Wednesday, January 14, 2015



Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 2:14-18; Mark 1:29-39)

The world needs healers.  People are wounded from the battlefield of life.  Pope Francis famously said that he envisions the Church as a field hospital taking care of life’s victims.  Yet Jesus in today’s gospel resists the call to become solely a physician.

Having the power to heal the sick, Jesus may find a permanent practice in any town.  But that is not his deepest calling.  First and foremost, he is commissioned to preach good news to the poor.  So he moves on to share the good news of the Father’s love with the whole world.

We have similar vocations.  Taking up Jesus’ call to spread the Gospel, parents will raise their children in both faith and love.  Indeed, all workers will discern in their labor ways that to extend God’s love in the world.  Doing so, we become—again like Jesus -- healers of the soul if not of the body.