Today’s readings for mass are gentle and soothing and kind of like a lull in the weather. This is good because people need time to just simply live sometimes without any stress or worries and have a little “down time” to just relax. Our lives are so stressful and many of us feel like we don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything done that we would like to. Our lives of faith are often like that too. We are on fire with the Spirit sometimes and then later, we might feel a “let down” afterwards, and need to step back and regroup. This is especially true after a retreat or conference that we attend over a long weekend.
Our spiritual lives never seem to be a smooth, straight line, but resembles more of an ebb and flow like the tides in the ocean. God can write straight lines with our crooked lives though and it is freeing really, if you think about it. We do not need to worry about our lives so much, because when we start insisting on things our way, then God’s will won’t be accomplished in the world. Perhaps we should take some of the control we are seeking in our lives and in our world, and place it in God’s capable hands and just let it be.
Learning about our faith is like that too sometimes. After new Catholics are brought into the church at Easter, they often want to learn everything they can about the Catholic faith and really delve into it with relish, learning how to pray the rosary, studying the saints and the different devotions of our church, and some of the miraculous events that have occurred like Fatima and Lourdes too. Each new thing they discover is like a precious jewel they are seeing for the first time. The fire of their new found love of Jesus and his Holy Church renews everyone else they come in contact with too. The Holy Spirit is contagious and that is pretty much what the first reading for mass today is all about. Saint Paul gives a lot of credit to Epaphras because he taught the new believers things about Jesus, but also because he made Christ’s love known to them. This is the difference between catechesis and teaching. Catechesis is more than teaching about the faith, because it is a sharing of Christ’s love with others and including them into God’s family.
Speaking of family, Jesus cured Simon’s mother-in-law from a high fever in today’s gospel. Isn’t it amazing how even the germs obeyed Christ? All creatures are subject to him, like the fish in the sea, and even the microscopic life forms like viruses and bacteria. The rest of the gospel describes how Jesus cured all of the people’s illnesses by laying his hands on them. What a profoundly healing experience that must have been for many of them, because demons also came out of some of the people shouting “You are the Son of God!” Some of the afflictions the people suffered may have been from demonic possession, but many probably had mental illnesses like schizophrenia, depression and epilepsy too.
Is it any wonder that when Jesus slipped out at daybreak and went to a deserted place, the people followed him. They didn’t want him to go. Would you? But, he had to tell them “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also.” Hopefully, they let him go with hugs and goodbyes, and in peace.
And today, may each of us go our own way in peace, knowing that Jesus loves each one of us as individuals too, in the same way that he laid hands on each individual person in the gospel today, and healed them. May we too, be healed of all stress and turmoil in our lives today, and go about our daily tasks dwelling securely and deeply, in the peace of Christ.
