4th Sunday of Year B
The word IMPRESSION is used in different ways and has different connotations.
Someone walking in the wet sand will leave a mark, a footprint, an impression.
Leaves pressed between two surfaces will also remain imprinted, or create an impression.
Political figures and business executives are very keen on making a good impression!
Actors and athletes are equally eager to please crowds of fans and create a favorable impression!
These reflections came to me as I read this Sunday’s gospel text (4th Sunday of Year B – Mk.1:21-28) where we are told:
“His (Jesus) teaching made a deep impression on them…”
A ‘deep impression’ – something that goes beyond the surface to reach the depths of a person.
Is that the way Jesus’ message touches us every time it is proclaimed?
Listening to Jesus preaching, the people in the synagogue of Caparnaum were hearing these words for the first time.
The message was new, the sound of it was original – not a repetition of past teaching.
It did not have a familiar ring to it, it was an unheard of speech, something creative.
They said it openly: “Here is a teaching that is new…”
And they added: “And with authority behind it.”
No wonder it made a deep impression on them – it answered their longing to hear God’s message in a way that we would qualify nowadays as ‘authentic’.
Our situation is very different from theirs: we know well the texts of the gospel, perhaps too well?
For years we have been reading them, listening to homilies, following retreats preached on this and that section of the gospel accounts.
Hearing the first words of a given text, we may say to ourselves: ‘Oh, I know this story,’ and our mind is soon carried away to other more pressing concerns!
Will the text leave a deep impression on us?
Can it really do so in the circumstances?…
One day, I heard someone say that God is ‘the really REAL’ – an unusual theological statement, but how true!
It may be that for Jesus message to make ‘a deep impression’ on us – and a lasting one – Jesus would need to become ‘really REAL’…
Words spoken and written having become THE Word – a person encountered in the flesh of my daily life and experience…
Source: Images: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee whereisyvette.com lds.org
Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available at: https://image-i-nations.com/4e-dimanche-de-lannee-b/
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