“Subjectivity measures nothing consistently.”

“When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.” - Flannery O'Connor (American novelist, short-story writer and essayist)

Gospel Text: (MK 1:21-28)

Then they came to Capernaum,

and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.

The people were astonished at his teaching,

for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;

he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us?

I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

Jesus rebuked him and said,

“Quiet! Come out of him!”

The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

All were amazed and asked one another,

“What is this?

A new teaching with authority.

He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

At a time when all the world is distraught with the threat of terror and where some seem to trample on the rights of others and ignore the beauty and sacredness of human life, Mark's Gospel today reminds us that the God revealed by Jesus is a God who brings life not death.  And we cannot fail to recall that the same Spirit that animates Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is the same Spirit that has been given to us as Christians through our baptism.  More than ever we need to realize the gift of the Spirit we bear and strive to live our everyday lives as an expression of that life-giving Spirit.  We are Christians and we bear not only the name of Jesus but are entrusted with his same mission.

Good and evil cannot coexist. «No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon» (Mt 6:24), says Christ.

Let us therefore find shelter in the holy tree of the Cross and let its shadow project itself over our life, and let Him comfort us, help us understand the purpose of our life and give us a life worthy of the name  - Sons of God.