Reflections on Scripture | Thursday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time

Join Msgr. Don Fischer as he reads and delivers a short reflection on today’s gospel, followed by 3 1/2 minutes of contemplative music and a closing prayer. Msgr. Don hopes that today’s reflection on the gospel will empower you to carry the Word in your heart throughout the day.

Choose either the video or audio below.

Gospel
Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him, 
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

Reflection

The power that Jesus had to heal was something that he almost had no control over. Demons recognized him as the one who would destroy them. And what we see in this particular passage is Jesus needs somehow to be freed from that as his core message that he was the source of healing. It was symbolic of everything that he longed for people to have, but he didn't want to be simply the Wonder worker.

He wanted to be the teacher. He wanted to awaken people to the power that they would have within them.

Closing Prayer

Father, we listen to your ministry in Jesus we know we're called to that same kind of ministry. It's important that we help one another, to heal one another, to take darkness away from one another. But the key is that we don't do it so that they are free, and that's where it ends. We do it because we ask them to do the same thing. It's not just being healed, it's becoming a healer. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Kyle Cross