01 Feb 2012, Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 2 Sm 24:2, 9-17

King David said to Joab and the leaders of the army who were with him,
Tour all the tribes in Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba
and register the people, that I may know their number.
Joab then reported to the king the number of people registered:
in Israel, eight hundred thousand men fit for military service;
in Judah, five hundred thousand.

Afterward, however, David regretted having numbered the people,
and said to the LORD:
I have sinned grievously in what I have done.
But now, LORD, forgive the guilt of your servant,
for I have been very foolish.
When David rose in the morning,
the LORD had spoken to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying:
"Go and say to David, 'This is what the LORD says:
I offer you three alternatives;
choose one of them, and I will inflict it on you.'"
Gad then went to David to inform him.
He asked: "Do you want a three years' famine to come upon your land,
or to flee from your enemy three months while he pursues you,
or to have a three days' pestilence in your land?
Now consider and decide what I must reply to him who sent me."
David answered Gad: "I am in very serious difficulty.
Let us fall by the hand of God, for he is most merciful;
but let me not fall by the hand of man."
Thus David chose the pestilence.
Now it was the time of the wheat harvest
when the plague broke out among the people.
The LORD then sent a pestilence over Israel
from morning until the time appointed,
and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beer-sheba died.
But when the angel stretched forth his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it,
the LORD regretted the calamity
and said to the angel causing the destruction among the people,
"Enough now! Stay your hand."
The angel of the LORD was then standing
at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
When David saw the angel who was striking the people,
he said to the LORD: "It is I who have sinned;
it is I, the shepherd, who have done wrong.
But these are sheep; what have they done?
Punish me and my kindred."

Responsorial Psalm Ps 32:1-2, 5, 6, 7

R. (see 5c) Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Blessed is he whose fault is taken away,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed the man to whom the LORD imputes not guilt,
in whose spirit there is no guile.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
my guilt I covered not.
I said, "I confess my faults to the LORD,"
and you took away the guilt of my sin.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
For this shall every faithful man pray to you
in time of stress.
Though deep waters overflow,
they shall not reach him.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
You are my shelter; from distress you will preserve me;
with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.

Gospel Mk 6:1-6

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place,
accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astonished.
They said, "Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?"
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house."
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Meditation: Mark 6:1-6

A prophet is not without honor except in his native place.” (Mark 6:4)



There had been much talk about Jesus’ miraculous signs. Everywhere he went, people strained to get close to him and be healed. The crowds were so large in one place that Jesus had to sit in a boat on the shores of the lake just so he could teach unhindered (Mark 3:9). Yet here he was in his own hometown, and there are no crowds, no streets lined with the infirm, no rush to see him. Instead, Jesus is met with unbelief and doubt. What happened?

Their initially favorable feelings about a local boy making it big gave way to petty jealousy and a conde­scending attitude. “Not so fast!” they thought. “We remember this guy. He’s just the carpenter’s son. He’s nothing special after all.” They all thought they knew Jesus, and their human way of reasoning left no room for the possibility of the miraculous—or for the possibility that they didn’t really know Jesus at all.

We face the same choice today as the people of Nazareth. Will we allow our own limited, human rea­soning to dominate our thoughts and keep us from recognizing Jesus? Or will we exercise our faith?

It’s not always easy to step out in faith and believe that God will be there to catch you. And, frankly, it’s not always advisable to ignore the warnings that come through what seems like common sense. But there is a difference between “not always” and “never.” There is a difference between being cau­tious and shutting Jesus out, a dif­ference between exercising hopeful discernment and living in a state of constant doubt. Most of the time, the difference is just a matter of let­ting down our defenses and giving the Lord a chance to prove himself. Try it today, and see what happens.

“Lord Jesus, right now I lay aside my doubts and hesitancies. I ask you to come into my heart and speak to me. Give me a renewed faith in you and your power to work in my life.”