Monday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

In this 5th Week of Ordinary Time, we begin reading the book of Genesis. This book is the first in the Bible, and it contains many of the most familiar stories from the Old Testament. Today we hear the very beginning of Genesis, namely, the first four days of creation. Two aspects should stand out to us in this reading. First, God’s creating is done easily and intentionally with a repeated spoken formula, “Let there be…” Secondly, after every act of creation, God sees that his creation is good. The evolution/creation debate is a hot topic today, and this passage from Genesis is often caught in the middle of the debate. If we reflect on these two aspects, however, we see that the author of Genesis is not trying to function as a science instructor. Rather, what we are told in this passage is that God created the world, and that this creation is good. These claims are crucial in our understanding of the world.

Yet if God’s creation is good, why do we so often experience the things of creation as bad? We are confronted daily with stories of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and so on. In today’s gospel passage from Mark, we see an even more familiar image of the corruption of God’s creation, namely, the sickness of man. God created everything good, including human beings (which make their appearance in tomorrow’s passage from Genesis), but with the first sin, creation experienced a corruption. The world is still fundamentally good. But it is in need of redemption.

The people in the reading from Mark seem to know where they might find healing and redemption: it is in the person of Jesus. We ought to share in this conviction. Indeed, Jesus not only healed the sick of 1st century Palestine, he redeemed us all in his passion, death, and resurrection. Because of his own suffering, our suffering in this world has meaning. And because of his saving death on the cross, we all share in the promise of his resurrection.

Today’s responsorial psalm has the response: “May the Lord be glad in his works.” This response reflects not only creation, but redemption. Let us also rejoice in our creation and redemption! We pray in thanksgiving for God’s saving love shown to us in Christ Jesus, and we hope that our lives might also bear witness to God’s creation and redemption.

- Maria Morrow