Year B: Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Cure of Simon’s Mother-in-Law.
Mark 1: 29-39
On leaving the synagogue he 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. When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him. Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you. He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose, have I come.” So, he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
Discussion Questions:
- When you pray for the sick, is your focus on God’s healing presence or for complete curing to take place? How are these different?
- In your life what represents the “noise of the crowd”? How does this distract you from spiritual priorities such as private time for prayer?
- What are some of the “demons” or inner struggles you face in life and how do they possess you? What have you experienced yourself, or seen in others?
- Do you believe there can be healing without curing? When have you experienced or witnessed the difference between healing taking place, apart from a permanent cure? Explain
Biblical Context
Mark 1: 29-39
Patricia Datchuck Sanchez
After reading this gospel, Mark Link was reminded of an incident in the life of the French artist, Henri Matisse. One day a friend came to visit the painter. Noticing that his visitor was visibly upset and preoccupied with worries about his job. Matisse advised, “André, you must find the artichokes in your life.” At that, he led his friend into his garden where a patch of artichokes was growing. “Each morning”, said Matisse, “after I have worked awhile, I come here to be still and meditate. This simple ritual inspires me and gives me a new perspective toward my work.” In today’s gospel, another Mark portrays Jesus, observing a similar ritual.
Today’s gospel is Mark’s description of a typical day in the ministry of Jesus (1:21-34); the time set aside for prayer (v. 35) was a necessary respite in what was an otherwise hectic schedule of preaching, teaching and healing. Readers come away from Mark’s narrative with a sense that Jesus worked at an almost dizzying pace to bring the good news and its blessings to as many as possible. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that the disciples “managed to track him down” (v. 36), Jesus did not relinquish these moments of communion with God which, no doubt, renewed his courage, strengthened his resolve, cleared his head and enabled him to go on with his work. In this, Jesus’ disciples, then and now, are taught a lesson regarding the appropriate work ethic of the committed believer.
Included also in this pericope are other valuable lessons. In examining the wonders worked by Jesus, Wilfrid Harrington (Mark, Michael Glazier, Inc. Wilmington: 1984) has explained that “the early Christian community was not interested in the miracles of Jesus as brute facts. Rather, the first believers regarded them in a two-fold light: as a manifestation of the power of God active in Jesus, a proclamation of the fullness of time (cf. 1:15), and as signs of the redemption Jesus had wrought, as prophetic signs.”
Jesus’ cure of Peter’s mother-in-law proclaimed the reign of God as a present reality and prophesied about the future. In verse 31, the verb “helped her up” or egeiro in Greek also means “to raise from the dead.” By his action in Peter’s home, Jesus pointed ahead to the moment wherein those who had been prostrate beneath the power of sin would be healed and raised up by his saving death and resurrection.
Jesus’ silencing of the demons who knew him, and who could have identified him for the crowds (v. 34), is the first hint of the Marcan “messianic secret.” This “secret” was a literary device which explained: (1) why Jesus was not universally acclaimed as messiah during his ministry, and (2) which directed attention away from the miracles until people understood that it would be through suffering and the cross that Jesus’ messiahship would be realized, and his true identity revealed (see Mark 15:39).
Finally, this gospel underscores the universal concerns of God’s saving work; Jesus traveled to neighboring villages and throughout the whole of Galilee (and beyond) remaining continually on the move so that everyone could benefit from his saving words and works.
Today, we who hear and heed this gospel remain the beneficiaries of a work ethic which has made all the difference between salvation and condemnation, between life and death. Let us remember that prayer must punctuate our participation in this wondrous event.
Curing, Healing and Serving
Reflection
John Shea
Contemporary spiritual teaching often maps a different path of curing, healing, and service than is portrayed in this episode from St. Mark’s Gospel. But a similar challenge emerges in both renditions.
Ram Dass, an American spiritual teacher in the Hindu tradition who suffered a debilitating stroke in 1997, makes this distinction between healing and curing. “While cures aim at returning our bodies to what they were in the past, healing uses what is present to move us more deeply to Soul Awareness, and in some cases, physical “improvement.” “Although I have not been cured of the effects of my stroke, I have certainly undergone profound healings of mind and heart” Therefore, healing can happen without cure.
In fact, it is in the sickness that the healing begins. Michael Lerner, who works with people diagnosed with cancer, offered this description of what he would do if faced with a cancer diagnosis. “I would pay a great deal of attention to the inner healing process that I hoped a cancer diagnosis would trigger in me. I would give careful thought to the meaning of my life, what I had to let go of and what I wanted to keep” (Dass, 74).
Healing is initiated in the sickness. It does not wait for cure to arrive. In fact, in some illness literature patients report a greater sense of being alive and in communion with others when they were sick. When they were cured, they returned to normal life, a life often characterized by numbness and rote obligation. Cure actually threatened healing. This was the case with a man by the name of Fred. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After an initial period of distress, “something amazing happened. I simply stopped doing everything that wasn’t essential, that didn’t matter.” His terminally ill life became vital and peaceful. But the doctors changed their mind. He was not terminally p ill. He had a rare but curable disease. “When I heard this over the telephone I cried like a baby—because I was afraid my life would go back to the way it used to be”.
This is the same challenge the Gospel presents, only in a quite different context. Jesus’ cures and exorcisms are signs of the kingdom of God. They both complement and embody Jesus’ more explicit teachings. People are supposed to interpret these signs as God’s loving response to human need. This interpretation, in turn, is meant to change people’s minds and initiate new ways of being with one another. The proper response to cures and exorcisms, like the proper response to proclamation and teaching, is repentance, a change of mind and behavior. Just remaining dazzled by the miraculous activity is insufficient.
Although the consciousness of Simon’s mother-in-law is not presented in the text, the indication is that both cure and healing occurred. Fever lays her low. Jesus takes her hand (v. 31). His touch becomes a transfusion, his life flowing into hers. In loving the person at the hidden center of the sickness, he lifts her up. The fever leaves and service begins. God’s service to her becomes her service to others.
The cure provides physical relief, but it is also accompanied by profound healing. Healing reconnects us to the deepest center of ourselves and through that center to God and neighbor. The flow of life and love through the intimate communion of God, self, and neighbor results in the dignity of service. As the whole Gospel will attest, service is not menial work. It is the hallmark of the new humanity that Jesus came to establish (see John 13:1-17). “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45).
The contemporary path suggests that suffering is an invitation to may not result in a cure. If cure happens, the struggle is to persevere in the healing that was begun in sickness. The Gospel path begins with the cures and exorcisms, restorations to physical and mental health. But these cures must affect the minds and hearts of those cured and those witnessing the cures. They are meant to be catalysts of personal transformation, relating people in a new way to the love of God and the wellbeing of their neighbor (see Mark 12:29-31).
Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.
Patricia Datchuk Sanchez; received her M.A. in Literature and Religion of the Bible in a joint degree program at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York. She has been writing commentaries and homilies for Celebration magazine since 1979 and has authored several books on scripture. She lectures in the areas of Old Testament and New Testament Exegesis at national and regional Liturgical Conferences, and she teaches Scripture for the Cantor Schools of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians.