Reflection for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time - January 31, 2021

We continue reading from the Gospel of Mark this Sunday, and hear of Jesus’ authority over unclean spirits as He casts them out of various people. The people of that time were starting to understand who He was as His fame was spreading throughout the region. Do we share in their amazement as they see His works? Are we starting to understand who He is and why He came to earth? Hopefully as we travel with Jesus through the Gospel of Mark, we will grow in our own faith just as the people at the time of Jesus grew in their faith through His words and works.

We, of course, have a head start on the people that we hear about in the Gospel today. We know how the story ends. We know who He is. We know what His ministry was about while He was on earth. It is up to us to continue to respond to Him as He taught us. It is no surprise that the Church gives us the Beatitudes as one of the Communion antiphons for today, for what better way to respond to Him than to serve others? We know the Beatitudes well and our song at Communion express-es them: “Blest are they, the poor in spirit, theirs is the king-dom of God. Blest are they, full of sorrow, they shall be con-soled. Blest are they, the lowly ones, they shall inherit the earth. Blest are they who hunger and thirst, they shall have their fill.” Our second song at Communion continues to express how we seek out the Lord in our lives in order to follow Him: “Open my eyes, Lord. Help me to see your face. Open my ears, Lord. Help me to hear your voice. Open my heart, Lord. Help me to love like you.” As we’ve heard the past few weeks, God is calling our name and we need to respond. We need to know who He is and to show Christ in our lives. Our closing hymn sends us out to do just that: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Go in peace: become the living Word! Christ on our lips and Christ in our hearts, may we show God’s love to the world.” (“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord” by P. In-wood) As a side note, this is a contemporary hymn written in 2009. Its tune name is Park Place – not just old hymns have names, new ones do too! The meter is 99 9 11 8 – which means that any other words for a tune with that same meter can be sung to this tune. What is the difference between a hymn and a song? There is not a clear cut definition, but gen-erally a hymn has multiple verses that are set to a tune (melody); most of the time that tune has a form (sorry for all the musical terminology here) like A, B, C, A or A, B, A, C, A; generally the time signature/meter is based on a simple rhythm and note values; harmonies normally follow traditional rules for part writing and chordal progressions. A song is generally through composed which means that the tune is not fixed and repeating but rather the tune is changed to fit the words; there is normally a repeating refrain of some type; the melodic val-ues/time signatures may be more varied with more syncopated rhythms or complex/changing meters than hymns have; har-monies and parts don’t follow the traditional part-writing rules of classic music theory. That’s a really loose description, but it’s all I got! Anyway, this is a new hymn with a great message. Go show God’s love to the world now.