6th Week in Ord. Time, Tuesday – 15th February 2022 — Gospel: Mark 8,14-21
Salvific Remembrance
The disciples had misunderstood Jesus’ warning “against the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod”. Therefore, Jesus used the Socratic method to open their eyes, ears and minds to the fact of their imperception or slowness to understand. Jesus continues to question their perceptive organs and accuses them of not paying attention. The three perceptive organs play a vital role in each one’s experience and in personalizing them. They also represent a person’s ability to know something more. “Eyes” means to see or to be able to understand, contemplate, and examine. “Ears” means to hear, which has literal and figurative meanings. “Remember” means “to call to mind.” The disciples seemed to have forgotten all they had seen and experienced with the Lord, and so Jesus asked, “And do you not remember…?” They had seen Jesus quieten the storms; raise Jairus’s daughter; heal lepers, the blind, and the deaf; and cast out demons as well as feeding thousands with little. They had heard his teaching, and he had explained it to them. Nevertheless, they failed to see and hear as Jesus does. The way to combat the bad leaven and activate the spiritual senses is to remember the blessings that Jesus has accomplished: “Do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand?” Salvific remembrance is an important aspect of the Judeo-Christian viewpoint. It is looking back to creation through salvation history. It gives the Catholic the macro view that combats the bad leaven. When we keep remembering, the bad leaven is controlled and left disinfected.
