RBWords

      Jesus comes on the scene as definitely someone different and new.  He comes from a small town and has no known educational background of the kind the scribes and Pharisees would have and yet he teaches and expels demons in his own right!  The incident in today's gospel scripture occurs right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry in the Gospel According to Mark.  Jesus could not have chosen a more dramatic moment to begin - on a sabbath!  Healing was considered "work" and work was prohibited on the sabbath, as any scribe would have told him and them! He really gets people stirred up!  However, as the evangelist Mark tells it, Jesus' real identity will only be known at his death and resurrection.  In the meantime, his preaching and healing will cause a sensation that will incite the religious authorities to plot against him.

     Can we get excited about Jesus?  Is there anything "new" about him for us? Can we sit down with the gospels and read them and find him challenging to our settled ways?  What about him excited those first disciples and then St. Paul and others to give their very lives to tell others about him?  Indeed, we Dominicans today will also be celebrating the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, who, in his time (1221-1274), represented someone new because he used the philosophy of Aristotle as a vehicle for understanding God's plan of salvation.  His preaching and teaching continue to challenge.  But he is simply a model to all of us who are baptized.  Can we preach Jesus as someone new and exciting, especially in our secular, consumer-obsessed world?  The kind of excitement I speak of is not some superficial giddiness that produces a temporary emotional "high."  It is a deliberate effort to understand the profound richness of God's Word and offer it as something always new and exciting.  St. Thomas Aquinas did this in his own way (which continues to serve well) and we can do it in ours.  AMEN