Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark on leaving the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon's mother in law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.
When it was evening after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
The whole town was gathered at the door.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.
Rising very early, before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place where he prayed.
Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, everyone is looking for you.
He told them, let us go on to the nearby villages, that I may preach there also for this purpose have I come.
So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
The gospel of the Lord there is a part of me that wishes that those who handed on the oral tradition that became our gospels would have been at least a little bit more detail oriented, because there are certain characters in the gospels that I wish we knew their names.
There is the leper that upon being healed, comes back to thank and praise Jesus.
There is the woman whose daughter was ill and possessed, and Jesus eventually offered healing because of her persistent faith.
And there is Simon's mother in law.
We don't know any of their names, but this one in particular, at least for sake of this homily, we're going to call Bertha, and I'll come back in a little while to Bertha.
But in reality, she is one of the best examples we have in scripture of how to respond to God's grace.
Because anytime that God's Grace is poured into our hearts, we should respond to it.
And here we have Jesus entering the house of Simon Peter, and they say his mother in law is really sick.
The scripture says Jesus went over and simply grasped her hand. The fever left her and she got up. She found God's grace entering into her life, and she had intercessory prayer in those telling him about her.
But she had an immediate response to that grace because the scripture tells us she waited on him.
And there's a nuance to that that's worth looking at, because it didn't say she waited on him.
It says she waited on them.
And that gives us an idea of how we can best respond when God's grace comes into our lives. And every one of us have had moments in our life where we have prayed fervently for God to do something for us, be it as a child suddenly being told, put your books on the floor. We got a surprise quiz, and we're not ready for it.
To young parents, the first time their child is ill, praying for rapid healing to when we become adults and our parents get sick, and we're not sure how to handle it or what to do, and we ask God to help us, we all do it, and we all get a response which is rooted in God's grace. Not always what we think should happen, but we always get a response. And God's answers are usually a lot better than what we're looking for.
But how do we respond?
I think most of us, and I'm speaking mostly about myself, is I quickly move on to the next thing I'm worried about in life or the next activity I have to do, or the next thing on my calendar, and I forget to take the time to respond with gratitude and to show that gratitude.
And here's where Bertha comes back in because she waited on them. And that's how we can best show God we're grateful.
Because if we simply say thank you in our mind of prayer, well, that's great, but it's not real tangible.
But the real way we say thank you is by loving the living, breathing body of Christ, which is all those people around us waiting on them. So we can in turn show we're waiting on Christ.
So, as you can see, Bertha is a pretty powerful person in scripture, even though we never really heard her name, but she's definitely one we want to imitate.
