"He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons"

Scripture 

1st Reading: Heb2:14-18
Resp. Psalm: Ps105:1-4,6-9
Gosp. Accl.: Jn10:27
Gospel: Mk1:29-39

He brought us wholeness

The Lord brought joy, peace, health and wholeness to our race. He showed the caring love and closeness of the Father to us. He healed everywhere there was a need and the requisite faith. In the synagogue at Capernaum, He showed the new dawn of God's engagement with us by His teaching and healing of the man possessed by demonic spirits. In today's gospel passage, He continued the demonstration of His goodness and care by bringing healing relief to Peter's mother in law, who laid sick with fever. In this instance, the demonstration of divine power was astoundingly incredible: he did not say anything. He just "came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them." Do we understand the immensity of the power of the Lord? Do we know that He still wants us to experience His awesome power, especially in our difficult needs and situations, provided we have the requisite faith?

"they brought him all who were sick or possessed with demons"

The experience of the heavenly Physician was electrifying. People had been under the burden of sicknesses, debilitations, possessions of satan. All of these saw the opportunity for them to receive their liberation. They did not let the opportunity lie low. They maximally made use of it. They brought their sick and those possessed by demons. He healed them all. But our Lord knew that He had to retire to pray and be in communion with His Father. So, He went to a lonely place to pray. Do we understand the need for us to connect to God always in prayer? Do we feel empty and incomplete whenever we pay little attention to our spiritual lives?

"He went throughout all Galilee"

The souls to rescue and save were too many in Israel alone. The Lord knew that the time given Him by His Father was a very short one. So, He would not allow any community to hold on to Him because of the great need to bring God's salvation to the others. In today's gospel passage, though Simon, the "town boy" from Capernaum and the other disciples told Him that everyone was searching for Him, the Lord told them that they should go on to the next towns so that He might preach there because that was why He came. With that declaration, He went "throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons." Do we know when to draw the curtain even when there is still ovation? Do we bask in people's praises and adulation for the good we do, forgetting that allowing ourselves to be so arrested leads to stagnation and loss of steam and fervour?

He shared in our humanity

The taking on of human flesh in the womb of the Blessed Mother Mary was the greatest mystery ever recorded in human history. This is because before then, it was inconceivable that God, perfection without limits and pure Spirit, could ever take on our humanity and flesh that was characterized by mortality, sin and imperfection. The first reading today gives us a clue and an answer why God did it that way: the Lord Jesus, immortal from eternity, partook of our mortal nature, so "that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." In taking our humanity, He was made like us "in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people." Do we understand the price God paid in order to take on our human flesh? Do we appreciate outcome of that abasement of divinity in favour of our humanity? 

Let us pray

O God our Father, we praise and thank you for sending us your Son and bringing us your healing, closeness and love. Give us your grace to appreciate all that you have done for us through lives lived in your presence every moment of our day. Amen.

May the Living Word of God find a true dwelling place within our hearts and souls today and always.