Mark 6, 14-29 (Feast of St. Blaise, Heroic Proclamation of the Gospel,                            Friday, 4^th wk OT, B)

Focus:          Heroic Proclamation of the Gospel

Function:          To remind hearers to heroically proclaim the Gospel

1. Heroic Deeds

Perhaps, when we think of a hero, we imagine a muscular, weapon-wielding and testosterone-laden warrior confronting enemies with masculine bravado and martial prowess—mannish pursuits, after which our hero basks in the light of the praises and adulation of the adoring and fawning masses. This image might come to mind when hearing today’s first reading. David is proclaimed as heroic. He conquered opponents, and gained the prizes as well as the galvanized praises associated with his lauded exploits.

1. Heroic Life of Proclamation

1. Well, today’s Gospel points to other types of heroes: for one, to John the Baptist. Rather than receiving the praise and acceptance of earthly power, the Baptist was subjected to it and suffered from it an undeserved death—a demise that indicted and haunted Herod’s feeble and fickle conscience.

1. John the Baptist’s heroic public life—until his clandestine and valiant death by the sword—pointed to Christ, the Anointed One, and to the need to prepare for the arrival of Christ’s Reign. John spoke openly and boldly about this need—individually and collectively—to make way for the King and the Kingdom. John heroically called for personal repentance and collective transformation so that both private lives and public life might prepare for the coming of Christ. In fact, as a result of his unjust death, John proclaimed the Kingdom from beyond the grave.

1. Someone else proclaimed the message from beyond the grave, in reality, over—or in spite of—the grave. Jesus Christ’s Resurrection proclaimed the message of life—life to the fullest, future eternal life and temporal life now. A fuller temporal life is manifested in giving of oneself in the way in which John initially demonstrated and that Jesus finally culminated: by sacrifice. John prepared the way; Jesus finished the job.

D.  Both John and Jesus proclaimed repentance, transformation, and transition.  They proclaimed repentance of personal and social sin. They proclaimed transformation of the hearts of the people and of the thrones of potentates. They called for transition—for a shift away from attitudes and actions like those personified in Herod and that dominated many hearts then.

1. Both John and Jesus called for a change in attitudes and actions—from those engendered by prejudice, exclusion, racism, sexism, and bigotry to those that are generated by the values of love, mercy, compassion, peace, and justice—those proclaimed by the Baptist and the Christ.

1. Indeed, even today certain attitudes have not been expunged from the human heart and, as a consequence have not been eradicated form the world. There is still much to proclaim.

III.          Our Heroic Christian Life

1. So we too are invited to the heroic life of proclamation—to living an ordinary Christian life in an extraordinary way.

1. Our Christian lives might not end at the point of the sword, but our lives—as John’s—must point to the One whom we follow—to Jesus Christ and the message He left us.