5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Jb 7:1-4, 6-7; 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23; Mk 1:29-39

In the first reading, Job exclaims: “I am allotted months of futility and nights of grief and misery. In bed I say, ‘When shall the day break?’ On rising, I think, ‘When shall evening come?’ and I toss restless till dawn” (Jb 7:3-4).

No one can blame Job for feeling miserable and hopeless. He has just experienced one tragedy after another. He lost everything he worked for – his property, his children and later his physical integrity. All these happened to Job despite the fact that he lived blamelessly in God’s sight.

Job’s close friends insisted that all his misfortunes were a punishment for a serious sin he committed. But Job maintained his innocence and kept his faith in God. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked shall I return. Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken away” (Jb 1:21). The foundation of Job’s faithfulness to God was his belief that all things are in God’s hands and that everything happens for a reason, even when sometimes the reason seems so unfair.

Perhaps, some of us could relate easily with the sentiments of Job. Life can be very difficult. Sometimes troubles come in bundles – death of a loved one, drug addicted child, financial problems, failure to get a decent job, serious illness, dryness in spiritual life and others. All these together can happen to a person at the same time. When you are in this situation and you started cursing the day when you were born, as Job did (Jb 3:3), we cannot blame you. Be free to express your anguish but try never to lose hope. Like Job, keep believing that God will never abandon you. As the great Saint Augustine once said:

He who made you will take care of you. Will He who took care of you before you came into being not take care of you now, when you are what He wanted you to be? Because now you are a believer; you are walking on the way of justice. Will He, then, who causes His sun to rise on the good and the evil, and His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, not take care of you? Will He neglect, forsake or desert you who are already just and live by faith?

It remains a great Christian challenge to reflect deeply on the mysterious meaning and place of suffering in the loving plan of God for every individual. The gospel passage gives us a picture of Jesus’ reaction in the midst of his suffering people. Jesus, who is the perfect revelation of God’s love for humanity, does not explain or justify suffering. Rather, He spends his time and energy healing as many people as He could from all kinds of illnesses, prays for them and continues to preach the good news of God’s love to them.

This coming February 11, the feast of our dearest Lady of Lourdes, the World Day of the sick will be observed. Let us remember that the sick people are closest to the heart of Jesus and He cares to identify Himself with them in their suffering: “I was ill and you visited me” (Mt 25:36). Visiting and helping sick people is an important ministry of every disciple of Christ, not only of health professionals. Certainly, sick people need medical care and scientific competence, but most of all, they need hope. The element of hope is something that every one of us can give them.

The most important thing we can do for the sick is to pray for them. Father Raniero Cantalamessa, a Capuchin theologian, reminds us that:

Almost all the sick of the Gospel were cured because some one presented them to Jesus and pleaded for them. The simplest prayer, which we can all make our own, is the one that the sisters Martha and Mary addressed to Jesus, in the circumstance of the sickness of their brother Lazarus: “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (Jn 11:3).