Is it time to move on?: The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024

                                                      Is it time to move on?:

The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024 

February 4, 2024

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Job 7:1-7; Psalm 147; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

 

A preacher could spend hours on each section of these readings because they reveal something important to us in our faith lives. We could spend hours reading Job because it deals with the raw experiences of suffering and hope in the world. For many, life is drudgery and filled with disappointments, toils, and setbacks, and it hard to look at one’s state with optimism. Some people are dealing with health setbacks and begin to examine one’s own mortality, and one doubts if happiness is attainable again. When people are asking to go home from a hospital, they are often saying, “I want to be in a time in my life when I was able, free, and happy.” Job is saying I want that again.

 

The Gospel shows us that Jesus restores Simon Peter’s mother-in-law to good health. Jesus is reversing Job’s fate. The healed woman can be herself once again, by showing hospitality to Jesus as a guest in her house. She is able, free, and happy once again. As word spread about what Jesus could do to alleviate the suffering of others, the townspeople bring the needy to him for healing. While he obliges, he rises early to avoid the crowds because his mission was not to heal; his mission was to preach that God’s reign is breaking into the present moment. Yes, people are looking for him. Yes, people want their suffering to come to an end. Yes, they want the restoration that Jobs seeks. The mission of Jesus is to preach, and it is time to move onto other villages.

 

Is it time to move on? A recent Boston Globe article wrote about the two-decade tenure of Cardinal O’Malley, and it reported that church attendance was at 316,000 when he came to the Archdiocese, and today the numbers are around 127,000. Catholic schools have dropped precipitously, and 108 parishes have closed in those twenty years. This data is not to alarm people, but to indicate that the geography of the church is changing. The church is the Southern U.S. is increasing as migrations occur, and new churches are being built. The response to data like this is to say that Paul’s message in the second reading must continue for he says, “Woe to me if I don’t preach the Gospel – without charge, without recompense.” 

 

We, like Paul, have an obligation to preach the reign of God breaking in around us, and, like Paul, we have to be equally creative. He wrote, “To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some.” Perhaps, we need to see our lives outside church walls as equally important as being inside a church. We cannot forget or write off those who no longer come to worship. We must see that they may be suffering like Job and not finding enough reasons to attend worship services. Isaiah expressed it well when he wrote, “How can I sing of songs of Zion?” when I am in lament. The people who no longer come to church are still part of our community and need to know that the Gospel is intended for them. Perhaps, it is we who must alter our words and actions to be more inclusive. Have we created a church where people feel welcomed? Where they feel they belong? Where the message of Jesus is communicated well by the community of faith gathered together? 

 

          We have to see that the church dynamics have changed in our areas, and we need creative new ideas for our contemporary issues. Maintaining the status quo would have kept Job suffering. Maintaining the status quo would have kept Simon Peter’s mother-in-law sick. Maintaining the status quo would have kept Paul from preaching to the Gentiles. Christ maintains his urgency of getting up and going to new places because the good news of God must be preached to those who need to hear those words of hope.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (1 Kings 8) King Solomon and the entire community of Israel present for the occasion sacrificed before the ark sheep and oxen too many to number or count. The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place beneath the wings of the cherubim in the sanctuary, the holy of holies of the temple.

 

Tuesday: (1 Kings 8) Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of the whole community of Israel, and stretching forth his hands toward heaven, he said, “LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below

 

Wednesday: (1 Kings 10) The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon's fame, came to test him with subtle questions. She arrived in Jerusalem with a very numerous retinue, and with camels bearing spices, a large amount of gold, and precious stones.

 

Thursday: (1 Kings 11) When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God, as the heart of his father David had been.

 

Friday (1 Kings 11) ‘I will tear away the kingdom from Solomon’s grasp and will give you ten of the tribes. One tribe shall remain to him for the sake of David my servant, and of Jerusalem, the city I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.’

 

Saturday (1 Kings 12) The kingdom will return to David's house. If now this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, the hearts of this people will return to their master, Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me."

 

Gospel: 

 

Monday: (Mark 6) Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.

 

Tuesday: (Mark 7) And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, "Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders
but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?"

 

Wednesday (Mark 7) “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”

 

Thursday (Mark 7) Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

 

Friday (Mark 7) And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man's ears and, spitting, touched his tongue.

 

Saturday (Mark 8) My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.

 

Saints of the Week

 

February 4: John de Brito, S.J., priest, religious, and martyr (1647-1693), was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary who served in India and was named “The Portuguese Francis Xavier” to the Indians. De Brito was martyred because he counseled a Maravan prince during his conversion to give up all but one of his wives. One of the wives was a niece to the neighboring king, who set up a round of persecutions against priests and catechists. 

 

February 5: Agatha, martyr, (d. 251), died in Sicily during the Diocletian persecution after she refused to give up her faith when sent to a brothel for punishment. She was subsequently tortured. Sicilians believe her intercession stopped Mount Etna from erupting the year after her burial. She has been sought as a protector against fire and in mentioned in the First Eucharistic prayer. 

 

February 6: Paul Miki and Companions, martyrs (d. 1597), were martyred in Nagasaki, Japan for being Christians. Miki was a Jesuit brother and a native Japanese who was killed alongside 25 clergy, religious, and laypeople. They were suspended on crosses and killed by spears thrust into their hearts. Remnants of the Christian community continued through baptism without any priestly leadership. It was discovered when Japan was reopened in 1865.

 

February 8: Jerome Emiliani (1481-1537), was a Venetian soldier who experienced a call to be a priest during this imprisonment as a captor. He devoted his work to the education of orphans, abandoned children, the poor and hungry. He founded an order to help in his work, but he died during a plague while caring for the sick. 

 

February 8: Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947) was a Sudanese who was sold as a slave to the Italian Consul, who treated her with kindness. She was baptized in Italy and took the name Josephine. Bakhita means fortunate. She was granted freedom according to Italian law and joined the Canossian Daughters of Charity where she lived simply as a cook, seamstress, and doorkeeper. She was known for her gentleness and compassion.

 

February 10: Scholastica (480-543) was the twin sister of Benedict, founder of Western monasticism. She is the patroness of Benedictine nuns. She was buried in her brother's tomb; they died relatively close to one another. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• February 4, 1617. An imperial edict banished all missionaries from China. 
• February 5, 1833. The first provincial of Maryland, Fr. William McSherry, was appointed. 
• February 6, 1612. The death of Christopher Clavius, one of the greatest mathematicians and scientists of the Society. 
• February 7, 1878. At Rome, Pius IX died. He was sincerely devoted to the Society; when one of the cardinals expressed surprise that he could be so attached to an order against which even high ecclesiastics brought serious charges, his reply was: "You have to be pope to know the worth of the Society." 
• February 8, 1885. In Chicago, Fr. Isidore Bourdreaux, master of novices at Florissant, Missouri, from 1857 to 1870, died. He was the first scholastic novice to enter the Society from any of the colleges in Missouri. 
• February 9, 1621. Cardinal Ludovisi was elected Pope Gregory XV. He was responsible for the canonization of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier. 
• February 10, 1773. The rector of Florence informed the general, Fr. Ricci, that a copy of the proposed Brief of Suppression had been sent to the Emperor of Austria. The general refused to believe that the Society would be suppressed.