Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (Year B)

Job 7.1-4, 6-7;
I Cor 9.16-19, 22-23;
Mk 1.29-39

THE FAITH THAT ENDURES BEARS ABUNDANT FRUITS

Job and St. Paul were men of faith They trusted in God till the end and God blessed them differently in their own era. Job was blessed with prosperity and posterity, Paul became the Apostle of the Gentiles. Concerning the two patriarchs, we can draw a contrast and similarities between the first two readings at Mass today!

Firstly, we hear Job bemoaning his fate. He says that man’s life is nothing but slavery and drudgery. Perhaps there are times in our lives when we can easily sympathize with Job. His days and nights are full of tears.

He says, “I lie in bed at night wondering when it will be morning, and when I rise I think, ‘How slowly evening comes, and I fret away the day until twilight falls.” As far as Job can see, there is no escape. All he sees in his future is more emptiness and more misery, life without hope.

His pessimism could be summed up in the saying, “Life is hard, and then you die.”Throughout his misery and trials, Job relied on God, and his faith was blessed exceedingly beyond his wildest imagination. God restored Job.

What about Saint Paul? What did Paul have that gave him such a different outlook on life? First, we can say that he conformed his will to the will of Christ who “came not to be served, but to serve.”

Paul had complete trust in the salvation brought by Christ Jesus, and not just his own salvation, but that of all his race, for whose conversion he prayed and worked so zealously.

Did he ever experience like that? Yes! His own life was certainly hard enough. Thrown into jail several times, flogged and beaten, shipwrecked three times, persecuted for his faith until, finally, he made the supreme sacrifice, and shed his blood for Christ, winning the crown of martyrdom.

Paul’s faith had brought him liberty of spirit, a freedom which he chose to use in the service of others. And because he chose that way of life, for him it was not a work of drudgery but a privilege and a joy.

It was not a responsibility that Paul wanted to avoid. Indeed, he makes a point of telling us that it is not something he could have avoided, even if he had wanted to: “The necessity to preach the gospel is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

Here, Paul was clearly following in the footsteps of his Master, who said, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came.” Saint Paul clearly saw his work in the light of Jesus’ teaching, “When you have done all that is commanded of you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty ‘.

” Although he might have felt like giving it all up and settling for a quiet and comfortable life. He went on with the missionary enterprise. Where Job would say that his life is miserable, no better than that of a slave, Paul says, “Though I am free, I have made myself a slave to all.”

And what about us? Through our baptism and confirmation, we too are given this duty. We have been sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit Who will help us when we do not know what to say, when we do not know how to bear witness to Christ in a world which so badly needs His presence and His healing touch.

It is our privilege to bring God to the world. As Saint Teresa put it so memorably: “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.”
The needs of the people around us are many and varied. If we are to bring Christ to them we must, in Saint Paul’s phrase, “become all things to all men.”

As Christians we must be ready to share our faith with everyone at all times, to help others on the path to salvation. Our duty to proclaim the gospel is not limited to any particular audience. Our audience will vary, but the message will always be the same. That is a very important point.

Our concern for others must not lead to any diluting of the truths of our faith. Pope Paul VI wrote very forcibly on this point. He said:

“The apostle’s art is a risky one. The desire to come together as brothers must not lead us to a watering-down or subtracting from the truth. Our dialogue must not weaken our attachment to our faith.

In our apostolate we cannot make vague compromises about the principles of faith and action on which our profession of Christianity is based.

An immoderate desire to make peace and sink differences at all costs is, fundamentally, a kind of scepticism about the power and content of the Word of God which we desire to preach. Only one who is completely faithful to the teaching of Christ can be an apostle.” (Ecclesiam suam, 33).

That is the challenge we all face when we try to follow Christ’s command to make disciples. Perhaps there are aspects of the faith which we think might put people off, so we may feel that it would be easier to gloss over them. But by glossing over a part, we risk weakening the whole.

Eventually, what is left would be a travesty of the truth, half the truth, or less. Half-truths attract nobody. Approximation is not the whole. Catholicism is a package-deal. We cannot pick and choose. The Catholic faith is a seamless robe, and we should be proud of it. When asked a question about faith, we should answer accurately, passionately, and charitably. If we are reticent about our faith, something is wrong.

Perhaps there is a barrier inside us which needs to be dissolved by the grace of absolution. Perhaps we need to be better informed about the teaching of the Church. The fullness of our Catholic faith should fill us with hope and love. It should fill us with the same generosity of spirit that characterized the life of St. Paul and so many others. It is this faith-filled generosity which will be the powerful antidote to those times when we might be tempted to wallow in pessimism, like poor old Job. We should cultivate confidence in God, and zeal for the salvation of others.

Such confidence and zeal are so well expressed in the prayer which the angel at Fatima taught the three little shepherds. My God, I believe in You, I adore You, I hope in You and I love You. I ask pardon for all those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not lov.e You.

Fr Joseph Osho