A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. In the city of Capernaum. Remember, that's a city, right? It was a very active place in our lord's time. It's up in the Northwest corner of the lake right on the lake.
So, in the city of Capernaum, Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day began to teach The people were spellbound by his teaching because he taught with authority and not like the scribes. There appeared in their synagogue that day, a man with an unclean spirit that shrieked. What do you want of us? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.
The holy one of god. Jesus rebuked him sharply. Be quiet. Come out of the man. At that, the unclean spirit convulsed the man violently and with a loud shriek left it.
All who looked on were amazed. They began to say one to another, what does this mean? A completely new teaching in a spirit of authority? He gives orders to unclean spirits and they obey him. From this point on, the reputation of Jesus spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee and this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. There's one statement in this in today's reading which always strikes me that Jesus taught with authority and not as the scribes taught. Today, and I say this with a great deal of respect, and not just today, but for the last, say, ten or twelve years or maybe a little more. We have had in the Catholic church a a great emphasis upon the scriptures, upon bible reading, And there certainly isn't anything to be said against that. So please keep that in mind in in light of what I'm going to say.
What I'm saying is this, that before we had a book, we had the church. The church doesn't rest upon the bible. The bible rests upon the church. We don't go to the bible to find out about the church. We only have the bible because of the church.
Christ didn't write a book. He didn't leave a book. He didn't tell anybody to write a book. He left the church. And he said, going therefore, teach ye all nations and command them to carry out everything that I have taught you.
He didn't write a book. He could have, I suppose. That may have had a little difficulty in duplicating it, but even God can handle that, I guess, in a pinch. Now these are the facts of life. I've just been reading some of the history of the Reformation in England, which is a very complicated picture.
It's not easy as it is on on the continent with Calvin and and Luther. And there's a famous man at least, I reckon him to be very famous now, although I haven't heard much about him, a man named Hooker, Richard Hooker. Richard Hooker. He's he's very active in the second half of the sixteenth century. Now the great conflict in England, you see, was the group of men, and I guess some women, but it was mostly men, of course, who were insisting upon the church remaining Catholic.
And against them, you had a strong Calvinistic wave, and that wave took over. That wave dominated. Remember, the Protestantism that came into England was Calvinist, was Presbyterianist, not Lutheranism. Now Hooker was caught in between. He had no time for the Calvinists, not at all, because he had a firm conviction about the church of Jesus Christ, and he couldn't swallow the idea that the church started with Calvin over in Geneva in the sixteenth century.
Now the point I wanna make that struck me yesterday when I was reading some of Hooker, Richard Hooker, mid the second half of the sixteenth century, is this, how he insisted on this point, that you can't take the bible as an absolute. I'm not going into all the problems of translation, authenticity, and integrity, and language, disposition, I'm leaving that all aside. I'm really talking about it as a as a book. Because that whatever else it is, it it is certainly a book. It's a collection of books.
And Hooker pointed he point was very very clear about this, that before you had the bible, you had the church. And these are almost his exact words. And I found out incidentally that Hooker is supposed to be the the first one who handled English well. I didn't know that. Anyway, his name was Richard Hooker.
So now your education is complete. But the the point I'm making is that this man saw this clearly, very clearly, without going into all the difficulties difficulties of of of of bookish learning and inspiration. He knew the bible was inspired. He accepted it with as much faith and loyalty and love as anyone else. But he was a man of good common sense, And he saw that the book didn't come out of the sky.
And as he put it very simply, before you had the book, you had the church. And this was his point, you see, that to be a Christian, you had to be a member of this church of Jesus Christ, which is which was an enduring, lasting, persevering entity entity and a living entity. Now I remind you, I am talking in the using the words of a man named Richard Hooker, call him an Anglican as well for anything, from the last half of the sixteenth century England, who was fighting to preserve the Catholicity of the Anglican church. He is the one who is now looked upon as the originator of the Via Media, that middle way that Newman, of course, had so much to say about. Because there's a good close connection between Richard Hooker and Newman, I knew that, but I hadn't read anything of Hooker himself.
And so we come back to this little statement in today's gospel that Jesus spoke with authority, and that's the way his church speaks. Now the problem is, where is its voice? Where is its voice? Because in a confused world, that isn't always clear. It's not clear today for many Catholics.
Let's face it and be honest. That's the reason I guess I'm boring people silly by getting up here practically every chance I get and quoting from Vatican 2. Because if you where is is the truth? It's not in the mouths of theologians. It's not in the mouths of philosophers.
It's in the voice of God's living church. And where do you get that voice? It's from the living church, from its official documents, from its official pronouncements. And I underscore here the word official because it can't be authoritative unless it's official, and I'm not playing on words. The church does Jesus Christ does not argue.
It states. It declares. Our blessed lord argued once in a while, but he didn't argue to prove the truth. In most instances, he argued ad hominem. That is in replying to an opponent, throwing a syllogism back at him, throwing a dilemma at him.
But when it came to proving what he said, our lord never did it because he didn't have to. He spoke with authority. And this is so important today that we that we weave our way try to in a world which has a lot of confusion in it. But the sources of truth are not that confusing. They are not that hard to get at if we're willing to expend a little energy.
The people who heard Jesus Christ would never have heard him unless they made the effort to hear him. They had to make an effort. They followed Jesus. They followed him when it when it meant even discarding, disregarding food and drink and sleep and security. They followed him, as they we say, into the wilderness.
They didn't ask where is my next meal coming from, and he never promised them a meal. But he did not just let them go hungry. But he didn't promise them a meal. They followed him into the wilderness, thousands of them. He was the one who said, how are we gonna feed them?
The the the complaint didn't come from his followers. And so this text this morning of our blood you have this town here. Capernaum was an active commercial town, and here you have Jesus standing up. And the one thing that struck his hearers in you notice, this is the point that struck them even beyond the miracle of whatever it was of casting out this unclean spirit, whatever that was. But don't overlook that, that Jesus spoke with authority.
And that's how his church speaks because the only voice that his church has is his voice. In the name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.