Mark: Meditations on the Gospel of Mark

By Adrienne von Speyr

These meditations on the Gospel of Mark, with the exception of the second part on the Passion, were given by Adrienne von Speyr between 1945 and 1958 to members of the Community of St. John, which she founded with the renowned theologian, Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar. Adrienne is speaking to young adults who have decided to live the state of the evangelical counsels in a secular profession, as part of a recently established secular institute. Nevertheless this contemplative commentary can be very useful for all who seek to meditate on Holy Scripture.

As always, Adrienne here draws from the abundance of her own contemplation which keeps continually in view the harmonious unity of Christian dogmatic truth; she gives to others what has been offered to her in contemplation, without exegetical notes or any attempt at scholarship. Since she is speaking to novices, the train of thought is simple and practical, yet rich in depth.

The points for meditation are not primarily for spiritual reading, but an introduction to personal prayer. They are meant only to point out a path, because it is the Holy Spirit who directs contemplative prayer in all liberty. As one reads through this book, he will find in it a kind of synthesis of Adrienne von Speyr's spirituality.

This work will also be very useful to preachers, catechists, pastors, communities and institutes who have understood with Pope Benedict XVI that "It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781681493251

Adrienne von Speyr

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) was a Swiss medical doctor, a convert to Catholicism, a mystic, and an author of more than sixty books on spirituality and theology. She collaborated closely with theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, her confessor for twenty-seven years, and together they founded the Community of Saint John. Among her most important works are Handmaid of the Lord, Man before God, Confession, and her commentaries on the Gospel of Saint John.

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Editor’s Foreword

These points for meditation on the Gospel of Mark were given by Adrienne von Speyr between October 11, 1945, and March 7, 1948, to the members of the Community of Saint John, which she founded; the editor gave only the first points, as an introduction to the rest, but was not present when the rest of the points were dictated and taken down in shorthand in the community. The text was gathered up to form the book; material directly concerned with persons or situations within the community was left out. Nevertheless, the general situation is thoroughly retained: the meditations are addressed to young people who have made a decision for the state of the evangelical counsels in a worldly profession, for a secular institute that was coming into being. This does not keep these contemplative explications of the texts, which are concerned with meditation on Holy Scripture, from having much to offer to everyone. As always, Adrienne von Speyr speaks here from the fullness of her own contemplation, which continually has the unified nature of Christian, dogmatic truth as its object; without the trappings of exegesis or any other form of scholarly ambition, she hands on the gift that was given to her. Because she is addressing young women who are novices, her train of thought is simple and practical.

The author gave points on the beginning of the Passion narrative twice; only the second series is reproduced here. On the other hand, commentary on Mark 15:19-47, the second half of the Passion narrative, was never offered. Since it was then Easter, these verses were skipped over and the meditations recommenced at chapter 16; the gap was never filled in. Corresponding meditations on the Passion can be found in The Passion according to Matthew (1957) and in the four-volume commentary on John.

Points for meditation serve in the first instance, not for spiritual reading, but as an introduction to one’s own contemplation. They cannot hope to offer more than an indication of the way, since the divine Spirit freely guides contemplative prayer. Thus the points that can be found here are intended only as footholds. They clearly stay close to the letter but, at the same time, open so many doors that the one praying can easily find his way onward.

The indications that Adrienne von Speyr gives in this work are characteristic of her spirituality. If in other works she goes into more detail and depth, the reader who makes his way through the whole of this book will nonetheless find in it something like a synthesis of her spirit.

HANS URS VON BALTHASAR

I

Preparation for Jesus’ Public Ministry

- 1 -

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. (1:1)

We will contemplate: 1. the beginning, 2. of the gospel, 3. of Jesus Christ.

1. The beginning. The gospel has a beginning; it comes from somewhere, is situated within the world, history, and our lives. Its truth can be distinguished from a general statement that has no beginning and is always valid.

The fact that something as eternally valid as the gospel should at some point take on form in history is not at all self-evident. It cannot be derived from anything. And yet, the beginning of Christ’s appearance in the world points us back to another beginning: In the beginning was the Word. . ., to a beginning in God. Because the Word has an eternal beginning in God, it can have a temporal beginning in the world.

We are allowed to know this beginning, which is proclaimed to us in the Holy Scriptures, to receive all the clarity and surety of a real beginning. In the face of this beginning, all seeking, groping, and endeavor come to an end. We place our lives in it. It was before us and has been proclaimed to us as the beginning of Jesus Christ, and we will never be able to catch up to it. Everything the Lord does and is remains always beginning, is in the process of setting forth and arising. It is always today. It is always just starting. We must always be open in and to this beginning.

2. Of the gospel. The good news, the proclamation of salvation—all salvation, salvation as such—is given in Jesus Christ. All grace comes through him, and it is better than anything to which mankind ever aspired. This grace bears no relation to human yearning; all yearning is drawn beyond and out of itself into superabundant fulfillment. We place ourselves with our own joys in the goodness of this news, until we know no other joy than this. From this joy, all earthly joys receive their measure. A unity arises: joy in all things within the good news. And it is news: this gladness has the form of a proclamation, a mission. To be news, or message, is part of the gospel’s essence. It is a message from the Father through the Son, which is then passed on in the evangelists’ proclamation of the Son and the Church’s proclamation of the gospel. The proclamation we receive today goes back to God the Father sending forth the Son. We are caught in the movement of the good news, like a runner in a marathon.

3. Of Jesus Christ. There is no good news other than that of Jesus Christ: he is the essence of news and the essence of joy. In Jesus Christ, the messenger and the message are one. He is the one who proclaims, who has received the task¹ of proclaiming the message from the Father. He is also the content of this proclamation, that which the Father has to announce to the world. Every fiber and moment of his existence is a message from God, a revelation of the Father. Our lives, too, should daily become more of a message from God.

Since Jesus Christ is the essence of God’s message, he is our everything, the essence of our life. Is he this for us? What must I do so that he might become so?

- 2 -

The Son of God. (1:1)

We will contemplate the Lord in his three states: 1. as the Son of God eternally in heaven with the Father, 2. as the Son of God in his Mother’s womb, 3. as the Son of God during his life on earth.

1. In eternity with the Father. The state of the Son of God in heaven, in his relationship of love with the Father is almost impossible to imagine. God has always already broken through his own solitude by begetting the Son, with whom he shares everything in the Holy Spirit. Later, the Son will glorify him in the world. Now, he is God in God, but always as the Son. He is so completely God in God that he lets himself be sent by the Father, enters into the world and lives as a man, and returns to the Father after the suffering and death. In the togetherness of Father and Son, the distance that will arise between them in the Incarnation has already been planned from eternity. From all eternity, this plan bears witness to the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father in his acceptance of the Father’s will. The Spirit has a share in everything. For us, the love of the trinitarian God first becomes visible in the work of redemption, but in God’s sight, this love is already perfect actuality.

Our only access to the love of God as it existed before the world is the decision for the Incarnation. The purely human terms Father and Son bring us no nearer to this mystery. We must take as our starting point the love the Son has revealed to us in the Incarnation and trace our way back from it to the eternity of this love.

2. In the Mother’s womb. The Son remains the Son of God on earth, though the fact that he now has a body differentiates him from the Father in a new way. All that we know about the time of pregnancy is Mary’s self-surrender and that she conceived and bore the child in the Spirit, in the Father’s name. We can picture her state to a certain extent. As for the Son, all we know is that he is the Son of God, who becomes man like every other child and yet precisely as God’s Son in the loneliness of the Mother’s womb. The unity of the flesh of Mother and Son points forward to the later mystery of the Eucharist, to the unity between Christ and the Church. Now, the mystery of the Son lies in the darkness of his Mother’s body and, at the same time, in the light of the Son’s love for the Father.

3. In his life on earth. The state of the Son’s love for the Father and the Father’s for the Son remains unchanged during the thirty-three years in which the Son lives visibly as a man in the world, in his growing, apostolate, suffering, dying, and rising. The events change, but he does not change. Always, he is the Son of the Father in the same radiant love, even when the Father is hidden from him on the Cross.

We will try to imitate this constancy in the state of being Son, his unchanging love, by gazing at the trinitarian love shining through his love in time.

- 3 -

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way. (1:2)

We will contemplate: 1. the prophecy, 2. the mission, 3. preparation of the way.

1. The prophecy. The Gospel of Mark does not begin in a void. The good news fulfills a promise, and this fulfillment comes to pass not only through the news or message as such but through the messenger. The passage from the Old to the New Covenant has been foreseen: what came before will be drawn and expanded into what is coming. Isaiah knows this. In the New Covenant, every word spoken about love, grace, and redemption attains wholly new dimensions. We ask ourselves what the fulfillment of such prophecies means, since the fact that there is a passage from the Old to the New Covenant is not something indifferent for our Catholic faith. We stand at the center of this event. The content of the prophecy quoted here is that someone will be sent from God for a particular task and that this task is linked to the coming of the Lord.

2. The mission and its completion fulfill the prophecy. God has chosen a particular person for a particular mission, and this mission has been prophesied. The chosen person is not suddenly given a task; God allows him to bring something to fulfillment that has long been prepared for him. He is born into his mission, a mission that was before him, in the prophecy. When John appears on the scene, he takes up a place that was meant for him and him alone. This place is like an empty space into which the one commissioned must fit exactly.

We are not first on the scene and only then determine our task, forming on our own the mission God wills for us. No: God prepares the mission and places the person, in freedom, within it. With every call and imposition of a task, God grants the freedom to hear and accept or to refuse. After this acceptance, his grace gives the fulfillment.

Here, every one of us must feel ourselves directly involved and ask ourselves: Are we ready to take up the task that has been prepared for us? Normally, a mission is given, not in a form as tangible as John’s, but, rather, in silence and hiddenness. Essentially, though, they are the same: determined by God, to be fulfilled by us. We do not choose our mission, but we can say Yes to it in freedom.

3. Preparation of the way. John’s mission is expressed with the words, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way. The task lies in the preparation of a way: not in traveling along or arranging this way, but in preparing it. It is the Lord who will fulfill. John’s task is strictly delimited. In the course of his life, it begins to take form. Step by step, it surely becomes clear to him what he must do, how he is to behave within his mission. He does not do what he thinks is good, in an awareness of his mission; he does exactly what he is commanded. He remains and must remain within the instruction, not only in order to achieve his mission, but so that the prophecy might be fulfilled. Together, these three points form a sequence that comes from God but that John must achieve in obedience before him.

We contemplate how far the prophecy concerning John and his mission also concerns us and how we are to attune ourselves to our own task. We will come to see that nothing happens in the Church that was not prepared beforehand. In the Church, everything always has a previous foundation, because the Lord accompanies the Church and constantly takes up her mission into his own and because every individual task is a part of the Church’s mission. We must spiritually prepare ourselves for our mission in much the same way as we prepare ourselves to receive the Eucharist. No meeting with the Lord should be unprepared. Each one of our lives should, like the life of John the Baptist, consist in a continual preparation of the way for the Lord.

- 4 -

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight— (1:3)

We will contemplate: 1. the voice in the wilderness, 2. preparation of the way, 3. straightening the path.

1. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. John, who is promised, is promised as a voice: as something that in itself is ephemeral, secondary, something God can use as a tool. He will be pure voice, which can be heard only as it speaks but which also has a prophecy to fulfill and a message to proclaim. A pure voice is something impersonal, insubstantial, substantial only through the message it contains. And this latter is given by God alone. In this voice alone, in itself so insubstantial, lies the bridge between John and the Lord. What is essential lies in the content of the proclamation: preparation of the way for the Lord and his coming.

What we consider important in a voice becomes secondary here, because the center has been transferred wholly into God. Precisely this is important for us. When we are told that John appears as pure voice, we will perhaps attribute less importance to ourselves and yet still dare to place our own message in some sort of relationship to the Baptist. In any case, it is also our place to point away from ourselves to the Lord.

2. Prepare the way of the Lord. This way requires constant preparation. The Lord does not wish to accomplish his work of redemption without the cooperation of men, even if this is very secondary, scarcely imaginable. Everyone who has heard of him, who knows of him, is to have a share in his way, for all the mysteries of the Christian life are, finally, mysteries of the way of the Lord. And everyone who has a mission, however ridiculously small, has this within the mission of the Lord.

When a task is not presented as clearly from the outset as it is in the case of one called and placed within his promised mission, a certain choice is possible among the mysteries of the Lord’s ways. Insofar as laypeople possess no differentiated mission, they can place their lives at the service of a particular mystery.

John the Baptist, however, was called to prepare the entire way of the Lord. Even if he worked alongside Jesus only for a short time, he was to have a share in the whole way. There is not one mystery of this way, nothing that happened even after John’s death, in which John did not have an eminent share. He constantly escorted the Lord, constantly prepared this way. Most Christians prepare a stretch of this way. Those who have been called in a particular way must reflect on how exactly they have been called to prepare the Lord’s way. The Church needs the cooperation of all the faithful, but she also relies in a particular way on those called in a particular way.

3. Make his paths straight. This means: move the difficulties out of the Lord’s way; help smooth the rough, the crooked, everything that is not straight, and not because the Lord could not do it himself, but because it is important to him to receive everyone’s contribution. John, with his enormous mission, his special meaning and holiness, which were already tangible in Elizabeth’s womb when she encountered the Mother of the Lord, proclaims: everyone’s help is needed to make the paths straight. The enormity of the task will not overwhelm the individual if many are willing to cooperate. Here, we must contemplate precisely the small, inconspicuous, everyday work that is demanded without recognition, without a stir, the exteriorly meaningless things that nevertheless possess a perfect meaning, because they are done in the Lord’s service. If, right from the start, Mark highlights this cooperation of all, even in the smallest details, this is because the inconspicuous possesses an immediate and enduring meaning in the Lord’s way.

In this light, let us try to look at our small, daily way, with its clarity and shadows, and let the Spirit of the Lord, who already points forward from Isaiah’s prophecy to the Baptist, plunge it entirely into the light of the Lord.

- 5 -

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (1:4)

We will contemplate: 1. John’s appearance, 2. the baptism in the wilderness, 3. the baptism of repentance.

1. John appeared. We are told nothing about who John is; the evangelist simply places him in the prophecy. It is enough to proclaim his appearance. Mark lets him appear much as a man or a woman might appear among us, bearing a particular commision; no one asks where they come from, what school they attended, what kind of formation they enjoyed, and so on. They appear in order to carry out a task. The whole meaning of John’s appearance stands and falls with the task he has received from God, which is to be carried out within the framework of the prophecy. Throughout the centuries, the situation has not changed. We can compare the Baptist’s sudden springing into action with the appearance of any Christian today bearing a commision.

2. The baptism in the wilderness. The Baptist appears on the scene, baptizing in the wilderness. We might expect that there would be no one there for him to meet, but, nevertheless, he baptizes in the wilderness. So there are people who, for the sake of conversion and repentance, are willing to make the journey into the wilderness. John demands repentance, and they are baptized on the basis of this repentance. This baptism is not an empty ceremony. It is based on something very concrete: repentance. There are sinners who take upon themselves the trouble of going out into the wilderness and who repent in order to be washed clean. We, too, often have the impression that we are working in the wilderness, but it can happen that people come to us, to hear something of the Lord’s word and to change their interior path.

3. The baptism of repentance. Baptism follows repentance. First, the listeners recognize that they have sinned and offended God; then, they let themselves be washed clean by the Baptist. They do not baptize themselves; after repentance has seized them, they let themselves be baptized. They will not all have repented to the same degree, but whoever genuinely desires to be made clean has certainly also genuinely repented.

Through the baptism of John, sinners are offered the opportunity of a one-time repentance, a one-time baptism. We must not forget that the Lord is only just coming, that John is preparing his way, and that sacramental confession will be inaugurated only from the Cross. The Lord will grant us the grace of constantly repenting, constantly being washed. There is no do-it-yourself cleansing, but there is personal repentance, which is demanded for this newly available purity. The baptism of repentance is inaugurated as a predecessor to the confession of repentance and the absolution it brings.

Repentance and cleansing will always go hand in hand. With John, they are bound in a one-time unity, which will become repeatable through the Lord. There, in the wilderness, a beginning is made for the grace of the forgiveness of sins. Sins are forgiven, not in the sense that they will never be committed again, but in the sense that the baptized person is set free from the sins he committed in the past. John wants to prepare people for the Lord who from now on are to have a share in his way. They have a past, but a line has been drawn through it: they retain an inclination to sin, but they are allowed to begin a new life. They have been washed clean and stand ready to receive their new task.

- 6 -

And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. (1:5)

We will contemplate: 1. the people going out, 2. their confession of sin, 3. the baptism.

1. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem. First, we will contemplate the great crowd of people who go out. We will try to picture them: men, women, and probably children who were old enough to acknowledge their sins, their appearance, their position, how colorfully all social and intellectual strata are tossed together. But one thing connects them: together, they go out. In this connection, they share a single expectation. They hope for something; they wish to leave their old life behind and begin a new one. But are they also filled with the genuine desire to change their lives, to make a clean cut with everything that has happened until now?

We can pray that such a procession might take place today, that many might prepare themselves for a cleansing baptism, where we live and elsewhere. We pray for those we expect to go out and for those of whom we do not expect it. In our meditation as in our petition, instead of contenting ourselves with our usual notions, we should try to form as richly hued an image as possible of all the people in this procession and accompany them through all the centuries down to today, tomorrow, and into every day of the future.

2. Confessing their sins. We will not be able to picture this confession of sins in detail, but we can try to see what these sins are for the many who make up the multitude. That is, not what they recognize as their personal flaws, but where they begin to be conscious that they are sinful at all. Do they have a general guilty feeling that they have not lived up to the will of God? Or are they oppressed by individual, perhaps insignificant offenses? Are their conscience and insight already so fine that they understand that what has kept them from this cleansing until now, what condemned them in the presence of the Law, was above all that they did not seek God enough? Do they welcome John’s message as an incredible stroke of good fortune, because it shows them what faith really is, and now they can recognize that their chief sin was to have stood outside this faith? Is it easy or difficult for them to confess? Do they bring everything to light, or do they hide more than they reveal in confessing? Are they honest with themselves? With John? Do they make only a general confession of guilt, or do they go into detail? Do they grasp how deeply intertwined repentance is with the confession of sins? Do they simply confess heaps of sins without recognizing their significance? Do they really await the grace of the coming baptism? Do they understand at all that the cleansing in which they will have a share will, in its fulfillment, be a sacramental event, that is, an event in which every human expectation of God will be immeasurably exceeded?

And what is our own confession like? The repentance that precedes it? What is the state of our soul as we await absolution, and what sort of insight do we have into this absolution? Do we really know what it means to confess, or do we see it as merely a drawing up of accounts between God and me? Do we grasp that his gift far exceeds all our expectations? All our sins—even the venial ones—which deeply offend the love of God, are not only taken away while repentance and gratitude are kindled in us; through the grace of absolution, we receive the gift of more grace than we ever dared hope, because confession and absolution have a very special share in the ever-greater of the grace of every Catholic sacrament. Do we realize this?

3. And they were baptized by him in the river. In this baptism, the whole person enters the water to be washed. The symbolism of washing was more evident than is the case with baptisms today. When someone is immersed in the river, this means that the whole person needs to be washed. The people in the crowd thought above all of their own, concrete sins, of which they needed to repent before being baptized. As Christians, we know that baptism also frees us from original sin, something we can scarcely imagine.

The interior man, not only the exterior, must be dipped and purified in the water of baptism. It is already a great step from the exterior bath to the baptism of John; the step between the baptism in the Jordan and Christian baptism in the Holy Spirit, under the sign of cleansing with water, is still greater. Let us picture the joy of the people who have been baptized by John, after they undertook the long, difficult way out to meet him and the even greater difficulty of confession. Now they have reached their goal. They have been washed and baptized, and for them, this is a surpassing joy.

We close with a prayer of thanksgiving, not only for our own baptism, but for all those who have been baptized in the past and who will be so in the future. Together with all the baptized, we give thanks—with all those, too, who perhaps forget to give thanks.

- 7 -

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached. (1:6-7a)

We will contemplate: 1. the clothing, 2. the food, 3. the Baptist’s occupation.

1. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leather belt around his waist. For the region in which John is working, camel’s hair is the most common, cheapest material. He wears his garment like a habit; it is in keeping with his office. The belt holds the garment together, though John probably also used it for acts of penance. The garment of camel’s hair, too, serves as a penance; the material is rough and scratches the skin. With John, clothing and penance are strictly connected. The evangelist thinks it right to present John wearing his garment. The latter tells us something about the mission of its wearer.

We should ask ourselves about our clothes, whether our relation to them is as it should be. Do we choose our clothes so that they correspond to our worldly and Christian task, or does vanity play a part in our choice? Are we vain? Where is the borderline between decency and vanity? Decency is what is suitable, proportionate. Obviously, we cannot go about in penitential garments, but we also should not have anything striking, that is not in keeping with our life and vocation. This holds true in both directions: our clothing should be neither too severe nor too elegant.

2. John . . . ate locusts and wild honey. It does not matter whether these foods were delicacies or considered repulsive; John eats what the desert provides and certainly does not enjoy a wide range of choice in his food. He eats what is available. He does not allow people to bring him specialties. He eats what he finds, eats to be able to work. He does not choose, lays down no conditions, and in this he is master over his food. What is at hand is enough for him. Not a word is wasted over the amount of this food: it will be as much as he needs. Just as Mark mentions John’s garment, plainly and briefly, he does not consider it superfluous to mention his food.

We ask ourselves about our relation to food. Do we grasp that the meaning of nourishment lies in strengthening us and enabling us to carry out our vocation? We eat what is set before us and do not pick out what we like.

3. He preached. He is clothed, fed, and now he works. This work consists in preaching, the fulfillment of his mission. Every man has a work to do, and this work should be the expression of his task. In order to accomplish this, he must be clothed and fed. No one can work without in some way ensuring that he is able to work. Even if, like John, he were to go out into the wilderness, he would have to live in such a way that he could carry out his task. John preaches because that is his work, and this task already has its foundation in prophecy. God himself ensures that differentiated missions can in fact be carried out. The Baptist preaches before Jesus does; he works in the time of the expectation of the Lord. John does not see the Lord, cannot contemplate his miracles, does not know what the Lord will proclaim and teach. Nevertheless, he preaches within his commission, and this preaching stands within something that is coming to be, the full dimensions of which he cannot see. He allows himself to be put in a place he did not choose, to be involved in a proclamation—which he fulfills—before he possesses any sort of evidence for it.

There are points of comparison between our mission and the mission of the Baptist. Even if we do not have to preach as he did, we can find ourselves in a task that we carry out without being able to have an overview of it. We are to prepare ourselves for an apostolate, to be formed for this, to learn to pray, and then to live this apostolate completely, without knowing it in advance, without the support of a tradition and without knowing what tomorrow may bring. We have been clothed and fed, and we work in expectation. But this comparison with the life of the Baptist should not make us haughty: his task was unique, and ours should disappear in the task of the whole Church. But we give thanks to God for being allowed to take our bearings and grow from what has been reported to us in the Gospels.

- 8 -

And he preached, saying, After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (1:7-8)

We will contemplate: 1. the Baptist’s humility, 2. his baptism with water, 3. the Lord’s baptism with the Holy Spirit.

1. The thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. The Baptist compares himself with the Lord who comes after him. First, he says that the Lord is mightier than he and, then, that he is completely unworthy of him. John does not even claim the position of a servant. He is less: unworthy to untie the thong of his sandals, not even a slave. His relationship to the Lord is one of absolute unworthiness. He holds fast to this unworthiness, in no way tries to render it harmless, brush it out of the way, or find a consolation for the lowliness of his service. He remains what he is: unworthy.

Later, Jesus will call his fellowmen his brothers; he will establish a relationship between himself and others. But this relationship, which the Lord establishes, does not yet exist, or exists only within the Son’s decision to redeem the Father’s creation as man. It has not yet been uttered and lies hidden in the Son’s relationship to the Father. Here, he acknowledges all men as his brothers, but they still know nothing about this. They may vaguely recognize that he is the Promised One, but they cannot yet know that they are his brothers.

The Baptist unveils a relationship here, in which the person bearing a commission is placed at a point that appears totally inconsequential in the face of the absoluteness of the Lord. There is no possibility of comparison: this is total lowliness in the face of total might. And yet he is still the Baptist. As the Precursor, he baptizes and receives the confession of sins as the one preparing the way of the Lord, and his place in the communion of saints will not be a small one. The service he has rendered to the Lord will be mentioned daily in the Confiteor of the Mass. Whenever we acknowledge our sins, we acknowledge them also to John.

2. I have baptized you with water. He has performed a deed, which he himself understands as preparation. As the Precursor, he baptized and heard confessions, both actions in a single task that has its source in the Old Covenant and is to lead to the New. It is a task that makes possible the Lord’s way into this New Covenant.

Those baptized are not left in the first euphoria of having been baptized; they are immediately led into something greater. Thus they begin to have some inkling of what they have received and, also, of what will be asked of them. They will have looked up to the Baptist as one looks up to a saint (which he was), but this saint does not allow them to rest in his presence. He does not keep them back with him for an instant. They are not his; their path does not end in the baptism he gave them, the meaning of which was preparation. The Baptist wants to make this baptized crowd ripe for Christianity. This ripeness is never fully attained on earth; it exists in name only. In reality, it is a process, a continual development. As soon as one vista opens up and can be made out faintly, still more vistas open up behind it. There is never an end. We should impress upon ourselves that we, too, will never arrive at an end, for every demand flows into an excessive demand, in the name of him who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

3. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. We have a clear idea of water. We know its various states and properties, from a drop to a river to the sea. We do not know everything about it; there is always more to know, but perhaps one day mankind will grasp what is essential about it.

This is not the case with the Holy Spirit. We can stammer a few impoverished lines about him, but even if we were to put a hundred times more into words about him, we would be no nearer to his infinity. There are real approaches to him. We know, for instance, that he acted on the Father’s behalf in the Son’s conception, overshadowing the Mother; and that he descends as the Spirit of mission and sanctification upon the Son at his baptism. In many passages of the New Testament, we can draw conclusions about his properties from his actions, but his essence will never truly be unveiled, because he always returns into God. Like the Baptist, who feels unworthy to untie the thong of the Lord’s sandals, we should recognize our incapacity to understand what it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. The same infinite vistas that the Baptist opens up toward the Son, he opens through baptism with water toward baptism with the Holy Spirit.

What is essential in all three points of this meditation is that we recognize the inexhaustibility of the Christian perspective. In the course of the centuries, much has been better formulated, but with respect to God, we remain always at the beginning. However clear a statement, however meaningful a concept, there will always be more and greater concepts hidden behind it. Where the divinity is concerned, conceptual statements are not closed; they merely lead to an ever-growing faith, which, as it grows, knows more and more clearly that it remains only at the beginning.

- 9 -

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. (1:9-10)

We will contemplate: 1. the baptism of the Lord, 2. the opening of the heavens, 2. the descent of the Spirit.

1. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and whas baptized by John in the Jordan. He comes into the wilderness, just like the inhabitants of Judea and Jerusalem. We know nothing about the path he took, but we can try to imagine both this path and him as well as the thoughts with which he travels. He goes to be baptized. Through his acceptance of this baptism, he places himself between the prophecy of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. He follows John’s call to baptism, allows himself to receive this sacrament. He does not seize it himself; he lets it be given to him. The baptism John preaches is one of repentance. The Lord allows this baptism of repentance to be given to him; he, who never sinned, approaches like a sinner and places himself precisely under this sign. We ask ourselves, how can a baptism of repentance be meant for him? How can he receive it without denying his being? He is already carrying sins, as he will carry them on the Cross. The sins he takes upon himself are the sins of others; he repents for others, carries the sins of others whom he wishes to redeem. His baptism belongs unambiguously to his work of redemption, places him immediately in the midst of it. Thus he begins his public life: from baptism to the Cross, the way of redemption is clearly traced out in advance.

2. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened. At the moment when his mission takes on a visible form for us, the Son of God, who comes from heaven and will return there, sees the heavens opened. In this, he sees that his relationship to heaven has not changed, for he belongs to heaven. He is the Son of the Father. He will suffer, die abandoned, and no longer be able to see his own way, but now, since this baptism marks the visible beginning of his work of redemption, he receives a sign in the opening of heaven. He experiences his union with the Father afresh and knows how much he is God: precisely now, when more than ever before he will be a man among men.

3. And the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. He sees the dove, which is a symbol of the Spirit. His human eyes are, as it were, replaced by divine eyes. He sees the figure of a dove and recognizes the Spirit, who acted in the place of the Father in his conception and whom he will need from now on in order to make the way to the Father comprehensible to men and to give them faith. He sees how the Spirit descends upon him, comes to him. Even in the difficult decisions of his life, in suffering and the deepest abandonment, in which perhaps nothing of his divine mission will be tangible to him anymore, he will know: the Spirit is with him, the Spirit is in him. The Spirit, who with him and the Father is the trinitarian God, has his dwelling in him. Now, he sees that his task remains unchanged and that his Father sends him the divine Holy Spirit as the visible confirmation of his will and the sign of his love.

- 10 -

And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son; in you have I placed all my love. (1:11 AvS)²

We will contemplate: 1. the meaning of the voice from heaven, 2. its words, 3. its range.

1. And a voice came from heaven. The Son receives a confirmation of what he already knows, what the evangelist proclaims in the first words of the Gospel: Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He hears the Father’s voice resounding from heaven to confirm his sonship. It is the Father’s voice: the Son recognizes it, knows that it has to do with him. In it, he recognizes the Trinity’s unity of life.

It is important that the voice comes precisely at this moment, as a sign of the grace of the baptism, that the Son hears the Father’s voice just after he has passively received the new sacrament. At the beginning of his active life, he is to know exactly, once again, that he belongs to the Father, through his recognition of the voice. The voice that comes from above, from heaven, finds its way into the Son’s contemplation, which now passes over into action. It marks the end of the purely contemplative mission and the beginning of the active. The mission does not break off in this transition; its continuation is confirmed as it is, at the same time, handed over afresh to the Son.

2. You are my beloved Son. The Son is to know this now. He knows it in itself and knows it again through the voice; he knows it, too, in that he is now embarking upon his active mission and beginning his apostolate in the Father’s name. For this apostolate, he is told that he is the Son and as Son may command and, thus, share his sonship with those he chooses. The beginning of his apostolic mission is so clearly impressed upon him that he is already prepared, as man—as he was before, as God with the Father—not to keep his sonship for himself. His mission as redeemer means this: to bring those whom he meets and chooses with him, to make them sons of God, so that they might have a share in everything that is his. And what is his can be summarized in these words: You are my beloved Son; in you have I placed all my love.

3. In you have I placed all my love. This is a whole, undivided, indivisible, and yet communicable love, a love the Son possesses from the Father but which he takes with him on his path in order to distribute it. He will give it away, and not in small pieces; always, he will offer it whole, as he received it whole from the Father.

The Father has placed his whole love in the Son. He gives it as a gift that is never lost, because the Son is constantly giving it back to the Father. This is no secret love, also nothing that rests in itself; it is love in the movement from Father to Son and Son to Father. Into this movement, the Son introduces his brethren, whom he will make into children of God. There is nothing livelier than this whole love that the Father has placed in the Son: it never rests, goes back and forth, has a share in the eternal movement of the Trinity, and thus is one of the most fruitful things that exists. It has the power to make mere creatures and sinners children of God, through itself and through the fact that the Son lives from this love.

Lastly, we apply what we have contemplated to ourselves and reflect on what a grace and reassurance it must be to perceive the voice of God just as we are taking up our task, the voice of him who has long ago entrusted this mission to us and now, in the decisive moment, confirms it anew. God will do this, if we remain in contact with him through prayer. We will not see the heavens open or hear the Father’s voice in the way the Son did, but, in prayer, we will receive a confirmation that for us is synonymous with this hearing and that should spur us on to the same zeal. We close with the prayer that God may allow us to remain receptive to his will and his voice for as long as our mission may last.

- 11 -

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. (1:12-13)

We will contemplate: 1. Jesus going out into the wilderness, 2. the temptation, 3. living among the beasts and with the angels.

1. The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. As soon as the Spirit descends upon the Son, he moves him to go into the wilderness. The Son received the Spirit willingly and follows him; as soon as the Spirit is in him, he obeys his prompting and goes into the wilderness. This is the beginning of a new obedience, obedience to the Spirit dwelling in the Son. The Son obeys without questioning, follows because he must follow and also because he is beginning his apostolate and must become an example of obedience. He does not go on his own impulse or as a result of conclusions drawn from his own reflection: he is driven by the Spirit. Perhaps, had he reflected, he would himself have come to the conclusion that this was the right thing to do, but at the moment, this reflection is unimportant. The Son has received the Spirit in obedience to the Father, and now he follows this Spirit, sent to him by the Father. He lets the Spirit move him to a different place, lets his future apostolate begin with an act of obedience to the Spirit, who leads him into the solitude of the wilderness.

Here, we can consider our own path and ask ourselves whether, in our following of Christ, the Spirit has driven us, too, into solitude. Perhaps we gave our assent before this, as the Lord assented to the baptism he freely accepted, and, from now on, we are to do what we are told, in obedience. And if our way is to be even a glimmer of the following of Christ, we must attempt to adjust our obedience to the obedience of the Lord. It is immaterial whether, left to our own, we would have thought up everything we now do in obedience or if we would have chosen a different way. To follow Christ at all, we must follow his obedience.

2. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan. The Lord remained forty days in the wilderness, constantly tempted by Satan. Constantly, he had to fend off temptations. Already the length of time he spent doing this points to how strongly he must have been tempted. There was no rest, no slackening of intensity. If the Lord needed forty days to have done with temptations, we should not be surprised if we sinners require much longer, even though the Lord has taken much of our share of them away. After him, no man will have to fight off all temptations; but he battled all of them, and not only implicit temptations, but truly diabolical ones. Satan was serious about his business. We should not think it was easy for the Lord to resist. Although he did not know sin, in the time of his earthly life he is a man, just as susceptible to temptation as other men; with him, temptations lose nothing of their aggressive and seducing power. The only difference is that, unlike sinners, he overcomes them.

In all temptations, even the smallest we encounter in the time of solitude before our apostolate, we will try to keep the example of the Lord always before our eyes. His temptations were much greater than our own, but he did not give in to them in the least. May they obtain for us the grace to be able to resist.

3. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. The Son is not alone in the wilderness. He is surrounded by wild beasts, and the angels serve him. The image presented to us here does not lack a certain humor. Wild beasts and angels: what contrasts surround the Lord! We have difficulty imagining how the angels served him while he was surrounded by wild beasts and tempted by Satan. And yet, the image presents us with a primordial Christian situation: a Christian is never alone in temptations. Angels are always present to help him, whether he sees them or not. They can take on various, sometimes tangible forms, such as good thoughts or the strength to resist; they can prompt our will not to give in to temptation. The Lord sees the angels, since, for the whole of his earthly existence until his abandonment on the Cross, he does not lose his vision into the beyond. He sees the dove, hears the Father’s voice, sees the angels. Obviously, we cannot expect to be furnished with otherworldly senses while we are still on earth. But a real sense for the things of God is granted to us, so that we will be able thoroughly to discern what comes from us, what from the devil, and, above all, what the Lord’s grace demands of us. Every grace is absolute proof of the beyond. We do not need to see, hear, or otherwise perceive this grace with our senses, but we must know that it is there, just as we know that the angels served the Lord.

II

Jesus’ Public Ministry in Galilee

- 12 -

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God. (1:14)

We will contemplate: 1. John’s arrest, 2. Jesus, who goes into Galilee, 3. preaching the gospel of God.

1. Now after John was arrested. Mark has introduced us to the Precursor’s mission and pointed us to its source in Isaiah’s prophecy. He showed us how it was carried out in deed and its fruit, which is baptism. Now, with apparent coolness and without commentary, he says in closing, After John was arrested. One who was sent did what he had to do, and then he is delivered up: the most concise presentation of the life of a saint and a martyr. Then the story goes on. How often this has happened in the history of Christianity! Someone thinks he must still obey countless times, persevere in obedience with all his might, and what happens? He is delivered up. But the Christian’s end is uninteresting compared to his task. The emphasis is on the latter. What must exist is obedience, and what follows may be being delivered up. Through this, the Church loses nothing. To the contrary, we can almost hear her voice: the next, please.

This sounds hard, very final. No one is interested in a Christian’s end. He is delivered up, and the story goes on. How can this be? It is only possible when mission is more important than life and when death is not an end but a continuation or even a beginning. This being the case, the evangelist is entitled not to waste another word on the Baptist’s disappearance.

From this, we should learn to consider our mission as more important than ourselves and try to remain fully within it without speculating about what form our end might take. In a community, this means: we have been called; we try to do what we have to do well; and the next person comes. The story goes on.

2. The next person, in this case, is Jesus, who goes into Galilee. His mission is what was actually meant in the Baptist’s mission. In all our missions, we are always precursors of something new and greater. The mission does not die with the one sent; seed is sown, which the one sent does not need to see. He was sent to sow, and the Lord’s is the harvest. This mystery of the sown seed, which we meet so often in the Gospels, is a central mystery of our Christian life. We do as we are told, and then Christ himself or another Christian mission comes. We remain in our mission for as long as we possess it. We are in service for as long as we have to obey, but the service continues. Our own end has nothing to do with the end of the mission, even when no one any longer hears of what we have done. We belong to those who have had a mission, but if this mission comes from God, it cannot die. John has his earthly mission behind him; now the Lord comes and goes into Galilee.

3. Preaching the gospel of God. Jesus comes out of the wilderness and preaches the gospel. He does not preach what is his own, as he pleases: he proclaims the good news of the Father. He takes on an individual task that fits with his task as a whole and that, in this, is also a continuation of the Baptist’s task. As the voice in the wilderness, the Baptist made the way straight for the Lord. The Son preaches the good news as the Father placed it in his mouth and as it was prepared in his life of contemplation, in order to pass over now into action.

Later, he will speak of himself and of what he himself brings, and, in countless discourses, parables, and miracles, he will give himself and the Father away. But first, he begins as one who takes up John’s mission, made available at the Baptist’s death, and who must carry out this mission in the Father’s name.

We, too, will have to take up missions whose sources lie out of our hands. Our ability to assume these missions and carry them out rightly will be assured if we take them up in the same way that Christ took up John’s mission, if we place ourselves in the good news of the Father, in the obedience and fidelity of the Son.

We pray for the gift of this fidelity in mission and ask to be continually upheld in it.

- 13 -

Saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel. (1:15)

We will contemplate: 1. the time is fulfilled, 2. the kingdom of God is at hand, 3. repent, and believe in the gospel.

1. The time is fulfilled. Ever since the decision for the Incarnation was made in eternity, the Son knew when the time would be fulfilled—both time as such and his own time. His fulfilled time encompasses the time of his action and of his Passion. He speaks of this time: it is fulfilled, it is present. Another time is no longer present: the time of the Old Covenant. Yet another time has passed away: the time of waiting in contemplation. The time that is dawning is that of his deeds, his miracles, his suffering, the time of redemption.

This time is not to come upon the people around him unexpectedly. They should be able to prepare for it, not by their own power, but through his grace. He gives this, his grace of preparation, to them by proclaiming that the time is fulfilled. No one who meets Christ in any form can say that he has not been prepared. Often enough, events catch us off guard, stop us in our tracks. We had had something else in mind. But if we are Christians and live in faith, everything we encounter has already been prepared by the faith that is in us; the Lord has let it ripen in us. He makes the decision, and we have to be prepared.

2. The kingdom of God is at hand. The fulfillment of time means the nearness of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Father. The Lord does not describe this time, does not tell his listeners what they ought to expect from it or how the kingdom will take shape for them. He makes no promises and also no threats; he simply lets the unqualified connection between the fulfillment of time and the nearness of the kingdom of God come to light.

3. Repent, and believe in the gospel. Here he announces what his listeners must do, how they are to prepare, and what he and the Father expect of them: Repent, and believe. Between John’s baptism of repentance and now, something has changed. Here, too, people are called to repent, but now they are to hope and believe in the goodness and joy of the news. If we look at this in a sacramental light, we can say that, again, Christian confession has been heralded in the call to repent and to rejoice. The hearers are to repent of the evil they have done and to rejoice in faith in the good news he proclaims to them. They are to live entirely from faith in this good news and in this rejoicing, but only after they have repented. He does not want them to come to meet him only in joy. That is, he does indeed bring them a kingdom of joy and redemption, but the redemption is first the taking away of sins on the Cross. He wants them to take the path trod in every confession and, in some way, in the reception of every sacrament: first change, convert, and then enter into joy.

The Lord addresses himself and his message first, not to the learned, but to all those he meets on the way, most of whom have not spent much time reflecting. But he does not endlessly harp upon repentance; immediately, the call to repent is followed by the good news. Every man has this in himself: he can recognize his own sin, and he can look forward to something. He can receive a new joy, joy in the Lord, a joy that is to be had after he repents. The Lord binds repentance and joy in a new way and offers both to men.

We picture the bystanders listening to the Lord, how they feel as they hear this brief, clear message and their capacity to understand and accept it. They know that they are the ones addressed, that the news is meant for them, for each