First reading Job 7:1-4,6-7
My life is but a breath
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 146(147):1-6
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 should be punished if I did not preach the Gospel
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 Mark 1:29-39
He cast out devils and cured many who were suffering from disease
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.
Reflection
There are as many ways of a heart being broken as there are people in this church. I am sure that each one of you is all too aware of how you suffered the heart-breaks that you carry with you. Some of these wounds may now be partly healed; some are still raw. Some continue to paralyse us in certain situations; others have brought us to a gentle compassion for others in their suffering.
One thing we have in common is that our hearts cannot forget the wounds they have received. We cannot hurry the healing, and we must be very gentle with ourselves when our heart is aching. It is important also not to deceive ourselves into thinking that time automatically heals or that if we forget our hurts, or (worse still) repress them, they will go away.
Hurts can heal, but love is the only healer. It is not always easy to allow ourselves to be loved when our heart is broken, but we must trust ourselves to those whom we know really love us and will stay with us while we heal. We must try to speak of our hurts in the listening and loving space that is offered us.
And now we come to the heart of our reflections. Sometimes we are fortunate to find a friend, a psychiatrist, a wise person, who is graced to be an instrument to us of God’s healing love. Sometimes there seems to be no one.
The Gospel assures us that there is never no one, for God is the one ‘who heals the broken-hearted’. If we cannot find anyone to hold us, God will never abandon us.
So, when our heart is hurting, we can always cry out to God, express our feelings, plead for forgiveness, for love, for meaning, for release – and God, our tender Mother, our gentle Father, will hear our cry.
Fr Michael Fallon msc
