Ord.Wk 1st: Thursday 14th January, 2021 January 14, 2021

Reflection on the WORD

God’s Providence: In today’s Gospel, Jesus moved with Compassion, cured the man who in his great joy shared the Good News with all peoples.  However, even as a large crowd was clamoring for Jesus, God our Father’s Providence for His Son’s Suffering and Death was not yet the “time.” What is God’s Providence in your present life?

Mark 1:40-45

A man suffering from a virulent skin-disease came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees saying, ‘If you are willing, you can cleanse me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said to him, ‘I am willing. Be cleansed.’ And at once the skin-disease left him and he was cleansed. 

And at once Jesus sternly sent him away and said to him, ‘Mind you tell no one anything, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your cleansing prescribed by Moses as evidence to them.’ The man went away, but then started freely proclaiming and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but stayed outside in deserted places. Even so, people from all around kept coming to him. 

Today's Pointers on God's Word

As you read the passage what words, phases or meanings caught your attention?

  • The leper who was cured by Jesus was so overjoyed that he went round proclaiming his cure to all peoples despite Jesus’ urging him not to do so.  As such Jesus could no longer go openly into any town . . . Even so, people from all around kept coming to him’.
  • •Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7 says ‘there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven ...a time to be quiet and a time to speak up.’ 
  • •How ready and receptive are you to God’s Providence to live in His ways? Examine the way you live your life. Is it centred on Christ?  Do your family, friends and the people around see Christ in you?