A reading of the holy gospel according to Mark. This is a continuation of yesterday's reading. And we left our lord in the synagogue where the people upon hearing our lord speak remarked with astonishment that he spoke as one with authority. Now this continues that story. Upon leaving the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and with John.
Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever. Fever. And the first thing they did was to tell Jesus about it. He went over to the woman, grasped her hand, and helped her up. The fever left her at once.
She immediately began to wait upon them. After sunset, as evening drew on, they brought to Jesus all who were ill and possessed by demons. Before long, the entire town was gathered outside of the door. Those whom Jesus cured, who were variously afflicted, were many, and so were the demons that Jesus expelled. But he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew who he was.
Rising early the next morning, Jesus went off to a lonely place in the desert. There he was absorbed in prayer. Simon and his companions managed to track him down. And when they found Jesus, they said to him, everybody is looking for you. Jesus said to them, let us move on to the neighboring villages so that I may proclaim the good news there also.
That is what I have come to do, to proclaim the good news. So Jesus went into their synagogues preaching the good news and expelling demons throughout the whole of Galilee. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to god. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. The first reading today from the continuation from the first book of Samuel followed by the Responsorial Psalm. Together, these readings focus upon one single idea. And that is, quite obviously, the obligation to do God's will, a willingness to do God's will. In other words, to follow his calling.
His calling. Now as I grew up, we had a word vocation. And that word vocation had a very definite meaning. If you said a young man had a vocation, it meant one thing, that he was called to the priesthood. And if you said a young lady had a vocation, that meant one thing.
She was called to become a nun or a sister. Well, in my tender and innocent years, in my juvenile naivete, it didn't occur to me what happened to all these other people who didn't have a calling. Which is a very sensible question, isn't it? Unfortunately, I repeat, unfortunately, that was the meaning attached to the word vocation. And it was very easy, I think we all assumed this.
That if you weren't called to the priesthood, if you weren't called to be a nun, you didn't have a vocation. Now, I know this may be magnifying an item beyond the its point is, this was so contrary to Christian truth and so utterly opposed to fact. It isn't a question of who has a vocation and who doesn't. We all have it. We are all called.
The very the very catechism we were using in those days, the first question was, who made you? And the second was, why? What for? And that was the answer to your calling. Now, even today, people lose their orientation.
They lose their sense of direction. It is so common today to hear people talk about their lives, and I'm not talking about the elderly or the middle aged, I'm talking even about adolescents. They're asking themselves, what am I worth? What's life all about? What meaning does it have?
This was the great thing that Frankel had in mind. That the main thrust that we need to live a vigorous life is to have a consciousness of direction, of motivation, of calling, of calling. We are all called. That part of it remains for us really only to acknowledge it's there. God created us and he didn't do it as a joke.
He there's a meaning in my existence, whatever kind of existence it is. There's meaning in it. There is direction. There is a calling. No matter how mean my life may be in any respect or how worthless as far as the world is concerned, it is not worthless from God's point of view.
Never, never, never. But the point that we have so much to do with beyond recognizing that truth is this, what do we do about it? What do we do about it when we hear the call? And remember, there's nothing greatly mysterious about it. When Simon's mother was was lifted this is rather intriguing, I think.
But the first thing that the good lady does after she gets off of her bed of fever, having been cured by Christ, is she waits on them. They needed food, so she fed them. She didn't have to wonder what her vocation was. She was scarcely off the bed when she heard her calling to feed those who needed some food. Did you notice in the responseorial Psalm, for once I agree with their response.
Here am I, Lord. Here am I. Now that's the part which scratches us often. It's the being in the here. I want to do God's will alright, but not here.
Not under these conditions. Not under these circumstances. Remember, that is an absolutely human reaction. Don't be afraid of it. To say I wanna go do God's will doesn't mean for one instance that I'm overwhelmingly enjoying it or that I embrace it with open arms.
Christ didn't. Christ didn't. In the Garden Of Gethsemane, he prayed to be freed from it. So let's not be afraid. Let's not have any any confusion in my mind of what it's all about.
Doing God's will doesn't mean I enjoy doing it. It doesn't mean that I'd rather not be doing it in some other way of my choosing. There's the rub. Because the whole point of doing God's will is saying, here am I, Lord. Not not yesterday where I am no longer, but here am I, Lord, under these circumstances, here and now.
Not tomorrow, not next week, but this morning. This is a tremendous passage we've just read from Samuel, backed up by the psalmist. Take it to heart. If any message has meaning for each one of us, this has meaning. Here am I, Lord, to do your will.
And don't worry about it being clear. It will be clear when the time comes for you to do it. You the problem problem is recognizing it because sometimes we don't want to recognize it. We don't want it. Our prayer will be the prayer of Jesus Christ that this chalice be taken away from me.
But here is the Christian, not my will, but thine be done. The name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.