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Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Mk 1: 29-39 |
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| Background: We hear in these early chapters of Mark’s gospel, the early church’s memory of the exciting days at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry when he began to do "signs" that the kingdom of God was close. The story about Peter’s mother-in-law is fascinating and very credible. What would a woman who is ill do when she gets better if there guests in the house? Naturally, she gets up and take charge of everything. If Simon had a mother-in-law, then he had a wife, a fact which is constantly offensive to those who hate to think of married clergy. But, if the first Pope had a wife, then there is nothing essentially wrong with a married clergy (whether there ought to be or not is beyond the scope of these notes). Some people have argued that Peter’s wife had died and that he had taken a vow of celibacy. In the era in which he lived, that is highly improbable. Moreover if Peter’s wife was really dead he would not have been living in the same house as his mother-in-law |
read the padre |
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Story: Once upon a time there was a young man named Johnny Mac. I don’t know what the "Mac" stands for because everyone always called him Johnny Mac. He was a commodity broker and a good one. He worked very hard but commodity brokers don’t work in the afternoon (unless they have a computer set-up and then they can work twenty four hours a day!). Johnny spent his afternoon working on his voice. That’s right he had fine tenor voice and he wanted to improve it. He took lessons and practice real hard and listened to a lot of singers. He didn’t tell anyone about this interest, not his mother or his sisters or his friends or even the young woman he was kind of dating. It was a deep dark secret. Then one Saturday evening at a wedding, when everyone had a bit much of the drink taken it was agreed that all the people in the wedding party had to sing. Johnny was like the fourth usher. So he was the last one who had to sing. By the way he was perfectly sober. Well, he sang I’ll take you home again, Kathleen because the bride’s name was Katie. Everyone was perfectly silent when he finished and they broke out in a thunderous ovation. Even if they had too much of the drink taken they knew great talent when they heard it. They wanted him to sing again. He refused. Other people pleaded with him to sing at their weddings. He refused. His mother, his father, his sisters, even his (kind of) girl friend begged him to sing. No way he said. I sing only for myself not for any one else. OK, the girl friend (whose name was Kathy) said, hide your light under a bushel, I don’t care. |
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