Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 4, 2024

02-04-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Randy Hoang

“Everyone is looking for you.” It’s expected that Jesus’ response would be one similar to what he would later say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:28). Yet, to our surprise, he responds,“Let us go on to the nearby villages, so that I may preach there also; for this purpose I have come.” Jesus makes it clear that he came for one purpose: to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

The crowds were coming to Jesus not to receive what he wanted to give them, but to receive from him what they themselves wanted. They saw Jesus as a miracle worker, as a free physician. Jesus came not to be a doctor of their mortal bodies, but to be the Savior of their immortal souls.

Like those in the Gospel, many people today come to Jesus as a worker of miracles, or a genie who grants wishes, or a friend who provides a quick fix to problems. Jesus, however, wants more. As he said in the Gospel, the reason he came was to proclaim the message of the kingdom and to bring us to embrace it, follow it, and live it out with joy. Jesus wants us to respond with the fervor and life-changing faith that we see in Mary, the apostles, and the saints.

Do we hunger for what he wants to give us or for what we want him to give us? Do we seek to align our priorities with His, or His with ours? There is an important lesson here for each of us. God wants more from us than just to pray, to help the poor, to be kind. He also wants us, having heard the Gospel, to live it and bring it to others.

Pope Francis, in his exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel, asked, “If we have received the love that restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others? . . . What kind of love would not feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known?”

Since we are convinced of who Jesus is, what he has done and what he promises us, we must evangelize, we must bring it to our families, our friends, our workplaces, our schools, our gyms, our coffee shops, and to those who haven’t yet heard or embraced this proclamation of the kingdom and propose it to them. Go and make disciples of all nations!