Message of Abbot Paul - Wednesday 11th January 2023

I warned you yesterday that Tuesday was due to be a very busy day, with little or no spare time to sit down and write a message, let alone think and pray about it beforehand, so apologies for the poverty of this offering.

 

​Yesterday we read of Jesus in the synagogue and today, in Mark’s Gospel, (Mk 1: 29-35), we follow Jesus to the home of Andrew and Peter, accompanied by James and John. All four live with their respective families in Capernaum, where Jesus has now moved from Nazareth to set up the headquarters, so to speak, of his mission in Galilee. We discover that Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever, whereupon Jesus goes to her, takes her by the hand, lifts her up and heals her. From lying prostrate in bed, she turns to serving the group at table. Then, after sunset, crowds appear bringing the sick for healing. Mark talks of the “whole town crowding round the door.” Jesus heals those who are sick and casts out devils from those who are possessed. We are told that Jesus silenced the devils, “because they knew who he was.” This activity seems to have gone on all through the night.

 

​Then Mark tells us that, “in the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.” This is the first time that Mark reports on Jesus’ custom to seek solitude for pray, something that both he and the other evangelists will report as happening frequently. It is also in his prayer life that Jesus reveals his divine sonship. “Simon and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him, they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.’ And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out devils.” Jesus’ mission begins in earnest and his first disciples go with him. They really have begun to follow him, just as they promised they would, and he has made them “fishers of men.”