Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time in year B

# The Christian faith is based on the Bible. Faith is a matter of trust in God, before it concerns a belief or dogmatic content. Jesus compares the believer to a man who builds his house on rock and thus gives it a truly indestructible character. To characterise the relationship of the believer to God, the Bible does not use the word religio in its Greek and Latin translations. The believer is not the one who believes that God exists, but who believes IN God, a formulation that is used in Christian symbols of faith.

This faith is verified in daily life through the observance of the commandments. It gives the certainty of the reality of God and his truth . The New Testament offers a model of the believer : Jesus, of whom Paul says in the Letter to the Galatians that, through his faith, he is the author of our salvation. Faith is the place of salvation for humanity. Faith is not innate. The apostle James specifies that faith without works is dead. Another model of a believer is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who first believed in the fulfilment of the promise made to her by the angel Gabriel. Faith does not exclude the dimension of knowledge of divine realities.

                                                                                                                       

  

Living my faith with conviction and authenticity

From the Gospel according to Saint Mark

Jesus, accompanied by his disciples, arrives in Capernaum. Immediately, on the Sabbath day, he went to the synagogue, and there he taught. They were struck by his teaching, for he taught as a man of authority, and not like the scribes. Now there was a man in their synagogue, tormented by an evil spirit, who began to cry out, « What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth ? Have you come to lose us ? I know very well who you are: the Holy One, the Holy One of God. Jesus challenged him sharply : « Silence ! Come out of this man ». The evil spirit shook him violently and came out of him with a loud cry. Everyone was frightened and asked :  « What does this mean ? This is a new teaching, proclaimed with authority! It commands even the evil spirits, and they obey it ». From then on, his fame spread throughout the whole region of Galilee. (Mk 1, 21-28)

Author +FATHER MARIE LANDRY C+MPS

Lord, help me to live my Christian faith with conviction and authenticity. Give me the courage to bear witness to your love through the purity and sincerity of my love for each of my brothers and sisters. Today, Christ addresses his energetic cry to us, without doubt and with authority : « Shut up and come out of that man » (Mk 1, 25).

He says this to the evil spirits that live in us and do not let us be free, as God created us and wanted us to be. You may have noticed that the first rule that the founders of religious orders laid down in community life is silence: in a house where one must pray, silence and contemplation must reign. As the proverb says : « Good does not make noise, noise does not do good ».

That is why Christ commands the spirit of evil to be silent, for its obligation is to surrender itself to Him who is the Word, who became flesh and dwelt among us.  (Jn 1, 14). But it is certain that a sense of sufficiency can mingle with our admiration for the Lord, so that we come to think of what St. Augustine said in his own confessions : « Lord, make me chaste, but not at once ». For there is a strong temptation to leave our own conversion for later, since now it does not fit in with our personal plans.

The call to follow Jesus Christ without concession is for the here and now, so that his Kingdom, which is struggling to make a passage among us, may become possible. He knows our lukewarmness, he knows that we don’t try hard enough to follow the Gospel but that we want to temporize, to go this way and that, to live without reluctance and without hurrying.

Evil cannot coexist with good. The holy life does not allow sin. « No one can serve two lords; for he will hate the one and love the other » (Mt, 6, 24) says Jesus Christ. Let us take refuge in the holy tree of the Cross so that its shadow may be cast over our lives, and let Him console us, make us understand the reason for our existence and grant us a life worthy of Children of God.

Lord, I often find it difficult to live my faith coherently and sincerely. The world in which I live tries to pull me constantly to the other side, to think constantly about myself, my pleasure, my satisfactions, my own happiness. Help me not to be afraid to live the Gospel in a radical way ; to love my neighbour as you have loved us. Help me to understand that it is by giving that one receives, it is by forgetting oneself that one finds oneself, it is by forgiving that one is forgiven, it is by dying that one is resurrected to eternal life.  » (Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi) Let us live authentically what we preach to others.

Additional information at

◊ Deacon Michel Houyoux : click here to read the paper → Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

Links to other Christian sites on the web

◊ Young catholics : click here to read the paper →  4th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B (2021)

◊ aucklandcatholic.org. : click here to read the paper →  Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Kien kieu :  » Fourth sunday in ordinary time year B »