February 17, 2025
Monday of the Sixth Week in
Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 335
Reading 1
The man had relations with his wife Eve,
and she conceived and bore Cain, saying,
“I have produced a man with the help of the LORD.”
Next she bore his brother Abel.
Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil.
In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD
from the fruit of the soil,
while Abel, for his part,
brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.
The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,
but on Cain and his offering he did not.
Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.
So the LORD said to Cain:
“Why are you so resentful and crestfallen.
If you do well, you can hold up your head;
but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door:
his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master.”
Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out in the field.”
When they were in the field,
Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Then the LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
He answered, “I do not know.
Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The LORD then said: “What have you done!
Listen: your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil!
Therefore you shall be banned from the soil
that opened its mouth to receive
your brother’s blood from your hand.
If you till the soil, it shall no longer give you its produce.
You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth.”
Cain said to the LORD: “My punishment is too great to bear.
Since you have now banished me from the soil,
and I must avoid your presence
and become a restless wanderer on the earth,
anyone may kill me at sight.”
“Not so!” the LORD said to him.
“If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold.”
So the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight.
Adam again had relations with his wife,
and she gave birth to a son whom she called Seth.
“God has granted me more offspring in place of Abel,” she said,
“because Cain slew him.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (14a) Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
God the LORD has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before me always.”
R. Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”
R. Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
“You sit speaking against your brother;
against your mother’s son you spread rumors.
When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.”
R. Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father except through me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus,
seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.
He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said,
“Why does this generation seek a sign?
Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”
Then he left them, got into the boat again,
and went off to the other shore.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021725.cfm
Commentary on
Genesis 4:1-15,25
The story of original sin continues with a number of
accounts all pointing to the source of people’s pain and suffering—their
alienation from the ways of God. Today it is about the all-too prevalent
violence and killing which brings death, anger, fear and division into people’s
lives.
The New Jerusalem Bible introduces the
story in this way:
“This narrative presupposes a developed civilisation, an
established form of worship, the existence of other people who might kill Cain,
and the existence of a clan that would rally to him. It may be that the
narrative originally referred not to the children of the first Man, but to the
eponymous ancestor of the Cainites (see Num 24:21). The Yahwistic tradition has
moved the story back to the period of the beginning, thus giving it a universal
significance: after the revolt against God we now have fratricidal strife;
against these two evils is directed the double command that sums up the whole
Law—the love of God and of neighbour (see Matt 22:40).”
Now expelled from the Garden, the Man has sexual relations
with his wife, Eve, and they have a son who is called Cain:
I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.
The Hebrew name qayin (“Cain”) and the
term qaniti (“I have produced” or “I have acquired”, i.e.
‘acquisition’) present a play on words. There are many examples where biblical
naming of children or places involves puns on key events. The statement also
expresses the delight of the first Woman who, though under the ‘rule’ of her
husband, produces what the Man wants, but cannot produce on his own—a son. God
is more behind the procreation of the son than her husband.
Cain, then, is seen as a gift from God. There is an element
of creation in every act of pro-creation. Cain is soon followed by a brother,
Abel. Abel ( meaning “emptiness or futility” in Hebrew folk
etymology), is the perfect counterpart of “Acquisition”. In the Scriptures,
brother pairs are often seen opposed in temperament, way of life and destiny
(e.g. Jacob and Esau).
Abel was a shepherd while Cain was a farmer tilling the
ground. The historical opposition of shepherds and farmers is indicated here.
God favours the shepherd, but the choice comes to grief in any case. This is
the first instance, too, of a common biblical theme—the younger being preferred
to the elder (among others, Isaac to Ishmael, Jacob to Esau, Rachel to Leah).
Such preferences indicate the freedom of God’s choice, his bypassing earthly
standards of greatness, and his regard for the lowly (see Jesus’ teaching to
his disciples about who is really great in the Kingdom: Matthew 18:1-5; Luke
9:46-48; Mark 10:35-45).
In the course of time, Cain brought along the fruits of his
farming and offered them to the Lord. Abel also brought the first lambs of his
flock and offered their fat portions to the Lord. God was pleased with the
offerings of Abel, but disregarded those of Cain. This made Cain very angry and
resentful. We might be inclined to sympathise, or ask the reason for the
discrimination.
Perhaps Cain is being told that what really pleases God is
righteousness and good behaviour. This will emerge more clearly in the time of the
prophets, where religious rituals are seen only as having value when they are
accompanied by a life of concern for the brother and sister, especially those
in need.
God asks Cain why he is angry and despondent. If he had done
well, would he not have been accepted by God? If he is badly disposed to God’s
treatment of him, is not “sin…lurking at the door”? This is something he must
overcome, but something he failed to do. He invited his brother to go out to
his farm and there Cain killed Abel. The crime is aggravated by the deceit
(“Let us go out to the field.”), and being against a blood brother and a good
man who had done nothing to provoke such violence.
God then asks Cain where his brother has gone. As in the
case of the Man and the Woman after their sin, God knows very well what has
happened, but he wants to give Cain an opportunity to confess his crime.
However, Cain backs off. He says he does not know, and then asks the famous
question:
…am I my brother’s keeper?
This is, of course, a rhetorical question in the Scriptures.
God now comes out straight:
What have you done? Listen, your brother’s blood is
crying out to me from the ground!
So Cain is cursed from the ground, the very ground which
received Abel’s blood from Cain’s hand. From now on, the earth he tills will
not be productive, while Cain himself will be a fugitive and a wanderer over
the earth. He will enjoy no citizens’ rights, at least in his initial homeland.
Cain’s punishment is to till the ground with great
difficulty, and to be condemned to the life of an ever-wandering nomad. This
was, in fact, the life of many people in pre-agricultural days, and there are
still people living in this way, including the Bedouins of the desert.
Cain feels his punishment is more than he can bear: he has
been driven from the soil which provided him with a living and, worse, he must
remain hidden from the face of God, while being a fugitive and wanderer for the
rest of his life. Anyone who sees him will feel justified in killing him. Faced
with his crime, Cain does not express any form of repentance, but is simply
filled with self-pity. Ironically, then, he begs God that he not meet the same
fate as his own brother, that of being killed.
He has no need to fear, God tells him, because anyone who
kills Cain will be punished seven-times more severely. The message is clear:
killing, even in revenge is ruled out (see also Jesus’ words on this in Matt
5:21-26). God then put a mark on Cain to prevent anyone from striking him down.
This is not a brand of shame, but a protecting sign; it shows that Cain (with
Abel) belongs to a clan which will exact blood for blood.
The use of tattooing for tribal marks has always been common
among the nomads of the Near Eastern deserts. Also in ancient times, certain
criminals were offered limited asylum when uncontrolled reprisals posed a
greater social danger than the criminals themselves.
Cain was left in a living hell—neither living nor dying. But
what he did was only the beginning of a huge trail of murder and bloodshed in
the world’s history. For the authors of Genesis, this was the first recorded
murder, but such violence continues now as a reality of life, part of man’s
sinfulness from the very beginning. In a verse which is part of this story, but
not contained in our reading, Lamech, a descendant of Adam, boasts to his
wives, saying:
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold. (Gen 4:23-34)
One wonders if Jesus’ answer to Peter about the number of
times he should forgive is an echo of Lamech’s boast? (See Matt 18:22).
At the end of the reading, we are told that later Adam again
had intercourse with his wife and they bore a son called Seth:
God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel,
because Cain killed him.
The Hebrew word for ‘appointed’ (shat) sounds very
like ‘Seth’. Abel was dead, and Cain was rejected, so another son was needed
for the family line (indeed the human line) to continue. We know very little
about Seth except that—in biblical terms—he lived a very long life and had many
descendants (Gen 5:6-7).
We live today in a world full of violence and killing. Let
us not be instigators of violence in any way—in action, in word or even in
thought.
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Commentary on Mark
8:11-13
The Pharisees, disturbed by what Jesus is saying and doing,
demand a “sign from heaven” to indicate that his authority comes from
God. He refuses to acquiesce to their request; they will not get a sign
on their terms.
The irony, of course, is that Jesus’ whole life is a sign, a
sign of God’s loving presence among us. In Mark, the ordinary people can
see this clearly. Only the leaders and (in Mark) Jesus’ own disciples are
slow to learn.
In the immediately foregoing passage, Jesus has just fed
4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few fish. The signs are
there in abundance, but the Pharisees cannot see because they do not want to
see. Their blindness is a central theme to this part of Mark, as we shall
see. We too need to be aware of our own blindness and our failure to see the
signs of God’s love operating in our everyday lives.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/
Monday, February 17, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Lord God,
forgive us that in our weak faith we ask sometimes for signs
and wonders. We know that you are our Father, but it is not always easy for us
to recognize your loving presence. Give us eyes of faith to see the sign that
you are with us in Jesus and his message. We say so reluctantly, for it is
painful: purify our trust in you and in
Jesus that we may become more mature Christians, who love you through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Gospel Reading -
Mark 8: 11-13
The Pharisees came up and started a discussion with him;
they demanded of him a sign from heaven, to put him to the test. And with a
profound sigh he said, 'Why does this generation demand a sign? In truth I tell
you, no sign shall be given to this generation.' And, leaving them again, he
re-embarked and went away to the other side.
Reflection
• Mark 8: 11-13: The Pharisees ask for a sign from
Heaven. Today’s Gospel narrates a discussion of the Pharisees with Jesus. Jesus
also, as it happened with Moses in the Old Testament, had fed the hungry people
in the desert, bymultiplying the bread (Mk 8:
1-10). This is a sign that he presented himself before the people as a
new Moses. But the Pharisees were not capable to perceive the meaning of the
multiplication of the loaves. They continued to discuss with Jesus, and ask for
a sign, “from Heaven.” They had understood nothing of all that Jesus had done.
“Jesus sighed profoundly,” probably feeling disgust and sadness before so
much blindness. And
he concludes saying: “No
sign will be given
to this generation.”
He left them and went toward the
other side of the lake. It is not worthwhile to show a beautiful picture to one
who does not want to open the eyes. Anyone who closes the eyes cannot see!
• The danger of
dominating ideology. He we can clearly perceive how the “yeast of Herod and the
Pharisees” (Mk 8: 15), the dominating ideology of the time, made persons lose
their capacity to analyze events objectively. This yeast came from far and had
taken profound roots in the life of the people. It went so far as to
contaminate the mentality of the disciples and manifested itself in many ways.
With the formation which Jesus gave them, he tried to uproot this “yeast.”
• The following are
some examples of this fraternal help which Jesus gave to his disciples:
• The mentality of a closed group. On a certain day a person
not belonging to the community used the name of Jesus to drive out devils. John
saw it and forbade this fact: “We have forbidden this because he was not one of
ours” (Mk 9: 38). John thought he had the monopoly on Jesus and wanted to
prevent others to use the name of Jesus to do good. John wanted a community
closed in itself. It was the yeast of
the “Elected People, the separated People!” Jesus responds: “Do not stop him!
Anyone who is not against us is for us!” (Mk 9: 39-40).
• The mentality of a group which considers itself superior
to others. Certain times, the Samaritans did not want to offer hospitality to
Jesus. The reaction of some of the disciples was immediate: “May fire descend
from Heaven and burn them up!” (Lk 9: 54).
They thought that because they were with Jesus, everyone had to welcome
him, to accept him. They thought they had God on their side to defend him. It
was the yeast of the “Chosen People, the Privileged People!” Jesus reproaches
them: “Jesus turned and rebuked them” (Lk 9: 55).
• The competitive mentality of and of prestige. The
disciples discussed among themselves about the first place (Mk 9: 33-34). It
was the yeast of class and of competitiveness, which characterized the official
religion and the society of the Roman Empire.
It was already getting into the small community around Jesus. Jesus
reacts and orders to have a contrary mentality: “If anyone wants to be first,
he must make himself last” (Mk 9: 35).
• The mentality of those who marginalize the little ones.
The disciples scolded little children. It was the yeast of the mentality of
that time, according to which children did not count and should be disciplined
by adults. Jesus rebukes the disciples: “Let
the little children come to me!” (Mk
10: 14). The children become the teachers of the adults: “Anyone who does not
welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Lk 18:
17).
As it happened in the time of Jesus, today also the
Neo-liberal mentality of the dominating ideology arises once again and appears
even in the life of the community and of the family. The prayerful reading of
the Gospel, made in community, can help to change in us the vision of things
and to deepen in us conversion and the fidelity which Jesus asks from us.
For Personal
Confrontation
• Before the
alternative: to have faith in Jesus or to ask for a sign from heaven, the
Pharisees want a sign from heaven. They were not capable to believe in Jesus.
The same thing happens to me. What have I chosen?
• The yeast of the
Pharisees prevented the disciples to perceive the presence of the Kingdom in
Jesus. Have some remains of this yeast of the Pharisees remained in me?
Concluding Prayer
Lord, you are generous and act generously, teach me your
will. (Ps 119: 68)
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