Homily Notes | 2.05.2012 | English

FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, B

My brothers and sisters,

Today in our first reading we hear Job lamenting his sufferings. Depression really is evident when Job says: “I shall not see happiness again.”Hopelessness is one of the major characteristics of depression. Whether Job was a real person or not, no one can say for sure, but the Book of Job definitely expresses a feeling we’ve all felt at times, that life is unfair. At the time this book was written, the view God’s people had was that if we are good, all will go well, and if we’re not, all kinds of terrible things will happen to us. We all know life doesn’t always work that way. The Book of Job probes this problem without coming to a satisfactory answer. The author could only conclude God somehow must know what he’s doing because we do not. However, even though Job despaired of ever being happy, his misfortunes were reversed in the end and he did die happy. In the Gospel we hear about the healing of the mother-in-law of Peter by Jesus. Mothers-in-law have been the object of jokes, some humorous and some cynical, for a long time. One pundit observed, “Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.” Whether Peter’s mother-in-law was surprised at Jesus’ selection of him to be the head of the apostles, we do not know. In fact, she is mentioned only once in all the Gospels, but that one mention is important to us. Peter, who at the time was still known as Simon, was worried about his mother-in-law. She lay ill with a fever. When Simon told Jesus about her, he took her by the hand and the fever left her. The action of Jesus is not surprising. But then, quite surprisingly, she immediately began to wait on Jesus and his disciples. You would think that she would take at least a few moments to rest, but that was not this woman’s way. Saint Paul was filled with a similar sense of service. To underscore his dedication to preaching the Gospel to which he had been called, he wrote: “I am under compulsion and have no choice.” It was an emphatic way of expressing his profound sense of duty. He did not hesitate to highlight his generosity by reminding the Corinthians, “I offer the Gospel free of charge.” In comparison with the exalted vocation of Saint Paul, the simple service offered by Peter’s mother-in-law may seem rather insignificant. The point, however, is that both of them reflected the generous and unselfish spirit of service of Jesus himself, Paul in his way and the mother-in-law in her way, and what is our way? We can be like Jesus in the duties of our calling in life, whatever they may be. We need to reflect on how generous and unselfish we are in our lives as a grand- parent, a parent, a spouse, a teacher, a worker, a volunteer, a student, a priest, a religious, whatever our calling may be.

Fr. Yves