The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 4, 2024

Mark 1, 29–39

On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them. When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him. Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.” He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.

On the first day in which the Lord performed a public miracle, an exorcism in the town synagogue, he performed a great many miracles.  As St. Mark tells us, “They brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons”, and, “He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons.”  That is to say, he cured all who were brought to him.  This corresponds with his last day in this world when St. Matthew reports: “The graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose” (Matthew 27, 52).  In this way we can see that the cures the Lord effected on that first day of miracles — and all the succeeding days of miracles — were signs that would be fulfilled in his Death and Resurrection.

“On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.”  This miracle shows us how salvation works: The mother-in-law lays on the ground unable to rise by herself.  Doctors have come and gone and she still suffers.  This is the human being who suffers the self-inflicted wounds of sin and who cannot help himself, nor can anyone else help him.  He is doomed to die in his sins.  “They immediately told him about her.”  But the angels and saints and God’s holy ones on earth intercede for the sinner.  “He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.”  The Greek has, “Approaching her he grasped her hand and raised her.”  He does not “help” her up as though she only needs a little aid to stand.  This signifies that Jesus, through his own effort, raises up the sinner and immediately restores him to full health.  There is no need for any period of recuperation.  When the mother-in-law was raised up and healed, she did not run out of doors to tell the world she was better, or visit with neighbors, or engage in some recreational activity: “She waited on them.”  The Greek verb here specifically means that she “waited at table” on them.  The one who realizes that he or she has been forgiven through the Blood of the Lord should immediately resume — or begin — to serve him.  We do this through prayers, through his worship at Holy Mass, and through whatever we can do to help those whom he has placed in our lives.