“Perhaps
the LORD will look upon my affliction and make it up to me with benefits for
the curses he is uttering this day.” 2 Samuel 16:12
Catching
sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and prostrated himself before him, crying
out in a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High
God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!” Mark 5:6-7
Piety
“Where there is no love, put love -- and you
will find love.” St. Therese of the Little Flower (Some sources also attribute
this to St. John of the Cross)
Study
Mark’s Gospel is filled with stories of
demons who recognize Jesus as the Son of God while those closest to Jesus fail
to fully understand his nature. The Lord definitely looked upon their
affliction and cured them of the possession (as David prayed for himself).
Sources explain that the man in Mark’s Gospel
was an outcast from society, dominated by unclean spirits, living among the
tombs. The prostration before Jesus indicates Jesus’ power – this time over
evil spirits like in Mark 1:27: “He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
Ironically, as Jesus chased away the evil
spirits, his fame spread. When the
people closest to Jesus realized what he was doing, his fame spread but not in
a good way. His fame would spread and
lead to his trial, conviction and execution.
In fact, foreshadowing that, in today’s
story, when the people realized what Jesus had done, they asked him to
leave. Jesus agreed but as he was
departing, the man who had been cured asked to stay with Jesus. Unlike the disciples who were called AWAY
from their lives, this man was volunteering to join the ranks. However, Jesus did not call him to stay in
the company of the disciples. Instead,
Jesus asked him to stay among his own people and preach the Good News. The man
obeyed.
Action
“Go
home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done
for you.” Mark 5:19
Jesus does not ask everyone to drop their
current life to follow him. For many,
they can stay right where they are to evangelize their environment. What is your environment? How can you evangelize there?
In his sermon Sunday at the Church of the Nativity
in Burke, Fr. Bob Celinski quoted St. Therese of the Little Flower in this
way: “Where there is no love, put love
-- and you will find love.”
Whatever your environment, if there is not love there, it is our job to plant
those seeds. Just like Jesus put love in the tombs where the man was possessed
by demons and David put love where he was being cursed, we are asked to put
love out there so we and others will find it. If we do that for the Lord, then “perhaps the LORD will look upon our affliction
and make it up to us with benefits.”
No comments:
Post a Comment