03 February 2024 – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Joachim Robert

Dear friends,

If you have taken a closer look at the First Reading of today, from the Book of Job where Job struggles through his life, questioning what are the experiences of his life and why God has put him in a situation that is not so favourable to him. If I may ask how many of you have been in a situation like Job, can you raise up your hands? All of you have very wonderful lives.

Dear friends, as we take a look at our own self, even though you did not raise up your hands, I know and I am sure that each and every one of you have gone through some challenges, some obstacles and some hurdles in life like Job. Not to the extent of how he had gone through but in some ways you have that experience of rejection, of loneliness, of isolation, areas where perhaps you felt helpless and hopeless.

As you take a look at the Book of Job, towards the end of the book, after all the drama that goes around, he complaining and complaining and complaining why is God so absent in his life, ultimately, he came to this realisation that he need to put his faith and trust in God. That God knows far, far better than himself. And he learned to trust God, he learned to allow the work of grace and he allowed God to heal him.

And secondly, dear friends, if you take a look at the Second Reading of Saint Paul to the Corinthians today, it reminds us once again how have we lived our faith. Have we been able to receive those blessings and that love that God has for us? And are we willing to share that Good News of salvation, the Good News of God’s love towards people around us?

And for Saint Paul, he was very, very clear that whatever he did was for the sake of the gospel, to preach the gospel wherever he went because he was convicted of God’s love in his life. And he says:
I made myself to all men in order to save some at any cost, and I still do this for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in His blessing.
When we proclaim the Good News of God, dear friends, we are indeed sharing the blessing of God towards one another.

In these two Readings, dear friends, and as we move to the Gospel, we come to see the closeness of God, the tenderness of God and the compassion of God in every Reading. Because here we can see how God reaches out to each and every one of us with His tenderness, with His closeness and with His compassion. In the same way, if we take a look at the Gospel again. Jesus went from the synagogue to Simon’s mother-in-law’s house and there he reached out to her, took her by the hand and helped her up.

As I mentioned just now, dear friends, many of us would have been in a situation like Job, maybe who had fever like Simon’s mother-in-law, areas of our life that perhaps that we have drifted, areas of our life that we are not so comfortable and when we are ill. But when Jesus sees us in that situation, what He does, He takes us by the hand, help us up. And this is the significant symbolism the Gospel gives us today.

Very often, dear friends, when people are in a difficult situations of life, how do we respond? Do we allow them to be in our situation trying to struggle all on their own, allowing them and lead them to despair? Or are we willing to share a helping hand to lift them up rather than pressing them even further? And doing so, we are able to become that agent of healing, the same way of how Jesus expressed himself as the Healer in the Gospel.

So today, this morning we had so many of them coming forward to receive the anointing, especially the elderly. And there we see, dear friends, that there is so much of need that is there for us. And we need to ask ourselves:
Are we being indifferent?
Are we turning our eyes from them?
Or do we reach out when they with fever, to hold them by the hand and to lift them up?

Because as disciples of Jesus, dear friends, we do not put people down but we raise them up. Raise them up so that they are able to lead a life of liberation, live a life of hope in God.

And as I reflect on the parish, this parish has been so blessed with so many people who have been able to raise people up. And I would like to affirm that there are so many of you with that tenderness and the compassion that God has placed in your heart and in your life that you are able to reach out to each another with the love and the compassion that God has blessed you with. And doing so, you are able to build a kingdom of God, of how Saint Paul tells in the Second Reading of today that he would like to have a share in the blessings of God. And doing so, dear friends, when you are able to reach out to other sin love, when you are able to reach out to others to heal them from their brokenness, we are indeed sharing that blessing of God’s love towards them.

And the second thing that strikes me in today’s Gospel is that in Jesus’ ministry, He did not do it all by Himself. He allowed people to share in His mission, He allowed people to share and He empowered people to participate in preaching the Gospel, in casting out devils. In doing so, dear friends, you and I are called to be participants, of that mission that God has blessed us with in this parish, in this church and in wherever you are. Because when we allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, when we are able to reach out to others in love, when we are able to respond with the conviction that God has loved us and we reach out to others in love, then we do not remain as mere spectators but we become participants of God’s mission.

So let us ask, dear friends, that as we come to celebrate this Eucharist today, to be nourished by the Word of God, to be nourished by the Eucharist. that God may empower each and every one of us to carry us out on that mission that He has placed in His heart. And each and every one of us, dear friends, have a particular purpose, have a particular mission in life and we need to discover that mission that God has blessed us with. And when we are able to discover where God is leading us, we always also must remember that the mission that God has blessed us with is not a mission in isolation. It is a mission that we come together and journey together as one community of faith.

So as we prepare ourselves for the table and for the Eucharist later, let us ask ourselves, dear friends:
Have we been able to become an agent of God’s healing to one another?
And are we able to participate in this mission of God in building His church, of caring, of showing that tenderness, the compassion and the closeness of God with one another.

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