A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
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.
In today’s Gospel, which follows directly after yesterday’s, Jesus goes on that same day to cure the sick and drive out demons. The next day he rose early to go off and pray in a deserted place when Simon and others find him. “Everyone is looking for you,” they said to Jesus. He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” Before all this, though, the day before, Jesus gives personal attention to Simon’s mother-in-law, who lay sick with a fever. He grasps her hand and helps her up, which brings to mind the way God speaks to us through Isaiah: “I, the LORD, have called you for justice, I have grasped you by the hand.”
God, help me understand the spiritual place from which Jesus was able to go “into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons.” First, he helped Simon’s mother-in-law, then he cured the sick and drove out demons, and then went on to fulfill his purpose among humanity as the Word incarnate: true God and true man. Jesus’ healing of Simon’s mother-in-law moves me as I consider what that moment was like. He had just come from the synagogue, where he had taught and then rebuked the unclean spirit. And before he has time to rest and recharge, he approaches Simon’s mother-in-law and immediately heals her. God, let me be mindful of Jesus as servant today when I amass a list of things I’d like to accomplish as the day goes by. Give me the grace, Lord, to be an instrument of love as I see the person in front of me who would seem to stand in my way. Help rouse me when I become so self-absorbed in my plans that I fail to see what is right before my eyes.
Teach me to be your servant, Lord. From today’s Responsorial Psalm, we pray: “Glory in his holy name; rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD! Look to the LORD in his strength; seek to serve him constantly.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.