The last two “ordinary” Sundays before Lent begins tomorrow, 14 February on Ash Wednesday, saw us reading from the first chapter of St Mark’s Gospel. Here we see the beginning of Christ’s ministry of preaching, curing the sick and casting out demons, and there are some important features that we should note from these two Gospels.
On the first Sunday in February, the fifth of Ordinary Time, we read Mark 1:29-39. Christ leaves the synagogue in which He inaugurated His ministry rather dramatically by casting out a demon, and in a somewhat quieter moment He cures Simon Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever. The quiet does not last long, however: His fame has already begun to spread, and we are told that “the whole town came crowding round the door”(1:33).
