By: By Tim Irwin

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb. 5

Job 7:1-4,6-7; Psalm 147:1-2,3-4,5-6; 1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23; Mark 1:29-39

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood reported that the number of traffic fatalities in the United States in 2010 fell to the lowest level since 1949. He added, “Still, too many of our friends and neighbors are killed in preventable roadway tragedies every day.” Why did those people die? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is happiness fleeting?

These are the concerns addressed in the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, beginning with the Book of Job. An oriental chieftain, Job enjoys a life of prosperity until one disaster after another befalls him. Job tells us he feels like a slave or a day laborer longing for nightfall and the end of his struggle. He sees no hope for lasting happiness in this life.

St. Paul tells the Corinthians that he has to preach because God chose him to proclaim the Gospel. “If I preach the Gospel I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion, for woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel.”

He goes on: “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the Gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.”

Paul tries to be all things to all people so that they might inherit eternal happiness.

GETTING IT RIGHT
The themes of suffering and happiness come together in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus cures Peter’s mother-in-law and news spreads like wildfire. “When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were possessed by demons. And the whole city had gathered at the door.”

They sought out Jesus to have their immediate problem solved. Jesus cured many of them not because he came to be the means to every other person’s end — no matter how understandable the end might be — but because these miracles asserted the legitimacy of his message of repentance. He even forbids the demons to speak to avoid further confusing the crowd as to the meaning of messiahship.

He makes that meaning clear at the end of the passage: “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there. Simon and his companions searched for Him; they found Him, and said to Him, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby; so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.'”

We may believe that God’s purpose is to help us gain worldly rewards, but could wealth, power, prestige, and even a lower golf score be had if we made Christ the means to our own ends? Everyone is looking for the Messiah because then as now people have an agenda and Jesus can be mistaken as the means to realize that agenda. Jesus tells us that His purpose is to do what the Father wills by proclaiming the kingdom of God. Paul proclaims Christ crucified and risen as the gateway to the Father’s kingdom.

Like Paul, let us stay faithful to the Lord not to give ourselves a reason to boast about our material blessings, but because the Gospel offers us eternal happiness. Let us be mindful of the lesson of the Book of Job — happiness in this life is fleeting. The happiness that we crave can only finally and fully be had in the kingdom of God.

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TIM IRWIN teaches at Peoria Notre Dame High School where he chairs the Theology Department. He is a member of St. Mark’s Parish in Peoria.