Homily - 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B - Sunday 4th February 2024

On Thursday night, once a month, my wife and I join our friends for a pub quiz. We were asked to come early, and the restaurant was still in full swing, so the table arrangements were not normal. This night we got into a full-scale conversation, one we both enjoyed. Now, I’ve read through the reading for this Sunday, I am surprised at how our conversation touched on so many of the topics highlighted in the Book of Job, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and Mark’s Gospel.

My friend asked if I had seen the two documentaries that had been on RTE, The Last Priests in Ireland and The Last Nuns in Ireland. At that time, I hadn’t but he was enthused by the topics. He even went to school with the father of the journalist who interviewed the nuns, so there was a local connection that encouraged the watch.

My friend shared the same thoughts as Ardal O’Hanlon, the actor who played Fr Dougal in Fr Ted. His experience was of being force to rote learn the catechism, without fully understanding the meaning behind it. The words were just drummed into him, and the innocent child still remembers what was taught at school. He still goes to church but sees mainly older folk who in themselves are searching. He recognised a spark of the divine within his heart that nudges him to discover more.

Ed Power writing in The Irish Times, explores how the Clonliffe Seminary in Dublin thrived in the mid-1960s, but today is a ghostly husk, now abandoned. He reminds us of how early Celtic Christianity had a sense of druid spirituality separate from the Global Church. As the Oxford Movement worked its way through the Church of England in the mid-1850s, Victorian morality seemed to be imposed upon the Irish Church at the time of the Famine as if at the hands of Darth Vader-like moralists.

My friend, now retired, felt angry with how the church had lost its way and how the priests seemed to be distant from the congregation. He saw the violence in the world, especially how war was corrupting people and the lack of will from most countries to intervene and stop the slaughter of so many innocent civilians, where children are being forced to fend for themselves after losing their parents.

Yet, inside his heart a spark of the divine continues to work away, making him question what life is all about? Are we simply here on earth for nothing more than to be pressed into the drudgery of service. Slavishly working with nothing in mind but a wage at the end of the day? Are we forced to lie in bed at night wondering how soon light will come so we can start again? This is what Job wondered.

What about the devil? I asked my friend. That’s just a fairy tale to keep us all in order, to put fear into us. There’s no such thing. Yet, in Mark’s Gospel, we are reminded, as we were last week, that Jesus did cast out devils. He also cures the sick. They exist, but in our world, there is so much influencing us to believe devils are fantasies just to give us a thrill when watching horror stories and playing certain video games. It is important to question where do these ideas come from? And why are they shaping our lives? Are these all means to distract us from what life is really about? Are we all just sick of the drudgery? Do we need to be lifted out of the oppression that seems to darken our lives?

There is a sense from what happened with Simon’s mother-in-law that she was not simply sick, but near death and had to be lifted back into being alive. So many people required such help across Capernaum. This work was exhausting, even for Jesus, who also needed time to pray, so rose early to have some quiet time. When the disciples found him, they were concerned because everyone was looking for him, but Jesus had to go elsewhere to carry on preaching, to share the Good News with more people.

Paul reminds us all how important it is to share what we have discovered about the Good News that Jesus suffered and died for us to set us free from death, to save us. Yet, we are all weak and feel we are unworthy, but it is our duty to share the Gospel.

The conversation with my friend, was to allow him to share with me what he knew and his concerns. He felt relieved getting this load off his chest. There are many people throughout our community who have questions and want to have the time to talk about where they are and how they see the world. Many have had a hard life and often feel abandoned, that no-one cares. Like Jesus who needed time to be alone and replenish his thoughts, we too need space, not only to think but also space to have time to be with others, without pressure, without being judged but simply wanting to be able to express what is in our thoughts and how we feel. Let us be still and let the light into our world, and then find time to share some space with others. It is difficult but we can be lifted spiritually, like Simon’s mother-in-law.

Jesus said “I am the light of the world, anyone who follows me will have the light of life. Alleluia!