BIBLE READINGS:
Job 7:1-4, 6-7 // I Cor 9:16-19, 22-23 // Mark 1:29-39

I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS

While studying Pastoral Ministry at Santa Clara University, California in 1995-1996, I stayed with our Sisters in San Jose. We were a close-knit, joyful community of six PDDM Sisters. Unfortunately, Sr. Mary Cornelia, the local superior, became ill. On February 2, 1996, she underwent major surgery to offset the destructive effect of cancer in her body. The cancer, however, recoiled with a vengeance. In the last week of March before she died, the Sisters took turns keeping vigil at her bedside. When it was my turn, I would sometimes doze off in a chair. But in the wee hours of the night, I would feel her suffering eyes gazing at me. She was unable to sleep from pain and discomfort. I really felt sorry for her. She was like the suffering Job who lamented, “The night drags on, I am filled with restlessness until the dawn” (Job 7:4.)

The story of Job is one of the most fascinating accounts I have ever read. Every person who has experienced suffering in its most vivid form can easily identify with Job. Indeed, how could God allow his virtuous and beloved Job to be assailed by an onslaught of calamities? Why did he permit a faithful friend to experience misery in its highest point of acuteness and intensity? Why did he allow Satan to inflict horrendous trials on an innocent God-fearing person? The lament of Job echoes the cry of suffering humanity in despair. The complaints of Job express the resentment of an “unmerited” suffering. The brokenness of the disease-ridden Job represents the human person in need of healing.

It is against this backdrop that we need to interpret the Gospel saving event. The person of the Messiah who preached repentance and the coming of God’s kingdom is the crystallization of the agonies and infirmities of Job and of every suffering person. On the cross, Jesus Christ assumed the brokenness and vulnerability of the entire humanity. It is a paradox that when Jesus was experiencing the most acute moment of brokenness upon the cross, he was bringing about our healing. Indeed, the ultimate healing was accomplished when Jesus, like the suffering Job, was experiencing the most intense agony by his dying on the cross.

In today’s Gospel reading (Mk 1:29-39), we see that the paschal victory of Jesus, the healer, is prefigured in the healing he carried out in behalf of Simon’s mother-in-law who lay ill with fever, and the many others who were sick with various diseases, and those who were possessed by demons. The healing ministry of Jesus was a sign that the kingdom of wholeness has come. By his mission of healing, he showed to the suffering “Jobs” of all times that sickness, suffering and death do not have the ultimate word.

Whereas Job’s “dawn” was a dawn of restlessness (cf. Job 7:4), the “dawn” of Jesus was poised in earnest towards greater intimacy with the loving Father and the proclamation of the Gospel. According to the account of Mark, “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed” (Mk 1:35). The saving ministry of the healing Lord was sustained by his life of prayer and personal dialogue with the Father. Hence, the restoring touch of Jesus reached out more extensively and the Good News carried even farther, propelled by a life of recollection and prayer. Indeed, the ability to be enlightened in his core decisions for God’s kingdom was made possible by his profound communion with the Father in a continual relationship of prayer. Jesus’ tryst at the dawn of day and the consequential activities “of preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee” are a privileged expression of a prayer life that sustains a ministry of wholeness and healing.

The final sentence in today’s Gospel pericope: “So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee” (Mk 1:39) is a summation of Christ’s healing mission and expresses the irresistible force of his messianic vocation. The second reading in today’s liturgy reinforces the theme of the exigency of Gospel proclamation. The text echoes the apostolic imperative that burns in the heart of Paul: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (I Cor 9:16). Unfaithfulness to this apostolic imperative would prevent the broken “Jobs “ of every time to experience the healing touch of God’s kingdom, which has been entrusted to every Christian to live out and to witness.    

Prepared by: Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang, PDDM