Faced with our shortcomings, Jesus extends patience

It isn’t easy these days to get 400 people into a parish church, but Mark D. Conklin found a way.

Conklin, a music executive and producer, is the creator of “The Gospel of According to Mark,” recently released on a CD in which he is the lead performer, accompanied by a gaggle of accomplished singers and musicians.

The CD program comprises 12 songs – which Conklin either wrote or co-wrote – each inspired by a passage from the oldest of the four Gospels. The songs have touches of gospel, soul, country, and rock. Conklin is the lead performer, singing and playing guitar. The scripture passages are narrated by musical recording legend Gloria Gaynor.

Conklin attends Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Whitehouse Station where our pastor, Father Leonard Rusay, invited him to hold the release party in May. Hence the gathering of the four hundred, more or less, on a Sunday afternoon, to hear some of the songs performed live.

Whether or not it was deliberate, the timing of the release was appropriate since the Church is in the midst of the liturgical cycle in which passages from Mark’s Gospel are read at Mass on most Sundays. This is a relatively recent development in the context of two thousand years of Church history. That seems to have been because much of what Mark’s account contains is present in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and content in those two Gospels is absent from Mark.

Scholars have recognized, however, that Mark’s work has its unique value, so now it has a cycle of its own.

Conklin’s CD includes a song, “Unbelief,” inspired by an incident described in this Gospel. A man whose son is possessed by a demon begs Jesus to help the boy. Jesus detects the skepticism in the desperate man and says, “All things can be done for the one who believes,” and the father answers, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

That phenomenon, unbelief, is a central theme of Mark’s Gospel, with respect not only to this father and Jesus’ nattering critics but also, and especially, among Jesus’ closest disciples. In one way or another, Jesus asks them repeatedly, “Do you not yet understand?”

What don’t they understand? That he is the Messiah who will suffer and die and rise from the dead, and that suffering – even death – as a path to eternal peace lies in store also for them. The disciples’ full comprehension of these realities will come only with the Resurrection.

Although one might infer Jesus’ exasperation with his disciples, we also can’t help inferring his patience, because he sticks with these folks no matter how they waffle and quarrel and doubt. He sticks with him even after they have abandoned him as his enemies torture and kill him.

The disciples, of course, were trying to grasp things that were unprecedented in human history, things that had never been dreamed of no less actually occurred. A human being will die and be restored to life? A human being also has the divine nature? Perhaps Jesus’ patience with them reflects his recognition that what he was trying to get across to them was so difficult for them to accept.

Still, there is a consoling message for us in this theme in Mark’s Gospel. We may at times become indifferent to our faith and what it calls us to be. We may neglect the sacraments and defer the acts of generosity and justice that our baptismal vocation demands. We may question what we have been taught about Christ and his Church and our roles as his disciples.

But if we do those things, we can rely on his patience. When we’re ready, we need only pray, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

Deacon Paolino is a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Whitehouse Station.