The Response of Faith

Gospel: Mark 1: 29-39

The entire life of faith is found in today's Gospel, in the shortest encounter recorded, in the life of an unnamed woman, Peter's mother-in-law.  Jesus enters her house and finds her ill.  He heals her, and she responds by getting up to serve others.  That is the entire drama of every life: God has come to our house and finds us ill.  God then heals us.  What happens next is up to us.

Throughout the Gospels we will encounter other healing stories, and in them we will find responses to those healings that fall short.  People are healed and told not to tell anyone but to instead give thanks.  They ignore Jesus and tell everyone.  Others are healed but few give thanks.  It is only this anonymous woman who makes the proper response of faith to God's work of healing in her life.  She gets up and serves others.

As we look about for examples in our own day that reflect this woman's response, we will find the ungrateful aplenty, and we will hear the din of those blabbing about God's work through their media empires and cottage industries.  We will find this woman's great response to God - in those who serve the sick, the poor and hungry, those imprisoned, the refugee and immigrant.  Let us take our place with these who serve, making the proper response of faith to God's work in our life.