Wednesday – 2nd Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Mark3:1-6

Counting to Ten!

Roman Ruins, Caesarea Mauretania

In all my years of teaching, one of the nicest compliments I ever got was a student remarking that they had never really seen me upset!  Hmm!  I’m guessing that either they had a very short memory or all the time I spent teaching Buddhism and how to meditate was well spent!  Either way, I know it wasn’t necessarily true, especially during my first year at St. Pat’s.  I had spent over 30 years teaching girls and now I was teaching boys.  Everything was different; everything was frustrating!  And I do recall once getting so upset that I raised my voice and yelled at them.  But my brain was still in all-girls mode; so I didn’t say ‘boys’ or ‘gentlemen’.  I said ‘ladies’.  It worked amazingly well!  They thought it was the worst insult and immediately shut up.

I am sure we have all had our moments when we didn’t count to 10, when we literally lost it, when our anger spilled out into harsh words and even action which we may have regretted later.  Mark the Evangelist seems to focus often on Jesus’ emotional reactions – anger, exhaustion, disappointment, groaning and sighing and sheer exasperation when the disciples just didn’t get it. Today’s Gospel is a perfect example.  It shows Jesus apparently ready to explode.  The Pharisees never seem to let up with their carping and nit-picking.  And Jesus constantly finds Himself caught in the middle of upset and calm!  Today He is angry and very upset (grieved) over the Pharisees’ hardness of heart.  But He doesn’t yell; He doesn’t throw things!  He doesn’t lash out at the Pharisees.   

Instead He focused on the man with the withered hand; He focused on doing the right thing – curing him.  And He let His actions speak for themselves.  He knew the right thing to do and He did it, even though He also realized His actions would have consequences further down the road.  He didn’t let anger get in the way of His mission.  He did the right thing no matter what the cost.

I am sure we have all had our moments these past many months when we were ready to, if not actually, explode in anger and frustration.  It reminds me of Cher in the movie “Moonstruck” when she slaps Nick Cage and yells “Snap out of it!”  Perhaps that is the lesson for us today.  Yes, we all get angry but we can’t let the anger control us, prevent us from doing the right thing or distract us from staying true to the Mission!  So take a good deep breath and exhale!  I was watching this new comedy yesterday – Abbott Elementary!  The teacher was giving her second-grader til a count of three for him to calm down.  By the end of the scene, she was up to the number twenty-seven!  And she still didn’t lose her temper.  So count to ten (or twenty-seven) if you have to, and follow the Lord!  As one of my former students said on a post the other day - Love wins, Anger destroys!

 

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