FIFTH SUNDAY OF YEAR "B"

FIFTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR    -  Cycle  B

Mark 1, 29 39

The Irish author, Frank O’Connor, recalls a touching childhood incident in his autobiography entitled “An Only Child.” Here is the incident, as he relates it. One Christmas, Santa Claus brought him a toy engine. Later in the day when he visited a crib in a convent, he was distressed on seeing the Infant Jesus without toys, whereas at least he had something.  He asked the nuns if Jesus did not like toys, and was told that He did, but that His mother was too poor to afford Him any. Frank knew that his mother, too, was poor, but at Christmas she always managed to buy him something, even if it was only a box of crayons.  Frank says that he distinctly remembers climbing into the crib and putting the engine between the outstretched arms of the Baby Jesus. He probably also showed the Babe how to wind it as well, or how else would the Child manage. Frank remembers too “the tearful feeling of reckless generosity” with which he left the Infant there in the nightly darkness of the chapel, clutching the toy engine to his chest.

What a beautiful expression of childlike giving expressed in that splendid line, “the tearful feeling of reckless generosity.”  That’s how the grown up Jesus must have felt during his public ministry, especially when he ministered to the sick and the hungry. The healing miracle described in today’s Gospel was done on a Saturday. Since Jesus was an observant Jew, He had spent the whole morning in the synagogue. The site of the miracle was “Caphar Nahaum”, in English, Capharnaum, perched on the lake of Galilee. The ruins still exist.

 The Teacher seemed to love Capharnaum more than his hometown of Nazareth. Not surprisingly, since his home boys of Nazareth tried to kill him. Neighbours like those no one needs. Since Capharnaum was Peter’s hometown, he wisely invited his new Employer home for lunch of fresh fish straight from the lake. They were looking, no doubt, to a relaxed meal and a restful Sabbath afternoon. But they are greeted with the news that Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed, running a temperature. This is bad news, not because they wouldn’t get their lunch, but sudden fevers could carry an elderly person off in a matter of hours. The sheer ordinariness of the domestic scene draws us into the story. Peter turns to Jesus. Jesus rises to the occasion. He goes to the sick woman, takes her hand and helps her up. Cured of her fever, she helps serve the mean. This may be the first time in recorded history that a son-in-law wished his wife’s mother a long life. And she may have been the first mother-in-law in history who felt she owed her son-in-law something.

If bad news travels fast, so also happily does good. St. Mark puts the case succinctly: “The whole town came crowding round the door.” The cool-hand Jesus moved among them and cured their sick. St. Mark’s word picture allows us to still see the running sores, smell the foul odours of the terminally ill, and hear the horrible groans. This was a scene made for the genius of Rembrandt, the painter. His sick are painted in dark colours and Jesus the barefoot doctor is bathed in bright lights. You can check it out and buy a good print.

Jesus got to bed late; he was tired. But early Sunday morning the crowds were all over Peter’s front lawn, stepping on his nets and breaking his mother-in-law’s flower pots. They wanted a repeat performance. But the Master had left at dawn. The cures of yesterday were not to be repeated today, for reasons best known to him.  Peter formed a posse and gave chase. They found him, Mark says beautifully, in a lonely place praying. Somebody has said with sharp wisdom: “Through prayer Jesus gained what people sought from him.”  Peter exclaimed, “Everybody is looking for you !”  But such was not the Lord’s plan. Like the poet Robert Frost, he had miles to go and promises to keep before He would sleep. He got off his knees, brushed that famous seamless robe and moved out to the next town. We can see how His sphere of action expands; after healing Peter’s mother-in-law, he heals all those who come to the house, and then goes through the whole of Galilee. He spends time in prayer, but this leads him to more action, and an eagerness to reach more people, both to preach and to heal.

There are a handful of lessons we can draw from this account. Perhaps the paramount one is the willingness of Christ to put himself out far and wide to help the needy. Jesus’ popularity as a healer and teacher gradually leads to his own redemptive suffering and death. Although we Christians may receive healing, the Gospel is not simply a way to avoid pain and suffering. We need also to take up our cross. We need to spend time in prayer everyday, and fill our minds with the truths of the Gospel.  We may sometimes feel, like Job in the first reading, that life is dreary, “Nasty, brutish and short” (to quote a phrase from John Hobbes). Christ’s mission, like ours, is to show the ways of God with man. We have seen him among friends and strangers, bringing health and salvation in the ups and downs of their lives, and by doing so he was knocking the hell into the kingdom of Satan.

 We need to hold fast to an invincible hope that Satan is already conquered by Christ and now has only limited power. We can experience Christ’s victory over evil every day if we turn to him, and we can rejoice that at the end of time the devil and his conspirators will be vanquished once and for all.

PRAYER:  (John L. Belle and Graham Maule)

We cannot measure how you heal

Or answer every sufferer’s prayer,

Yet we believe your grace responds

Where faith and doubt unite to care,

Your hands, though bloodied on the cross,

Survive to hold and heal and warn,

To carry all through death to life

And cradle children yet unborn.

In Matthew he says: “Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse lepers; drive out demons. Without cost, you have received; without cost, you are to give.”

Christians have taken that call seriously from the beginning.

St. Basil the Great is known as a Father of the Church — he was a great spiritual writer. But he was also a great hospital chief of staff. He created one of the first hospitals, which was praised for its “care and order.”

St. John Chrysostom is known for his beautiful sermons, but also for his beautiful hospital, “well-supplied with physicians and attendants for the sick and cooks.”

As the beautiful old movie Monsieur Vincent powerfully shows, it was St. Vincent de Paul’s Daughters of Charity who founded the first hospital system, with nuns serving as nurses. They brought their hospitals to America in 1809.

The healing of disease is good in itself — but it also points to a higher reality. Physical healing is a sign of the moral and spiritual healing we get from God. Without him, we are unwell spiritually — weak or dying. With him, we are restored to our full stature in Christ.

That’s why the Church pairs this Gospel with St. Paul’s declaration, “Woe to me if I do not evangelize.” Woe to us if we do not heal people spiritually.

But the Church also pairs this Gospel with a first reading from Job describing the difficulty of life on earth. “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?” asks Job. “He is a slave who longs for the shade.”

The life he is describing is the life of a sick person, especially one who does not get cured.

As the Church points out, “even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1508). This becomes a different sign for us.

If being made well physically is a sign of God’s power, being kept ill is a sign of human weakness — a reminder that we are to rely not on our own power, but God’s.

Even when we stay sick, we can take comfort in God. “Christ took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.” When we are well, we imitate his wholeness; when we are sick, we imitate his weakness.