact. I mean, it’s so human for Jesus when I think about it. So he’s there and he’s exhausted by the end of the night. And so the next morning, all these people are lined up and he slipped away at night and goes away to pray. Like he’s saying, all right, I have this power, but I’m here to give it to you to do to each other.

I’m not going to be the source always with you to do it. It’s not going to reside in one or two persons who have a role in religion that is going to save the world. No, it’s religious people being truly prophetic and awakening people to the power that’s in them called love and mercy that transforms the world. The world is never going to be changed from the top down. It’s going to be changed from the bottom up. That’s the way it works.

Each individual representing this awesome new power that God is giving to human beings by creating the prophet Jesus, who is nothing more than the example of what you and I are to become. We are the incarnation of Jesus in the sense that we are like him, meaning divinity lives in us doing its work, and we still remain human, broken, filled with all kinds of negativity. But that’s the way it’s supposed to be, and that’s the way it works. SA Closing Prayer Father, your invitation for us to be instruments of your love, your mercy, your forgiveness to our brothers and sisters is often something that seems too difficult. But when we accept our humanity and its weaknesses and still know that you can work through us with your love, then we are safe and sure and confident in this work. It is you through us that brings life to others, not ourselves.

As we grow in that knowledge, we will grow in the joy of watching those around us be touched by your mercy and your love. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program, is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you.

You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.