Thursday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 20, 2022

My in-person doctor appointment this morning turned into a video one.  I’ve been prescribed various medications.  I also was sent to get another COVID test, the results of which have not yet been shared with me.  I’m doing a little better.  

Mark 3:7-12

Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea. Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” He warned them sternly not to make him known.

According to St. Mark, after the tumult with the Pharisees, to whom he revealed himself as the Forgiver of sins, the Lord of the Sabbath, and the Reviver of Israel, Jesus led his disciples back to the Sea of Galilee, perhaps near Capernaum.  It is worth noting that, according to the Gospels, most of his preaching and miracles took place in the string of towns that hugged the sea.  Using a map of the area as it was in Roman times, we can trace his movements on the sea’s western edge.  He did work in Judea too, but apparently only on the occasions when the Jews went up to Jerusalem for the holy days.  He also made a couple of excursions across the Jordan in the east and into Syrian territory to the north and west.  But by and large, at least according to the Gospels, he stuck to a small corner of Galilee.  This might seem odd for one who showed himself to be the Son of Man.  We might expect him to spend a great deal of time in Jerusalem.  Even his own Apostles wondered about this.  As St. Jude asked, during the Last Supper: “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14, 22).  The Lord’s answer was one the Apostles would only understand after the Holy Spirit came to them: “If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him” (John 14, 23).  That is, the believer Carrie’s Christ within him wherever he goes and so the Lord “goes” to people he could not have reached during his brief lifetime on earth.  It is also true for us poor children of Eve that we are more easily converted by the disciple than by the Master because while the Master overwhelms us, we perceive the disciple to be more like us.  Also, the greatest miracle the Master performs is that of conversion.  The devoted love of the converted disciple for the Master moves us and makes more sense to most of us than the love of the Master, which is beyond our understanding.  The infinite love of our God for such as we leaves us gaping, but the seeing return of this love by one who experiences it leaves us craving to have this too.

“Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.”  The Lord, by staying in the hinterland, draws all people to himself, and that is a sign for the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to consider.  In a way, this also answers Jude’s question: the Lord does reveal himself to the world, but he does not need to go out to it since it is very willing to go out to him.  Many came to him, motivated by the desire to regain their health.  These suffered from chronic ailments and crippling conditions, and they endured great difficulties in finding him and traveling to him.  But they went, knowing him to be their only hope.  This gives us food for thought.  To go to him now requires overcoming our inertia, our daily routines, and our pride, but he is to be found easily by us in the Holy Scriptures and in the tabernacles of our churches.  The sick yearned to touch him, even slightly, to be healed.  We are touched by him in the reading of the Scriptures and in prayer before the Sacrament.  It is the same One with the same love and the same power and eagerness to heal.

“And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God.’  He warned them sternly not to make him known.”  The unclean spirits themselves wonder at his power, though they did not yet how true it was that he was the Son of God.  This too, provides food for thought.  Even the demons acclaimed his power while the Pharisees denied it.