Thursday, Second Week in Ordinary Time
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Second Week in Ordinary Time
USA: Saint Vincent, Deacon and Martyr; Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin
Heb 7:25—8:6/Mk 3:7-12 (Lectionary #314)
Mark reminds us again that people were coming to Jesus in droves — but mostly for the wrong reason.
Jesus couldn’t refuse to heal. He had the power and the desire to do it. His love and compassion were passionate. And as long as he was physically present and accessible, he couldn’t say no to anyone “who had afflictions.”
But he knew that every time he worked a physical cure, he was sending out the wrong message about what the Messiah came to do. There was truth in it, of course: the truth that God cares; and his miracles gave proof he was sent and empowered by God. Some may have seen in his physical healing a symbol of the spiritual healing that was his real mission. But most didn’t. “They came to him in great numbers…. for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.”
They still made it almost impossible for him to teach. So when “the unclean spirits… shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ he sternly ordered them not to make him known.” He wanted to be known, not as a faith-healer, but as a Teacher. And more than a teacher; as “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). He came, not just to heal physical diseases, but so that we might “have life, and have it to the full.” And he defined what this life is: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 10:10; 17:3).
Have we really heard the Good News? Do we come to Jesus, not just to learn about God, but to get to know God — as Jesus knows the Father and the Father knows him? (Matthew 11:27). What do we ask God for most often in prayer? What do we go to church for? What do we ask our pastor to do for us? What invitations from the parish do we accept? Are the opportunities for spiritual growth the activities that draw us the most?
Is it our greatest desire to “lose our lives for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the gospel” if only we might come to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Mark 8:35; Ephesians 3:19)? If not, we haven’t been truly “evangelized.” We haven’t heard Mark’s Gospel.
Fortunately, God knows the value of time. Evangelization is an on-going process. (Why else are you reading these reflections?) So persevere!
Initiative: Keep reaching for more. God is “greater than our hearts” (1John 3:20).
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