Rich Thoughts

As part of our website redesign last year, we now add new content to the website every week. Please be sure to check out StAustin.org on an ongoing basis, as we frequently update information there about worship & sacraments, faith formation, charity & justice, and community events!

One website project that I’m spearheading is a growing series of lectionary guides. The lectionary is the collection of Bible passages proclaimed at the various Masses in the life of the Church. These guides have been a great collaboration among a number of parishioners and staff members. I’m assisted by Justin Brinkley in writing up the theological content. Beverley Thiel helps find most of the artwork we use.

If you’ve ever wanted to understand the Bible better, this may be the resource you’ve been looking for! We’ve tried to provide enough background so everyone can understand what’s going on, but we’re trying to condense and simplify what’s covered in most scholarly texts. You can now find the current lectionary guides - one for daily Mass and one for Sunday Mass - on the Mass Broadcasts page, underneath the worship aid and bulletin links. Perhaps a good place to start is my favorite of the dozen or so guides we’ve created thus far: a guide to the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

We’ve just posted our guide to the Gospel of Mark. This Lent, it might be fun to study this gospel in the four weeks between two of Mark’s mentions of the title “Son of God” in our Sunday readings - 9:7 today and 15:39 on Palm Sunday. Our lectionary guide is a less than 10 minute read while the gospel itself takes less than an hour. As we pray this Lent with the enigmatic Mark - who provides little commentary on why Jesus speaks and acts as he does - we can meditate on who Jesus is for us.

One of the hallmarks of Mark’s gospel is its focus on Jesus as the Son of God. Even though the very first verse declares Jesus as God’s Son, it is a title only rarely spoken in the gospel. Both at Jesus’ baptism (1:9-11) and at his Transfiguration (9:2-9), we hear God declare Jesus as his “beloved Son.” While Peter recognizes Jesus as “Messiah” (8:29), Bartimaeus calls him “Son of David” (10:47-48), and the soldiers mock him as “King of the Jews” (15:18, 26), the only beings to recognize Jesus’s full identity during his ministry are demons (1:24 and 5:7).

Upon Jesus’s death on the cross, a person - a Roman centurion, not a disciple - finally recognizes Jesus as the Son of God (15:26). The women who find the empty tomb leave
frightened, not telling anyone what they saw (16:1-8).

When he wrote his gospel, Mark knew that the good news had already spread far and wide. Why doesn’t he tell us how that happened? Mark’s message is clear: it is up to us to proclaim Christ crucified. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, how should we spread the good news in our words and actions?

~ Fr. Rich Andre, CSP