February’s Sunday readings help prepare us for Lent.

Some say it’s a good thing that February is the shortest month of the year. In our temperate climate, its weather arguably is the most difficult to tolerate. February has the further negative of occurring after Christmas and well before Easter.

Perhaps the month’s best asset is that it serves as a buffer between the Advent–Christmas and Lent–Easter cycles of the liturgical year. In fact, until the 1969 reform of the Roman Rite under Pope Paul VI, the Sundays of this month were called Septuagesima, Sexegesima, and Quinquagesima, respectively, counting down the days to Easter (x minus 70, then 60, then 50 days until Easter). Although they are now numbered as Sundays in ordinary time, they still have readings that prepare us for the soul-searching personal renewal we should take on during Lent.

In 2012 the first three Sundays of February prepare us for Lent, which begins on the last Sunday of the month. All four Sundays present us with contradictions we must meditate on if we are to progress in the spiritual life. The first three act as a sort of gentle incline or ramp we walk up gradually to reach the high level of Lenten preparation needed to achieve the spiritual heights of Easter. By that time we should have attained a high state of relationship with our risen Savior. But that’s unlikely to happen if in early February we don’t start to meditate wholeheartedly on the Scriptures of the Liturgy of the Word.

Feb. 5: slave and free

Our uphill journey this month begins with the pain of Job’s suffering. He who was respected as the richest and best man in his city had been given over to Satan to be tempted into cursing God. Satan had taken away his wealth, his livestock, his children, and his health.

Having hit bottom, Job complains about the human condition he is now experiencing. All his previous possessions served only to cover the reality of basic human life. In only six verses Job describes life on earth as drudgery, slavery, misery, and hopelessness. And to boot, life is short.

Like the wind, the years of life flee quickly, never to be seen again. Job laments his woes deeply, but he never once curses God. Nevertheless, his understanding of life is as clouded in his misery as it had been when he enjoyed wealth.

Paul counters, in the second reading, from the point of view of a man with little of the world’s riches. He states that he willingly took on the status of a slave without experiencing the pain of Job. Dedicating his life to preaching deprived Paul of the chance to get rich, but it gained him the joy of winning people to the Lord. So, Paul wrote, “woe to me if I do not preach it.”

He gave himself up to become all things to all men so that some might accept the Gospel. That was a good deal for Paul. It’s good for us too. A life dedicated to others for the sake of the kingdom is a meaningful and fulfilling life. From that point of view, experiencing the poverty of a slave committed to bringing life to others is far superior to spending all one’s short allotment of time on earth trying to amass material stuff that will soon disappear.

In today’s Gospel, Mark relates the first miracle story of Jesus recorded in the Synoptic Gospels: the cure of Peter’s mother-in-law. She puts Paul’s lesson into practice. She who had been as incapacitated as Job by her fever, once freed of it, got up immediately and began to attend to the needs of everyone in the house. Her service to others was her thanks to the Lord for curing her. She was a happy woman in her servitude.

A few hours later the Sabbath was over, and Jesus was presented with a decision that was to determine the remainder of his newly begun public ministry. After word of Jesus’ miracle circulated through Capernaum, the townspeople brought every ailing person for miles around to Peter’s house to be cured. Jesus spent the night curing many and casting out demons.

The problem was whether Jesus was to be penned up in one house with the whole world coming to him with their sick. What kind of Messiah would that be?

What Jesus decided to do in response was even more amazing. After praying about it before the next dawn, Jesus decided no—he would not be caged in one place. He would go to the towns and bring the good news directly to people’s hearts. Jesus chose a life of service as a sign to us that such servitude is freedom.

Feb. 12: healer and leper

The first reading this Sunday presents the Old Testament law regarding leprosy. Any person suspected of being a leper had to go to a priest of the order of Aaron. The priest would decide whether the person had the disease. If the verdict was yes, the leper had to tear his garments, bare his head, muffle his beard, cry out “unclean, unclean” whenever anyone came near, and dwell outside the camp (or away from any place where other people dwell). He would be sentenced to a life of misery.

The Gospel for the day describes how Jesus had the tables turned on him by a leper. One day, early in his public ministry, Jesus met a leper and was “moved with pity.” Jesus cured him, freeing him from the miserable life he had been living. But before Jesus let the man go to the priest to be declared free of the malady, he warned him not to tell anyone.

But how many people could hold in the story of such a marvelous, life-changing event? Accordingly, the man spilled the beans and told the world that Jesus had the power to cure leprosy.

Mark reported that the result of this “leak” was to render Jesus incapable of entering a town openly because people kept coming to him. He had to live in deserted places. How ironic! The man who cured lepers had to suffer the lot of a leper and stay outside inhabited areas. The healer now had to live the life of a leper.

Despite Jesus’ clear intention that this should not happen, he accepted his new position. Jesus had no place to lay his head. He made that sacrifice out of pity for the sick and marginalized. He truly took on our infirmities.

Paul wrote, in the second reading, that whatever we do should be done for the glory of God. One example of this is Jesus’ behavior in the Gospel. Another is Paul’s behavior. He brashly wrote, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.” So should we do. But we can do so only if we have developed some of our Lord’s pity and his radical self-giving love.

Feb. 19: stuck yet free

Isaiah gave us great advice for life when he wrote in the first reading today, “remember not the events of the past.” This insight harkens to the admonition God gave Lot and his family not to look back when fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife did and turned into a pillar of salt.

That is not a quaint story. It happens even now as people who have the opportunity to leave an evil situation try to do so but make the mistake of looking back. They become stuck. Unable to get closer to safety, they are pulled back to their former situation. There are many pillars of salt among us. They did not believe God when he said, “I wipe out your offenses.”

Paul teaches us, in the second reading, that our God is a God of “yes.” Paul was admonishing the Corinthians to turn from their mistaken ways and their lack of love. Getting back is easier than we expect. We need only realize the love of God—and that God always offers us a hearty “yes.” We are free. All we have to do is receive God’s “yes” with joy. Then we lose our “pillar of salt” status and become flexible possessors of God’s gift of freedom.

The poor paralytic, the focus of Sunday’s Gospel, was incapable of moving any part of his body, and his friends were stuck in the crowd and unable to move him closer to Jesus. Fortunately, his bearers knew of God’s “yes.”

They were flexible enough not to take no for an answer. Instead, they tried plan B: they got on top of Jesus’ house and audaciously broke through the roof. Jesus’ immediate response was to grant forgiveness.

Lack of forgiveness causes spiritual paralysis and often even physical immobility. In this case, upon further review of the scribes, Jesus affirmed his ruling on the field by freeing the man from his physical paralysis as well.

All were astounded and glorified God. No doubt we could add that everyone there—not just the former paralytic—became much more active, jumping for joy and shaking one another’s hands in joy.

Feb. 26: true repentance

Finally Lent arrives, and our horizon is much wider, thanks to the spiritual climbing we’ve accomplished during the first three weeks of February. We should be ready for big-league piety and leaps in our faith as we get in shape for Easter.

The Liturgy of the Word begins with a deluge. The flood that inundated the world at the time of Noah had just ended. God spoke, establishing a new covenant with Noah, his sons (including us), and all the animals. Can you imagine that?

Read the passage from Genesis for yourself. It was a momentous occasion. The world had just been destroyed by water. Every living being, except those in the ark, had died. That had the makings of a trauma that would affect not only the survivors but also their descendants down to the present.

Any time a thunderclap was heard or rain started falling, some primordial memory would frighten us and all sentient creatures. Our instinct, ingrained since the flood, would take charge of our emotions. The concept of God would be frightening for many of us.

But God wanted to mitigate this possible aftereffect. He proposed a sign of his benevolence. It’s the rainbow: a sign God will not destroy the earth again. If we look at it and all the other signs of God’s beauty, we can be cured of any deep-seated fear of God.

When the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert for 40 days (the same length of time as the flood), look at who was with Jesus. Mark emphatically makes the theological point that Jesus was with the wild animals as well as angels who ministered to him. Yes, Satan was with him too. The whole cast of creation was on stage. Mark does not tell us what happened out there. He merely tells us the result of the 40 days on Jesus.

Jesus was changed. He began an energetic public ministry. He had a message, namely, the Kingdom of God is at hand. He told the world to “repent and believe in the good news.” Despite John the Baptist’s incarceration in a prison he would never leave alive, Jesus told us to see good news all around us.

Peter, in the second reading, told us more about repentance. He explained that Christ’s death was an invitation for us to follow him through death to eternal life in the Spirit. Could that not have been the vision Jesus saw in the desert?

There with the wild animals, the angels, and Satan, Jesus put it all together and saw what role the Father had established for him. As the Son of God, Jesus would lead us back to something greater than the Garden of Eden. He would lead us to the kingdom, the New Jerusalem. He would lead us through evil and death—destroying them in the process—to eternal happiness.

We can enter this reality now, said Peter, by means of baptism. Yet Peter warns us that baptism is not a cleansing. First, it was a two-step process of being “put to death in the flesh” and “brought to life in the spirit.”

Jesus’ baptism also included his descent to the dead to take the righteous to heaven. For us baptism is “an appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ who has gone to heaven.” We’re going with him.

We never have to look back. But with divine assurance we know our future, as Jesus learned it in the desert. All the problems of this world will be rectified. We’ll live in that new world after we follow Christ through death to new life. So we can live in this world, living in the Spirit with a whole new attitude of freedom, constantly affirming the glory of God.

WEEKDAY READINGS

Sunday, Feb. 5: Job 7:1-4, 6-7; Psalm 147:1-6; 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39
Monday, Feb. 6: Memorial, Paul Miki and companions, martyrs, 1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13; Psalm 132:6-10; Mark 6:53-56
Tuesday, Feb. 7: 1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30; Psalm 84:3-5, 10-11; Mark 7:1-13
Wednesday, Feb. 8: 1 Kings 10:1-10; Psalm 37:5-6, 30-31, 39-40; Mark 7:14-23
Thursday, Feb. 9: 1 Kings 11:4-13; Psalm 106:3-4, 35-37, 40; Mark 7:24-30
Friday, Feb. 10: Memorial, Scholastica, virgin, 1 Kings 11:29-32 and 12:19; Psalm 81:10-15; Mark 7:31-37
Saturday, Feb. 11: 1 Kings 12:26-32 and 13:33-34; Psalm 106:6-7, 19-22; Mark 8:1-10
Sunday, Feb. 12: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11; 1 Corinthians 10:31–11:1; Mark 1:40-45
Monday, Feb. 13: James 1:1-11; Psalm 119:67-68, 71-72, 75-76; Mark 8:11-13
Tuesday, Feb. 14: Memorial, Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop, James 1:12-18; Psalm 94:12-15, 18-19; Mark 8:14-21
Wednesday, Feb. 15: James 1:19-27; Psalm 15:2-5; Mark 8:22-26
Thursday, Feb. 16: James 2:1-9; Psalm 34:2-7; Mark 8:27-33
Friday, Feb. 17: James 2:14-24, 26; Psalm 112:1-6; Mark 8:34–9:1
Saturday, Feb. 18: James 3:1-10; Psalm 12:2-5, 7-8; Mark 9:2-13
Sunday, Feb. 19: Isaiah 43:18-19, 21-22, 24-25; Psalm 41:2-5, 13-14; 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Mark 2:1-12
Monday, Feb. 20: James 3:13-18; Psalm 19:8-10, 15; Mark 9:14-29
Tuesday, Feb. 21: James 4:1-10; Psalm 55:7-11, 23; Mark 9:30-37
Wednesday, Feb. 22: Ash Wednesday, Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-6, 12-14, 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Thursday, Feb. 23: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-4, 6; Luke 9:22-25
Friday, Feb. 24: Isaiah 58:1-9; Psalm 51:3-6, 18-19; Matthew 9:14-15
Saturday, Feb. 25: Isaiah 58:9-14; Psalm 86:1-6; Luke 5:27-32
Sunday, Feb. 26: Genesis 9:8-15; Psalm 25:4-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15
Monday, Feb. 27: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18; Psalm 19:8-10, 15; Matthew 25:31-46
Tuesday, Feb. 28: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 34:4-7, 16-19; Matthew 6:7-15
Wednesday, Feb. 29: Jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19; Luke 11:29-32
Thursday, March 1: Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25; Psalm 138:1-3, 7-8; Matthew 7:7-12
Friday, March 2: Ezekiel 18:21-28; Psalm 130:1-8; Matthew 5:20-26
Saturday, March 3: Deuteronomy 26:16-19; Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8; Matthew 5:43-48

Father Brando is the pastor of St. Mary Parish in Gatlinburg.

Tags: Living the readings