{"id":1543,"date":"2015-02-01T12:24:40","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T17:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1543"},"modified":"2015-02-01T12:24:40","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T17:24:40","slug":"4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

4th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B<\/a>
\nDeuteronomy 18:15-20
\n1 Corinthians 7:32-35
\nMark 1:21-28
\nFebruary 1, 2015<\/p>\n

Moses was a great authority for his leadership among the Israelites.\u00a0 He was the one who acted as an intermediary between God and the people. He was the one who received the Ten Commandments from the Lord.<\/p>\n

Moses was seen as an authority on all matters of faith.\u00a0 As he write the Book of Deuteronomy, the Israelites are preparing to enter the Promised Land but Moses will not go with him.\u00a0 He will die as the people enter the Promised Land.<\/p>\n

Knowing he will not be going with them, Moses speaks of an authority to come after him.\u00a0 He is immediately succeeded by Joshua.\u00a0 Joshua, in turn, is succeeded by a series of \u201cjudges\u201d and then by a series of kings down through the ages.\u00a0 None of them lend as Moses did.<\/p>\n

Now here comes Jesus.\u00a0 As he speaks to the people they are astonished at his teaching.<\/em>\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Normally the scribes did much of the teaching.\u00a0 They were the ones with the official schooling to do so.\u00a0 As scribes, they were part of the official authorities<\/em> of the church.<\/p>\n

So it is peculiar that the people would see him \u201cas one having authority and not as the scribes<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 It would seem that while the scribes had authority from their position, they did not earn the respect of the people.<\/p>\n

Whatever they felt was missing in the scribes, they found in Jesus.\u00a0 Perhaps it was creditability.\u00a0 The scribes taught from the Hebrew Scriptures but some did not practice what they preached.\u00a0 They commanded obedience but did little to help the people.\u00a0 They were prideful about their status.\u00a0 They were supposed to be the religious experts but they fell short in a true understanding of what the scriptures meant.<\/p>\n

Now, here comes Jesus.\u00a0 He does not speak pride fully. He shows compassion for the poor and helps people in need.\u00a0 He shows he cares.\u00a0 He speaks from the heart.\u00a0 In him the people see authority that they want to listen to.<\/p>\n

Where do you turn to for authority on religious matters?<\/p>\n

Ideally, I have some authority on religious matters but I have to admit I don\u2019t know everything, nobody does.\u00a0 Do I speak with creditability?\u00a0 I hope so.\u00a0 I try to practice what I preach but I struggle.<\/p>\n

Certainly our bishop holds a position of authority in our church along with the pope.\u00a0 We can read the documents they write and listen to what they have to say but we aren\u2019t likely to get to ask the Pope questions of faith individually.\u00a0 Even with the bishop, this doesn\u2019t happen much.<\/p>\n

I try to do what I can but I know it isn\u2019t enough.\u00a0 Where else can we try for answers about our faith?<\/p>\n

We should start with the Bible, words inspired by God, and then the Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/em> and related writings but I think more and more people are going to the Internet for answers.<\/p>\n

There is good information available on the Internet.\u00a0 You can find the Bible and the Catechism there.\u00a0 You can also find a vast array of the documents written by the popes on the Vatican website.\u00a0 There are lots of Catholic organizations with websites along with individuals like myself posting information on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Can we count on it all being good information?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Anyone can post on the Internet.\u00a0 I remember when I first came back to church and I went to look something upon the Internet.\u00a0 Honestly, I don\u2019t even remember what I was looking for.\u00a0 I typed in what I was looking for in an Internet search engine and clicked on the first website that came up.\u00a0 As I read, it wasn\u2019t sure it was what I was looking for.\u00a0 As I read I came across a sentence that referred to the Catholic Church as a \u201cfalse religion,\u201d definitely not what I was looking for.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately it isn\u2019t always that easy to know when material isn\u2019t good.\u00a0 People can write like experts and have no real education.\u00a0 Others write deliberately or to mislead.\u00a0 There are some people who don\u2019t understand themselves.<\/p>\n

How are we supposed to know who to listen to?<\/p>\n

Obviously the popes are good authorities but even there we have to consider who is writing.\u00a0 The news media seems to be taking Pope Francis out of context a lot.<\/p>\n

With others we need to do some research to know who is writing but I think step one can begin with asking the question, does what the person writes agree with what I already know?\u00a0 Does it agree with the Bible?\u00a0 Does it refer to Bible passages or official church documents?\u00a0 If not, where does their information come from?<\/p>\n

We need to put effort into learning more about our faith but we need to get our information from people speaking with true authority.\u00a0 What do you do to come closer to God?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B Deuteronomy 18:15-20 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 Mark 1:21-28 February 1, 2015 Moses was a great authority for his leadership among the Israelites.\u00a0 He was the one who acted as an intermediary between God and the people. He was the one who received the Ten Commandments from the Lord. Moses …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-oT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1545,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}