very early before dawn, …left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed

Jesus Heals Peter's Mother-in-law

Wednesday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time

Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Hebrews 2:14-18  +  Psalm 105  +  Mark 1:29-39

January 16, 2013

“Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”  [Mark 1:35]

Today’s Gospel passage, from the first chapter of Mark, notes two particular traits about Jesus’ earthly life that are worth our reflection.  These two points come in the last third of the passage.  Today’s Gospel passage is really made up of three rather distinct but brief “mini-passages”.  In each, Jesus is what we might today call a “busy bee”.  This portrait of Jesus is typical of Mark’s account of the Gospel.

The first of the two traits comes in the last sentence, where we hear that Jesus “went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.”  His activity in Galilee represents the years of public ministry leading up to Holy Week.  Keep in mind that it’s only in Holy Week that Jesus fulfilled His vocation:  the reason the Father sent Him into our world.  He was not sent to be a preacher or exorcist per se.  Instead, all of his words and deeds were preparatory, so that those He touched through His public ministry would follow Him to Calvary.

The second trait is heard in Mark’s observation that Jesus, “[r]ising very early before dawn, …left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”  It’s hard for us to imagine what this prayer was like, since Jesus of course was God.  Nonetheless, it’s obvious that if the Son of God chose to pray to and with His Father during His earthly years, you and I ought to do the same.

 http://reflectionsonthesacredliturgy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/wednesday-of-1st-week-in-ordinary-time.html             

http://www.universalis.com/mass.htm  

Night Office: Saint Irenaeus

Reading	From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop
Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son

·        No one can know the Father apart from God’s Word, that is, unless the Son reveals him, and no one can know the Son unless the Father so wills. Now the Son fulfils the Father’s good pleasure: the Father sends, the Son is sent, and he comes. The Father is beyond our sight and comprehension; but he is known by his Word, who tells us of him who surpasses all telling. In turn, the Father alone has knowledge of his Word. And the Lord has revealed both truths. Therefore, the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father by his revelation of himself. Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son, for all is revealed through the Word. 

·          The Father’s purpose in revealing the Son was to make himself known to us all and so to welcome into eternal rest those who believe in him, establishing them in justice, preserving them from death. To believe in him means to do his will. 
 

·          Through creation itself the Word reveals God the Creator. Through the world he reveals the Lord who made the world. Through all that is fashioned he reveals the craftsman who fashioned it all. Through the Son the Word reveals the Father who begot him as Son. All speak of these things in the same language, but they do not believe them in the same way. Through the law and the prophets the Word revealed himself and his Father in the same way, and though all the people equally heard the message not all equally believed it. Through the Word, made visible and palpable, the Father was revealed, though not all equally believed in him. But all saw the Father in the Son, for the Father of the Son cannot be seen, but the Son of the Father can be seen. The Son performs everything as a ministry to the Father, from beginning to end, and without the Son no one can know God. The way to know the Father is the Son. Knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and is revealed through the Son. For this reason the Lord said: No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him. The word “revealed” refers not only to the future – as though the Word began to reveal the Father only when he was born of Mary; it refers equally to all time. From the beginning the Son is present to creation, reveals the Father to all, to those the Father chooses, when the Father chooses, and as the Father chooses. So, there is in all and through all one God the Father, one Word and Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation for all who believe in him.