Daily Readings Reflection for 7/8/12

Scripture: Lectionary 102: Ezekiel 2:2-5. Psalm 123:1-2.2.3-4. II
Corinthians 12:7-10. Mark 6:1-6a.

Ezekiel is one of the most colorful of the prophets in the creativ and bold ways in which he gets his prophetic message across.  He calls himself the “son of man” in order to emphasize his humanness and hislimits.  This becomes almost a personal name for him as we read through his prophetic book.  There is nothing boring or dull about the flow of the chapters.  He gives us one of the greatest principles in prophecy, namely, that we are each responsible for the choices we make and cannot say we are virtuous or immoral through what our ancestors or parents may have done.  (Ezekiel 18:2-31).  He insisted on holiness,  denunciation of idolatry,  and the existence of angels, and apocalyptic mysticism.  In chapter 37 his vision of the dry bones gives us hope for regeneration now and the hope of life hereafter.

Jesus also names and calls himself “the son of man.”  The expression often just has the same connotation as the pronoun “I.”  There is also the apocalyptic “son of man” in Daniel but this belongs more to a later insight into eschatogy in the early Church while being applied to Jesus in those passages where the “son of man” will appear on the clouds with power and judgment.

Mark 6:1-6 is the second passage in this Gospel that has a mention of the mother of Jesus.  This is a noteworthy passage in that chronologically we learn of her name, Mary, for the first time in the Scriptures.  It seems the “son of man” title as well as the “son of
Mary” one mean the humanness and the limits of Jesus as belonging to a particular woman named Mary and under her tutelage.  Joseph the  husband is never mentioned and the “brothers and sisters” is understood in our Catholic faith as part of the extended family.  This makes sense since two of the named male figures have other women mentioned as their mother in the Gospels.  Our belief in the perpetual virginity in this statement of Mark 6: 3 shows us that Jesus is considered to belong to Mary as a son and has the trade of  carpenter.  Fr. Roland Faley, T.O.R. has this important statement
about Mark 6:3: “Son of Mary would be an exceptional, even unsettling way for a person to be identified, with no mention of the father. Yet, Mark has already identified God as Jesus’ father (Mark 1:1, 11. and again in 9:7; 13:32).

Like the prophet Ezekiel, Jesus is rejected in his own native place and among his own relatives for no prophet is without honor except in his native place, among his own kindred, and in his own house.  They say “He is too much for us!”  Can we really ever have too much o Jesus in our lives?   We may wish to ponder over the meaning of the
title “son of Mary” and Jesus having only God as his Father.  Amen.