Mk 9:30-37; ... “They they did not understand what he said” and “they were afraid to ask him what he meant” Homily Fr. Raymond

Rowan Trees Autumn

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From: Raymond <- - - >
To: Donald <- - ->
Sent: Sunday, 23 September 2012, 16:07
Subject: The two phrases: ““They they did not understand what he said”  and “they were afraid to ask him what he meant”

Sun. 25 2012     “....Jesus and his disciples made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples....”   He took them away from their mission of preaching and teaching because the work was often so engrossing and demanding.  In fact, the gospels tell us that they sometimes couldn’t even find time to eat.   So, now he was taking them aside because he had something to tell them that was going to need their full attention; their full concentration  He was going to tell them about his forth-coming passion and death, and this was something he knew very well that they were going to find it hard to understand and even harder to accept. :    In the event this is exactly what did happen.  We read that:  “They they did not understand what he said”  and they were even “afraid to ask him what he meant”.  Here we have a very common trait in human nature: When we are confronted with something unpleasant; something  that’s threatening us and we can’t avoid it; then we tend not to face up to it, we tend to ignore it we hold ourselves in denial of it, we look the other way in the hope that it will disappear.  It is obvious from the gospels that Jesus had to repeat this lesson time and time again to try to drive it home into his disciples bewildered minds: the fact that he was destined to suffer grievously  and be put to death”.  The two phrases: ““They they did not understand what he said”  and “they were afraid to ask him what he meant”,  are at the heart of this passage of the gospels.  They challenge each of us to consider those aspects of Our Lord’s teaching that we find puzzling ourselves; those things that we ourselves are afraid to look at straight in the face.  Such things can be things in our lives that we know, deep down within us, to be at least displeasing to God, if not downright sinful;  It may be some choices we have made or some decisions we are about to make that we suspect God would rather we did not make.  On the other hand it might be about things we know we ought to do but have not done;  some reconciliation, perhaps that we keep on putting off;  some duty or responsibility that we keep on neglecting. It is in ways like these that we find ourselves in the same position as the disciples before the Lord’s prophecy of his passion.  We find the whole thing, consciously or sub-consciously, so repugnant that, although we do not understand we daren’t question it because we really don’t want to understand.

It takes courage to pray the prayer of the Psalmist; "Lord teach me your paths.!"