Word to the Wise
Thursday, February 27, 2014 - Thursday in the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jas 5:1-6 and Mark 9:41-50]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, etc.... [Mark]
The great Southern Catholic writer, Flannery O'Connor, defended her vivid characters and plots by saying that she knew she was writing for a public that was deaf and blind to faith and grace, which meant she had to shout or" draw large and startling figures!" The Gospel of Mark shows the same tactic being used by Jesus. He begins with the image of tying a millstone around one's neck and being cast into the sea, and then goes on to cutting off a hand or foot or plucking out an eye - all better than sinning or causing anyone to sin!
Jesus is shown time and again restoring deformities and opening the eyes of the blind. But these acts alone, in the Gospel of Mark, do not accomplish what he wanted to do to get the disciples and others to believe. It took his crucifixion and resurrection to finally get the message across. That was, indeed, a "large and startling" action. AMEN