Jan 12: Life Shared in Love

Jerome Nadal: Jesus Heals Peter’s Mother-in-Law
Adnotationes et Meditationes in Evangelia, 1595

Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel: Mk 1:29-39

Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them (NRSV, Mk 1:30-31).

Father, because you share your life with us, we are all your children. One of us, among your children, however, is uncreated. He is your begotten but uncreated Son, with you from all eternity, the Word made flesh in Jesus the Anointed One. It is the Word who always presses in upon us, even in our sinfulness, challenging us to accept your life through him. Your divine life, that he offers, is given to us in the Holy Spirit. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet one God.

You, Father, give life from all eternity to your Son, the Word. The Word receives that life. Together, Father and Son, giving and receiving, you share that life in love who is the Holy Spirit.

Father, when we say “yes” to you through your Son in the Spirit, when we receive your gift of divine life, we become caught up in your inner life of giving and receiving life and of sharing in love.

We, who can give you nothing on our own, now, Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, one with them and you, we can give you everything. Divine life, which is given, received and shared in love in the Blessed Trinity, is now ours. Yes, Father, through the Son, it becomes possible for us also to give to you in love and to meditate your life to others. When you, Father, offer your divine life through the Word to every human being, we, caught up in that divine life, offer that life with you. The Word mediates your life to all; and all who live in the Spirit mediate your life with him. The Word is the only high priest in its true meaning, as the author of Hebrews tells us, but all who live in the Spirit mediate that life one to another as priests with him. Christ is king and priest but we are all indeed a royal priesthood.

Father, as the evangelist Mark records, early in his public ministry, Jesus, accompanied by his disciples, healed Peter’s mother-in-law. She immediately got up and began to serve them.

Healing must be shared with others. May we who receive the one, true healing brought by the gift of divine life, like Peter’s mother-in-law, immediately share that gift with you, Father, and all others, through the Word in the Holy Spirit. May our sharing of divine life and love with our created sisters and brothers be made manifest in a visible way by tangible acts of love, by serving one another.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.