5th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 1
World Cancer Day
Year B
Green
Saint Blaise was bishop of Sebaste and was martyred in the fourth century. Devotion to him spread throughout the Church during the middle Ages. He is invoked for disorders of the throat.
Entrance Antiphon: Ps 94: 6-7
O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.
Collect
Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always by your protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
First reading: Job 7:1-4,6-7
Job began to speak: Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his time no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’ Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 146(147):1-6
R/ Praise the Lord who heals the broken-hearted.
Praise the Lord for he is good; sing to our God for he is loving: to him our praise is due.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem and brings back Israel’s exiles, he heals the broken-hearted, he binds up all their wounds. He fixes the number of the stars; he calls each one by its name.
Our Lord is great and almighty; his wisdom can never be measured. The Lord raises the lowly;he humbles the wicked to the dust.
Second reading: 1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23
I do not boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands. Do you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives me. So though I am not a slave of any man I have made myself the slave of everyone so as to win as many as I could. For the weak I made myself weak. I made myself all things to all men in order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its blessings.
Gospel Acclamation: Jn8:12
Alleluia, alleluia! I am the light of the world, says the Lord; anyone who follows me will have the light of life. Alleluia!
Gospel: Mark 1:29-39
On leaving the synagogue, Jesus went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils. The whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another; he also cast out many devils, but he would not allow them to speak, because they knew who he was. In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. 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.
Prayer over the Offerings
O Lord, our God, who once established these created things to sustain us in our frailty, grant, we pray,
that they may become for us now the Sacrament of eternal life. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Cf. Ps 106: 8-9
Let them thank the Lord for his mercy, his wonders for the children of men, for he satisfies the thirsty soul, and the hungry he fills with good things.
Prayer after Communion
O God, who have willed that we be partakers in the one Bread and the one Chalice, grant us, we pray, so to live that, made one in Christ, we may joyfully bear fruit for the salvation of the world. Through Christ our Lord.
Meditation
The Gospel teaches us that God has not abandoned us. Peter is one of Jesus’ closest friends. His mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever while her son-in-law was preaching with Jesus the Lord. When Jesus knew of her sickness, the Gospel tells us, “He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her, and she began to wait on them”. Jesus deliberately takes time to go to Peter’s house; it is time to send the sickness away; it is time to lift this burden off the shoulder of Peter and his family. Jesus does not visit our home only to leave us the same way He met us. Jesus feels our pain and is eager to bring us respite. The Lord needs another Peter who would bring Him not only into an individual’s home but to the community as well. Peter could not help his people until he brought the Lord home; when we too feel helpless and hopeless in the face of all the trouble pressing hard on us, let us do one thing; invite the Lord into our personal life and home, that is the magical little change that brings healing to the community and the world.