24 January 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”” Mark 1:14–15
Mark's Gospel moves fast. John the Baptist is arrested, and Jesus begins at once: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” These are the first words of Jesus in Mark, a summary of all his preaching. The time of waiting is over; God's reign is here in person. Two responses are asked: repent, which means turn around and change your mind; and believe, which means trust and give yourself to the good news.
Then the call: Jesus sees Simon and Andrew casting their nets and says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” James and John leave their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men. The word of Jesus is not information but a power that changes lives. Jonah's short sermon in Nineveh shows the same power: “the people of Nineveh believed God”, and God relented. Paul adds urgency: “the appointed time has grown short… the present form of this world is passing away.” We cannot hold this world's goods as if they were final.
Today is the Sunday of the Word of God. Pope Francis asked the whole Church to celebrate, study and spread the Scriptures on this day, recalling St Jerome: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” The word that called the first disciples by the Sea of Galilee calls us through the Bible. Let us enthrone the Scriptures in our homes and read them daily.
Theme: “Repent, and believe in the good news.”
On the Sunday of the Word of God: the word that calls, converts and sends.
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”” Mark 1:14–15
Apply: Live today as God's moment.
“And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.” Jonah 3:5
“Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
Apply: Read the Gospel of the day every morning.
“So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him.” 1 Kings 19:19
“And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Mark 1:17–18
Apply: Let go of one net that holds you back.
“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8
“and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” 1 Corinthians 7:31
Apply: Give away something you do not need.
The word that called the fishermen calls us today.
Repent, believe, follow, and read the Scriptures daily.
Take-home resolution: Enthrone the Bible at home and read Mark's Gospel this month.
Dear brothers and sisters, the first words of Jesus in Mark's Gospel are a summary of everything: the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news (Mark 1:15). God's moment has arrived, and it arrives in the person of Jesus.
Two responses are asked. Repent: turn around, change your mind and heart. Believe: trust the good news and give yourself to it. Jonah's few words were enough for Nineveh: the people of Nineveh believed God (Jonah 3:5). How much more should the word of the Son move us.
Then Jesus walks by the sea and calls: follow me and I will make you fish for people. And immediately they left their nets and followed him (Mark 1:17–18). James and John even leave their father in the boat. The word of Jesus is not information; it is a power that changes life.
Paul adds urgency: the appointed time has grown short; the present form of this world is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:29, 31). We may use the things of this world, but we must not cling to them.
Today is the Sunday of the Word of God. Pope Francis asks every Catholic to love the Scriptures. St Jerome said that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. Let us give the Bible a place of honour in our homes, and read it every day.
The same Jesus who called the fishermen calls us now through his word. Let us leave our nets and follow him. Amen.
Children, Jesus said to the fishermen: come, follow me! And they went right away. Jesus speaks to us in the Bible.
Can you ask your parents to read a little of the Bible with you every day?
Almighty ever-living God, direct our actions according to your good pleasure, that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. Let us also pray: Lord Jesus, you call us as you called Simon and Andrew: give us hearts that repent and believe, hands that leave the nets that hold us, and a love for your word that reads it daily and lives it gladly. Amen.
On the Sunday of the Word of God, the readings show what a word from God does when someone hears it. It reaches Jonah “a second time”, and a pagan city turns round in a day. It comes from the lips of Jesus on a lakeshore, and four fishermen leave their nets. Psalm 25 is the prayer of everyone who has heard that word and wants to walk by it. St Paul adds the reason for haste: “the appointed time has grown short”. Mark uses the same Greek word for time, kairos, in the first words Jesus speaks in his Gospel. The key words today are turn, time and follow.
Setting.
The Book of Jonah is unlike the other prophetic books. It contains almost no oracles and is mostly a story about a prophet. A Jonah son of Amittai is mentioned at 2 Kings 14:25, in the eighth century BC, but most scholars date the book itself after the exile and read it as a teaching story, with its great fish and its city of huge size. The Church does not have to settle that question to receive its teaching, and Jesus himself draws on it (Matthew 12:40–41).
Nineveh was a great city of Assyria, the empire that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. It fell in 612 BC. For Israel's memory it was the enemy. In chapter 1 Jonah ran away from this mission, and God brought him back. Today's reading skips vv. 6–9, the king's decree, and goes straight to God's answer. The book ends with God's question to the angry prophet: “should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city” (4:11).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,” (3:1)
God does not look for a better prophet. He repeats himself to the one who ran away. This is the mercy of the second chance, given before Nineveh ever gets hers.
“Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.” (3:3)
Literally “a great city to God”, a Hebrew idiom for something very great. The reader may also hear in it a hint of what the book will say at the end: this city matters to God. Nineveh, large as it was, could be crossed in much less than three days. The story's language is larger than life.
“And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”” (3:4)
Forty is the Bible's number for a time of testing: the flood, Sinai, the desert. The sermon has no call to repent, no promise and no name of God.
“And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.” (3:5)
“Believed” is the verb used of Abraham (Genesis 15:6). Pagans do at once what the prophet of God had refused to do.
“When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.” (3:10)
Note what God sees. The verse does not mention the fast or the sackcloth, but “what they did”: they turned from evil.
How the Church reads it.
Jesus holds up Nineveh as a judgment on those who hear him and do not turn: “they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!” (Matthew 12:41). St John Chrysostom, preaching in Antioch, makes the point of v. 10 again and again: it was not the fast by itself that saved the city, but the change of life (in substance). The Catechism says the same: the call to conversion does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes”, but at the conversion of the heart (CCC 1430). The Roman Lectionary also reads this chapter in the first week of Lent.
Setting.
Psalm 25 is an alphabetical poem: its verses begin, with a few irregularities, with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. It is a personal prayer of someone under pressure, who is aware of past sin and who asks above all for guidance. It suits today's readings exactly, since the people of Nineveh have just left their “evil ways” and now need another way to walk in.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.” (25:4)
Today's response takes up this verse. It is a beggar's prayer. The psalmist does not claim to know the road.
“Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!” (25:7)
The ground of the request is not the sinner's goodness but God's.
“Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.” (25:8)
“Therefore” is the surprise of the verse. Because God is upright, one might expect him to punish. Instead he teaches. Jonah 4:2 will complain of this very thing.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls the Psalms the masterwork of prayer in the Old Testament (CCC 2585). Sung between Jonah and the Gospel, this psalm puts into the mouth of the people at Mass the same turning that the Ninevites made and the same willingness to be led that the fishermen showed. Every Christian who prays it is asking to become a disciple.
Setting.
St Paul writes to the Church in Corinth from Ephesus (16:8), about AD 53–55. In chapter 7 he answers questions the Corinthians have sent him on marriage and celibacy (7:1). He speaks in view of “the impending crisis” (7:26), and his sentences are shaped by the expectation that the Lord's coming is near. These three verses are not a set of rules. They state the outlook from which all the rest is to be read.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none,” (7:29)
Taken alone this could sound shocking. Paul has just told married couples not to deprive one another (7:5), and he recognises that a married person must care how to please the spouse (7:33). His point concerns what is ultimate, and it is not neglect of a spouse.
“and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing,” (7:30)
Grief and joy are both real, and neither one is final. The Christian does not grieve “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13), and rejoices knowing that greater joy is coming.
“For the present form of this world is passing away.” (7:31)
This sentence gives the reason. It is also a word of consolation for those for whom this world's form has been cruel.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council takes up this verse. The form of this world, distorted by sin, is passing away, but God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth. And the Council adds that this hope must make us care more about this earth, not less (Gaudium et Spes 39; CCC 1048–1049). The Catechism also teaches that marriage and virginity for the Kingdom both come from the Lord, and that they support one another (CCC 1620).
Setting.
These are the first words and the first actions of Jesus' public ministry in Mark. They follow directly on his baptism and his forty days in the wilderness (1:9–13). Mark has no infancy story and no long preparation. John is “arrested” and Jesus begins.
Simon, Andrew, James and John fish on the Sea of Galilee, which is a freshwater lake. Fishing there was a real trade. Zebedee has “hired men” (v. 20), so these are not destitute people. They are leaving something.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (1:15)
Two statements of fact and two commands, and the order matters. God's action comes first: the time is full, the Kingdom is near. Repentance is the answer to good news, not the price of it.
“And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”” (1:17)
He takes up their own trade. Grace does not throw away what they know. Jeremiah 16:16 used fishers as an image of judgment; here the catch is a rescue.
“And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (1:18)
“Immediately” (euthys) is Mark's favourite word. No conversation, no question, no explanation. Compare the people of Nineveh: the word comes, and they act.
“Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.” (1:20)
Mark leaves the picture standing: an old man in a boat with his workers, watching his two sons go. The call has a human cost, and the Gospel does not hide it. See the question below.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism places Mark 1:14–15 at the opening of its teaching on the Kingdom (CCC 541) and on conversion: it is the first call that Christ makes (CCC 1427). St Gregory the Great, preaching on the calling of Peter and Andrew, asks what these poor men left who had so little. He answers that we must weigh the love more than the amount: the one who holds nothing back for himself has given up much (in substance). The Lectionary reads Mark in this Year B, so this is the opening of the Gospel the Church will walk with for most of the year.
Can God change his mind? Is he not unchangeable?
God's being and his will to save do not change. Scripture uses human language: “God changed his mind” tells us that God's threats are a call, not a fixed sentence. Jeremiah 18:8 makes this the rule: if a nation turns, God will not bring the disaster. What has changed in Jonah 3 is Nineveh. The same God who threatened in order to save goes on saving.
Must Catholics believe that Jonah's story happened exactly as told?
The Church teaches that to understand Scripture we must attend to its literary forms (Dei Verbum 12; CCC 110). Many Catholic scholars read Jonah as an inspired teaching story, and others have read it as history. In either case what it teaches is God's truth: his mercy reaches beyond Israel, and it asks a change of heart from all of us. Jesus' use of the story to speak of his own Resurrection is not affected by this question.
Does Jesus want people to abandon their parents and families?
No. Jesus himself rebukes those who use religion to avoid caring for their parents (Mark 7:10–13). But he does ask that the bond with him come before every other bond (CCC 1618). What he asks differs from one person to another. To some he says “Follow me” with their feet; to others, like the man healed at Gerasa, he says “Go home to your friends” (Mark 5:19). Each is a true disciple.
In the Roman Rite this is the Sunday of the Word of God, set by Pope Francis in Aperuit illis (2019), which asks that this Sunday be given to the celebration, study and spreading of God's word. The Pope noted that it falls when the Church strengthens her bonds with the Jewish people and prays for Christian unity. In the Roman Lectionary the first reading on these Sundays is chosen to fit the Gospel, while the second reading runs on through a letter, which is why St Paul's words on the time join the others in their own way. This year the memorial of St Francis de Sales, patron of Catholic writers, is not kept because it falls on Sunday. St Jerome's saying fits the day well: ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ (Dei Verbum 25; CCC 133).