Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading I Jb 7:1-4, 6-7 Job spoke, saying: Is not man s life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings? He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages. So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me. If in bed I say, When shall I arise? then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My days are swifter than a weaver s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again. Responsorial Psalm Ps 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6 R. (cf. 3a) Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted. Praise the LORD, for he is good; sing praise to our God, for he is gracious; it is fitting to praise him. The LORD rebuilds Jerusalem; the dispersed of Israel he gathers. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He tells the number of the stars; he calls each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; to his wisdom there is no limit. The LORD sustains the lowly; the wicked he casts to the ground.
Reading II 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23 Brothers and sisters: If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it! If I do so willingly, I have a recompense, but if unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my recompense? That, when I preach, I offer the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it. Gospel Mk 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. Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright 1998, 1997, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
HOMILY The readings we just heard give me pause to recognize that this gathering, based on a common belief in Jesus Christ, is made up of x-number of very unique individuals. No two of us in this congregation are exactly the same. We come to this celebration with as many dissimilarities as common points of reference. You take my words with, at least as many, sets of ears as are here. There are Jobs among us, justifiably depressed, broken hearted, long suffering in the woe-is-me, seeking to make sense of life on earth as a drudgery without hope. There are Jesuses, carpenter turned preacher and healer, anxious to get on with the purposes for why we have come to this world. There are Pauls, tentmaker turned preacher, dogged in their determination to spread the Good news. And there are people at every other point in the spectrum. To be honest, most of us are closer to Job than Jesus and Paul. Sr. Joan Chittester in the most recent National Catholic Reporter (January 27, 2006) describes this dilemma succinctly. How do you contain the expectations of a society when TV sets transmit pictures of three-car garages in this country to the corner kiosks of windowless shantytowns and fetid barrios everywhere else? And, on the other hand, how do you save the soul of a people who have been brought up on 30-second sound bites masking as social analysis, and ticker-tape news headlines that change every 10 seconds? While we may have moved beyond the Woe is me images that characterized the starving immigrant and dust-bowl generations before us, we may, in fact, be far worse off than they as a result. We may well have moved to the kind of careless unconcern for a world that changes with the turn of a dial. How do we deal now with life-changing situations that appear and disappear from the front pages of our newspapers when the misery exposed lingers on for months even years muted, drowned out, forgotten, relegated to the archives of history despite the fact that their pain lives on? The tsunami in Asia has become a commemoration of the dead while thousands of survivors still wait for help with housing. The earthquake in Pakistan left 74,000 dead, and 3 million homeless still wait for housing as winter wears on cold and damp. In this country, hurricanes in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana left thousands homeless, separated, displaced, unemployed. Some in Florida have been waiting for help with housing for more than a year. Sr. Joan titled her article, Rescuing ourselves from indifference. I would add to that rescue: inertia, laziness, boredom, lack of care. We are so distracted that life is a blur of drudgery plodded through one step, one day after another. It is up to each one here to take the steps to rescue ourselves from this morass. Both Jesus and Paul were passionate, enthusiastic to accomplish their purposes in life. One clue to that excitement in the Gospel is: Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Time, desert, prayer - - constantly, daily applied - - 1
keep our focus on our purpose in life. This is most necessary in a world as fractured, fleeting, unfocused as ours. Another clue to Jesus and Paul s focus on their purpose in life comes from Paul s letter. Paul notes that his preaching is no reason to boast because it is an obligation. He has been entrusted with a gift, a talent from God that he must steward. He is required to fulfill his purpose in being alive, his preaching, because he must steward what God has given him. Paul feels that he owes it to God to give back to God some of the time, talent, treasure that God had given him. That sense of stewardship, of obligation and debt, is pretty foreign to us. As today s bulletin notes, less that 10% of our registered families gave the time, prayer, commitment to state their stewardship of treasure to support of this parish for this coming year. Where are the other nine? How do we steward our time and talent in a preferential option for the poor, in an outreach to the needy, in responding to those that are the criteria for separating sheep from goats? We need to rescue ourselves from indifference, inertia, laziness, boredom, lack of care! We need like Jesus and Paul to name our purpose in life - - different from our jobs and our daily doings - - and to pursue that purpose with passion and enthusiasm. This is who we are supposed to be when we say we are Roman Catholics. Are we human enough to be who we say we are? As we continue this thanksgiving, let us praise God for the witness of Job, Jesus, and Paul and let us give God thanks by caring, investing enough to be good stewards of the time, talent, and treasure God has given us. 2