Daily Gospel Reflection – Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Bishop Robert Barron
January 10, 2023
Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mk 1:24-28
Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers,
and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
January 10, 2023
Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mk 1:24-28
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. So 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 J. 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.
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