The church is the embodiment of Jesus' teaching authority on earth

Feb. 1: Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dt 18:15-20; Ps 95:1-2, 6-9; 1 Cor 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28

Coming back home to my Christian faith was a gradual process. I had walked away from the strong faith I’d had through my late teen years as my church attendance dropped to nothing. I’m not so sure I ever rejected faith so much as I simply let it die from lack of attention.
But it didn’t stay dead for long. It started to come back as a result of late night conversations with a friend whose own faith was being rekindled. Reading Scripture nurtured the spark in my own life. Plus, I got a nudge from a neighbor down the road in rural Arkansas where we were working in the local schools as VISTA volunteers. She was a nun who had taken time away from the convent to care for her aging mother.
Sister Mary Herlinda loaned me a book, “The Cross and the Switchblade,” by David Wilkerson, and invited my wife and me to take part in a little prayer meeting she had organized among three or so of our neighbors. It was a beginning.
When Susan and I returned to Fort Worth, Texas, we continued our sporadic church attendance at the closest Catholic church, and in time I began to take inquiry classes.
his was before the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults existed, and these classes outlining the basics of the Catholic faith took place over a period of six weeks in the parish library.
As I came to know more about Catholicism, I discovered that the church spoke to all aspects of humanity — holiness, personal relationships, family life, social justice, the economy and issues of war and peace among them.
This new understanding likely played the largest role in my conversion to the Catholic faith. The Scriptures for this weekend remind me of that spiritual reawakening.
Speaking about Jesus, the Gospel reading from Mark explains: “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”
And so I found the church. She, the successor of Jesus, the embodiment of his teaching authority on earth, taught with authority. She still does, and I’m still glad I became a Catholic.

— Jeff Hensley, CNS

Feb. 8, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Job 7:1-4, 6-7; Ps 147:1-6; 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23; Mk 1:29-39
Misfortune arises too often in the world for anybody to avoid being touched by trouble. A fire in the oven, your car towed, being locked out of your house —maybe all in the same memorable week. It happens.
At such times one’s thoughts often turn to the hero of today’s first reading: Job.
In this passage, he laments his life is drudgery through months of misery and believes, “I shall not see happiness again.”
We’ve all been there at the edge of giving up, especially for matters far worse than a car being towed.
But the Gospel reminds us that even if the world continually comes at us with hardship and demands, Jesus never despairs or tires of coming to our aid.
No sooner had he healed Simon’s mother-in-law then the whole town came to his door seeking his help. He cured and blessed people all day. Then when he slipped away for a respite, his disciples came calling because everyone was still looking for him.
Without a second thought, he went, saying, “For this purpose have I come.”
This is what God wants us to know: He never wearies of tending to our need.
Yesterday, my friend Isa called to tell me she had just bought a house. It was incredible news that I would never have predicted for this single mother whose life has been punctuated by a series of adversities no less devastating than what had befallen Job.
Isa’s childhood in Central America was lived amid a violent civil war that took the life of her brother as well as the nuns who were her teachers. As an adult, she suffered through unjustified immigration woes, including deportation, jail and financial exploitation. Later, her marriage was destroyed by mental illness and abuse. Her husband died tragically, leaving her destitute and unemployed with two young children.
But as each crisis arose, Isa admitted she had no answers except her unwavering belief that “God is going to provide and help me through.”
Slowly, through Isa’s resourcefulness and friendships nurtured by her own innate goodness, she overcame incessant financial difficulties to achieve a stable home and recently became a U.S. citizen.
The turnaround was unbelievable to her friends, but it didn’t surprise Isa, who never stopped believing in Jesus’ tireless care.

— Jean Denton, CNS