The writer of the Gospel of Mark details that many from all over the region have come to Jesus, they are crowding in on him in such a way that Jesus “told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him” (Mk 3:9). There are others in the crowd, unclean spirits who would throw themselves down before Jesus. Many are gathering and crowding in, just to touch him, but the fever pitch of the crowd is growing to a point that it is getting out of control.

The crowd is gathering and pressing in because of Jesus showing his power to heal. People are gathering as they would around any other miracle worker. People wanted to be healed and bring others to be healed. Yet they were missing the deeper point of who Jesus is. He was not just a miracle worker, not just someone that brought about physical healing. Healing accounts were heard and known about in the ancient world. The unclean spirits recognized Jesus before the people did, “for, whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God'” (Mk 3:11).

Throughout the Gospel of Mark we will read about how the crowds, disciples, and apostles, all struggle to understand who Jesus is and the unclean spirits will recognize and be silenced by him. The people closed in on Jesus seeking to be healed, but missing the deeper hunger within their souls that St Augustine, the fourth century bishop of Hippo, so eloquently described on the first page of his autobiography: “[Y]ou have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find peace in you” (Augustine, 17). Jesus is the Son of God, not just a miracle worker, but God Incarnate.

That is the point. The only way we will be fully satisfied, fulfilled, at peace, is through an ongoing deepening relationship, and communion, with our Creator. God is infinite and cannot be exhausted. We as finite beings, are left wanting with even the best of material things. We always hunger and want for more. We want God.

May we spend time exploring which experiences leave us feeling flat, let down, or deflated. Then look at what experiences open us up to joy, ways in which we feel inspired, empowered, where we touch a foretaste of heaven, the divine in our midst. When we slow down and make the time to see where we do not, and do, experience God in our everyday experience, we can better choose actions that will support a deeper relationship, a deeper intimacy and union that we all hunger and thirst for deep in our soul. We can begin to experience the good news that Jesus offers: He has freed us to abide in a love expressed at a deeper, more intimate level than we can ever imagine, a grace filled embrace, that as children of God we are drawn into by our Abba, our Loving God and Father.

Drawing by: Jesus and the Lamb by Katherine F. Brown

St Augustine. The Confessions of St Augustine. Translated by Rex Warner. New York: New American Library, 1963.

Link for the Mass reading for Thursday, January 18, 2018:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/011818.cfm