Job 7,1-4.6-7; 1 Cor. 9, 16-19.22-23; Mark 1,29-39: 5th Sunday of the Year
B:7th February 2021)
On this Sunday, the first
reading expresses a suffering man’s lamentations; Jesus in the Gospel comes to
meet people who suffer; Paul in the second reading shows us how he imitates
Jesus, making himself everything to everyone.
The first reading is taken
from the book of Job and full of sadness. Job observes that man’s stay, on
earth is a hard job. He likens it to a slave who sighs for the shadow, and to a
mercenary who waits for wages. He is assigned months of illusion and nights of
pain. When he lies down, he thinks: When will I get up?; then,
when he gets up, endless tribulations and afflictions await him. He says to
God: Remember that a breath is my life: my eye will never see the good
again.
In the Gospel, however, we see Jesus coming to meet people who
suffer. Here the perspective is no longer negative: all the people who suffer
can know that Jesus is with them, that with his compassion he wants to help
them in their suffering. Jesus neither shrinks from any effort, nor difficulty,
in order to console the afflicted, help the sick, and relieve everyone. Mark
tells us about the first miracle performed by Jesus, when he goes to the house
of Simon and Andrew, the first two apostles. Simon's mother-in-law is in bed
with a fever, and Jesus simply approaches her, lifts her up, taking her by the
hand and heals her. The woman was healed and she was able to serve the guests
at once. When this becomes known, many who were sick and those possessed by
unclean spirits were brought to Jesus. With a certain exaggeration, the
evangelist says that 
the whole city is gathered in front of the
door. Jesus with a tireless dedication puts himself at the service of
all those who were sick and possessed. heals many who were afflicted with
various diseases and casts out many demons. But he does not allow the latter to
speak, because they knew him. Jesus does not want to, immediately, manifest his
dignity as Son of God and Messiah; he wants to carry out his ministry in
humility, without seeking human success and approbation. The Gospel tells us
that after this tiring day - the fatigue continues even during the night -
Jesus gets up early in the morning, when it is still dark, and goes to a
deserted place to pray. Jesus is a model for us. In any circumstance he finds
time to pray. Prayer is a need of his heart. Jesus wants to be in contact with
the Father; therefore, he seeks solitude, whenever it is possible for him, to
invoke God, dialogue with him, and in this manner manifests his filial life
with the Father. In the morning, Simon Peter, not seeing Jesus at home, starts
looking for him and, when he finds him, he tells him: Everyone is
looking for you! But Jesus, instead of returning to Peter, says: Let
us go elsewhere for the neighbouring villages, so that I may also preach there;
for this, in fact, is the reason for which I have come! Here is
manifested the zeal of Jesus; his ministry is very different from that of John
the Baptist. The latter had gone into the desert, to lead a hermit's life, and
people came to him. He welcomed them and preached baptism for conversion. In
the case of the Baptist, it was the people who came to him, while he remained in
a place. In Jesus’ case, however, the opposite is the case, it is he who moves,
goes from one country to another, and preaches everywhere. In all of the Old
Testament, we do not find a similar example in the inspired men of God. This
fact is truly characteristic of Jesus. We can think of his tireless activities:
it is he who reaches out to people where they are, without waiting for them to
come to him. He came (the Gospel says literally: he went out) to
fulfil this mission. Thus, he demonstrates the ardor of his charity: he wants
to fulfil his mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God, offering all men light
and strength, meeting the suffering and welcoming even sinners. In the parable
of the prodigal son, the father awaits the return of the son, he does not go
out looking for him (cf., Luke 15, 11-32). Instead, in his concrete life, Jesus
goes in search of people, like the shepherd who goes in search of the lost
sheep (cf., Luke 15, 3-7; Matt 18, 12-14). We can admire this attitude of his,
which manifests such a great strength of love. The Son of God came to earth, he
made, so to speak, a great journey to look for us. This journey of his
corresponds to the mission he received from the Father and fulfilled with his
death and resurrection.
The second reading makes us
understand that we Christians must not only be the beneficiaries of Jesus’
goodness, we must not receive it only passively, but must take an example from
him to go out to meet people who suffer, and help those in difficulty. Paul
presents himself to us as a model. He imitated Jesus, and went everywhere to
preach the gospel; indeed, he traveled much longer than Jesus. On the other
hand, Jesus himself had predicted: Even whoever believes in me will do
the works that I do and will do greater ones [because I will be
glorified, and I will help him] (John 14,12). Paul, therefore,
exclaims: Woe to me if I don't preach the Gospel! And he
explains that he intends to preach the Gospel with an attitude of
gratuitousness. Charity always presents an aspect of gratuitousness: it does
not seek its own interest, but wants to spend itself generously for others. For
Paul, preaching the gospel is a commission he has been given. How will he
fulfil it? He will preach the Gospel for free, to have true merit before God. If
for instance, he preached the Gospel by taking advantage of all the rights that
come with it, then he would not show that he has generous charity.
The Apostle
affirms: Although I am free from all, I have made myself the servant of
all in order to gain the greatest number. I have made myself weak with the
weak, to gain the weak; I have been everything to everyone, to save someone at
some cost. Paul does all of this for the gospel. Thus, he truly
becomes a participant in Jesus’ evangelising ministry, stays with Jesus, to
bring the Good News of God's love that comes to transform the world to
everyone. He announces the Gospel not only in words, but also with his generous
behaviour. Every Christian must imitate Jesus. He must not limit himself to
benefiting from the grace he receives from him, but with him he must bring this
grace to other people. He must then ask himself which people around him need
his help most, which people he can make happy, enlighten not only with words,
but also, and above all, with his behaviour. In this way he imitates Jesus, as
he is presented to us in the Gospel. +John
I. Okoye
(graphics by Chukwubike OC)
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