Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Mark 3:22-30

The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said of Jesus, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.” Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables, “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him. But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house. Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” For they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Reflection on the gospel: In today’s gospel, the scribes from Jerusalem, Jesus’ most determined opponents, accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan. In fact, a grammatical form in the text suggests it was an ongoing line of attack. Jesus, showing himself to be a master rhetorician, argues persuasively that the scribes’ proposition is absurd on its face: if Satan’s house is divided against itself, Satan’s reign is at an end. Jesus goes on to charge the scribes with obstinacy in the face of so much evidence his ministry comes from God and warns them that resistance to such clear evidence represents an ultimate insult against God. Essentially, Jesus is saying that once we we have closed our minds to God’s presence in our lives, God cannot reach us.

Saint of the day: Nikolaus Gross was born on September 30, 1898 in Germany. A miner, he became the father of seven. A member of the Christian miners’ labor union at age 19, he became its secretary at 22. A member of the Zentrum Christian Party at age 20, he worked at age 22 on the West German Workers’ Newspaper, the newspaper of the Catholic Workers’ Movement and became its director at age 24.

A nonviolent opponent of Nazism from its beginnings, Nickolaus worked with distinguished Catholic intellectuals who opposed the regime. From Cologne, he exposed the lies and harmful effects of Nazi propaganda, and he worked for the revolt of consciences against Hitler. Declared an enemy of the state, his newspaper was shut down in 1938, but at great risk, he continued to publish an underground edition.

He tried to organize resistance among Catholic workers in preparation for the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. Though neither he nor the members of his group were implicated in the assassination attempt, Nikolaus was arrested on August 12, 1944 for treason, and sentenced to death by a People’s Court on January 15, 1945. A martyr, he was executed January 23, 1945 at the Berlin-Plotzensee prison. His body was cremated and the ashes scattered.

Spiritual reading: The majority of great enterprises result from daily fulfillment of one’s duty in small, everyday things. What is valuable in the doing is our special love for the poor and the sick. (Nikolaus Gross)

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