Daily Reading
First Reading
Hebrews 2:5-12
It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honor
and put everything under their feet.”
In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says,
“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly I will sing your praises.”
Psalm
Psalm 8:2ab and 5, 6-7, 8-9
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Gospel Reading
Mark 1:21-28
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
Reflection
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus drives out an unclean spirit from a man in the Capernaum synagogue. And he wants to perform the same cleansing operation in our lives.
What God intended from the beginning is that our hearts be temples of his presence. But when Christ comes into our world, what does he find? He finds that the temple of our heart is filled up with all sorts of things that are not the divine power. Money, worldly success, the esteem of others, sex—whatever it is, it has now taken the place that rightfully belongs to God. Therefore, when Christ comes into your life, he will always have a cleansing role to play.
Fulton Sheen once talked about the “expulsive power” of Christ. When you place him in the center of your soul, he will expel all those things that don’t belong in that center and make them find their proper place.
And so Jesus the nonviolent warrior, Jesus the judge, God’s own mind, now comes into our hearts when we invite him through conversion. He will have this cleansing authority and cleansing power.