In the first reading for that Sunday we hear Job bemoaning the “life of man . . . a drudgery.” “If in bed I say ‘When will I rise’ the night drags on. I will not see happiness again.”
In the second reading St Paul speaks of the cost and recompense of preaching the Gospel. “I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some.”
In the Gospel Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, many people gather around the house and he heals them and drives out demons. Then He goes out into the desert to pray. Peter comes to Him and says “Everyone is looking for you.” [What a great understatement.] Jesus tells Peter, “Let us go to the nearby villages that I might preach there also. For this have I come.”
My thoughts:
In the writings of Blessed John Henry Newman we find a fundamental idea that underlies much of his preaching and teaching. In the “Grammar of Assent” Newman describes two ways of understanding, “Notional apprehension and Real apprehension.” An example would be the idea of our own death. We all know that someday we will die. This acknowledgement of truth has a distance between us and it, it is “out there” somewhere. This is the notional understanding. If we were to get a terminal diagnosis however, our death would become real in the sense that it is now immediately before us. This example is not Newman’s. Newman applies the two ways of understanding truth to our faith. We believe in God, we believe in all the proposition that are presented to us by Christianity. [Notional] God and all these truths are “out there” somewhere, but I’m living in the here and now. My day to day (existential) life is what is immediately before me. Newman encourages us to transition from a notional faith to a real faith. With a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and a day to day application of the truths of faith to the “here and now.” Our prayer life should include questions like “what does it mean to me here and now, that Christ is the Incarnate Word of God, the union of divine and human nature. Love God and Love my neighbor as my self, how do I live this out today, this day? I believe in God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, all that is visible and invisible; how is that real to me at 3:15 pm Jan 20, 2015? Meditating on any given article of faith, we make it real by living it, not just acknowledging it.
If we look back at the Sunday readings above, the three main readings are connected by the Psalm and the Gospel acclamation. In the Psalm 147, the refrain is “Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.” The connecting verses are:
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He tells the number of the stars;
he calls each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
to his wisdom there is no limit.
The LORD sustains the lowly;
the wicked he casts to the ground.
We are His stars, he knows us by name. He heals our broken hearts, sustains the lowly and casts out the wicked. This a personal loving God, with us here and now, at the moment of our broken hearts, if we bring him in from afar (from the notional to the real.)
We all know the story of Job and may be surprised at this particular passage. Job was the just man, the faithful man. This is what got him in trouble. God allowed the devil to afflict him with suffering and we know that Job remained faithful and just. But here in this brief moment of his suffering he is focused on his suffering and without losing his faith, he released God back to the “out there”, only a notion that seemingly has nothing to do with his “here and now.” The Psalm reminds us (and Job) that God is with us, he is close at hand to heal us.
St Paul on the other hand, enters into suffering, becomes a slave, so that he might save at least one. For Paul God is real, close at hand, working through him for the salvation of souls, which he understands as vastly more important than the wounds of the body. Salvation itself, being in the presence of God, is here and now, for Paul and he wants it to be so for those to whom he preaches the Gospel.
The Gospel acclamation: “Christ took away our infirmities
and bore our diseases.” Much like the Psalm, Christ is in the midst of our suffering, again, here and now, for us just as he was at the house of Peter’s mother-in-law.
If we look closely at the Gospel we see, just as with Paul, Christ at work for the benefit of the body and soul, healing and driving out demons, but also, and foremost, is his mission to preach the Gospel. It is in this movement of his mission that he seeks to lead souls to eternal life beyond their afflictions.
In all of this, from Newman, Job, St Paul, and Christ, the here and now is united with the here after. The God who is an idea out there is the same God with us, Emmanuel. We should go forth in a living faith, an existential faith, that enhances our daily life and sustains us through troubled times. A living faith that goes beyond an acknowledgement of God, and allows him to walk with us.
“Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted, He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.” He walks with us here and now and leads us to salvation with the Father in the here after.