31 January 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Mark 1:22
Moses, near the end of his life, gives Israel a promise: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” At Sinai the people had been terrified of hearing God's voice directly, so God says: “I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command.” Israel waited for centuries for this prophet like Moses. The Gospel shows him walking into the synagogue at Capernaum.
On the Sabbath Jesus teaches, and the people are “astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” The scribes quoted others; Jesus speaks with his own voice: “But I say to you.” Then a man with an unclean spirit cries out: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” Jesus rebukes him: “Be silent, and come out of him!” and the spirit leaves. The people ask: “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” His word does what it says.
The Psalm gives the response: “O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts.” Paul encourages the Corinthians to “unhindered devotion to the Lord”, praising those who give themselves wholly to God in celibacy, while honouring marriage as a true calling. Whatever our state of life, the question is the same: do we let the authoritative word of Jesus free us from what binds us? Today we would have honoured St John Bosco, who freed countless young people from the street through the word, education and love of Christ.
Theme: “O that today you would listen to his voice!”
The prophet like Moses who teaches and frees with authority.
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” Deuteronomy 18:15
“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”” Mark 9:7
Apply: Read the Gospel as God's own voice.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10–11
“They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Mark 1:22
Apply: Let Jesus' word, not opinion, guide one decision this week.
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;” Isaiah 61:1
“But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”” Mark 1:25
Apply: Bring one bondage to Jesus in confession.
“For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!” Psalm 95:7
“I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 7:35
Apply: Spend five minutes in silence with the Gospel daily.
Jesus is the prophet like Moses, the Word with authority.
His word frees; let us listen today.
Take-home resolution: Read and pray with the Sunday Gospel every day this week.
Dear brothers and sisters, Moses promised Israel: the LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15). For centuries Israel waited.
In today's Gospel that prophet walks into the synagogue at Capernaum. The people were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes (Mark 1:22). The scribes quoted others; Jesus speaks as God's own Word.
Then a man with an unclean spirit cries out: I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Jesus says: be silent, and come out of him! And the spirit leaves (Mark 1:24–26). His word does what it says.
The people ask: what is this? A new teaching, with authority! (Mark 1:27). That same word is spoken to us at every Mass. It can free us from fear, from sin, from addiction, from all that binds.
The Psalm says: O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts (Psalm 95:7–8). Paul speaks of unhindered devotion to the Lord. Married, single or consecrated, we are all called to give our hearts to him.
Today we would have honoured St John Bosco, who freed many young people by the word and love of Christ. Let us listen today, and let Jesus set us free. Amen.
Children, Jesus spoke and a bad spirit had to leave! Jesus' words are powerful.
Let us listen to Jesus today, and pray for all children, like St John Bosco did.
Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honour you with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart. 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, Holy One of God, you teach with authority and free those who are bound. Speak to us today, let us not harden our hearts, and make us bearers of your freeing word to the young. Amen.
Today's question is whose voice to listen to. Moses promises that God will raise up a prophet like him, who will speak God's own words. The psalm pleads, “O that today you would listen to his voice!” In the synagogue at Capernaum people hear that voice and are astounded, because Jesus teaches “as one having authority”, and even an unclean spirit has to obey him. The line runs from a promise, through a warning, to its fulfilment. The second reading goes its own way, as it often does on the Sundays of Ordinary Time, when the Lectionary reads St Paul in order rather than choosing a text to match. Yet it also asks about attention, about an undivided heart. The key words are prophet, today, undivided and authority.
Setting.
Deuteronomy presents itself as the farewell addresses of Moses on the plains of Moab, on the edge of the promised land. Israel will soon live among peoples who seek the future through diviners, soothsayers and mediums, and verses 9–14 forbid all of this. How then will Israel know God's will when Moses is gone? This passage is the answer: God himself will provide a prophet.
“Horeb” is Deuteronomy's name for Sinai. Moses recalls the terror of that day, when the people begged not to hear God's voice directly (Exodus 20:19; Deuteronomy 5:23–27). God approved that request, and so began the office of a mediator of his word.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” (18:15)
“From among your own people”: not a foreign seer, but one of their kin. In its first setting the promise may cover the whole line of true prophets whom God would send to Israel. By the time of Jesus some looked for one particular prophet: the Qumran text 4QTestimonia cites these verses, and John's Gospel shows the question was alive (John 1:21; 6:14).
“I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command.” (18:18)
God says something similar when he calls Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:9). Jesus says of himself that he speaks only what the Father has given him (John 12:49–50).
“Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable.” (18:19)
A word from God is never neutral. It has to be answered. Peter quotes the promise in Acts 3:22.
How the Church reads it.
Peter (Acts 3:22) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) apply this promise to Jesus. The Catechism teaches that Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word, and that there will be no other word than this one (CCC 65). The Second Vatican Council says that Christ completes and perfects Revelation (Dei Verbum 4). The Letter to the Hebrews says it in a sentence: God spoke long ago through the prophets, and in these last days by a Son (Hebrews 1:1–2). The Church reads Moses' promise as fulfilled and surpassed, since the prophet like Moses is also the Word himself.
Setting.
Psalm 95 has two halves. It begins as a call to worship and ends with a warning from God's own mouth. For this reason it has long been used to open the daily prayer of the Latin Church, as the Invitatory of the Liturgy of the Hours. Each day the Church begins by hearing this “today”.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” (95:6)
Three verbs of the body. Worship is not only a thought. In the Latin rite we stand, bow, kneel and strike the breast.
“O that today you would listen to his voice!” (95:7)
This links the psalm directly to the first reading: “you shall heed such a prophet”.
“Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,” (95:8)
The hard heart is not the heart that doubts or asks. At Massah the people had already seen God's works and still put him to the test (95:9).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that one word marks the prayer of the Church: “Today!”, echoing the prayer of the Lord and the call of the Holy Spirit (CCC 1165). In the liturgy the saving word of God is not a report about the past. It is addressed to the ones gathered here.
Setting.
Paul writes to Corinth from Ephesus (16:8), usually dated to the mid-50s. In chapter 7 he answers questions the Corinthians have put to him (“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote”, 7:1). He has already defended marriage and the rights of spouses (7:1–16). Now, about the unmarried, he says openly that he has “no command of the Lord” and gives his own opinion (7:25).
Two things must be kept in mind. Paul speaks in the light of “the impending crisis” (7:26) and of the short time ahead (7:29). And he has said at the start that “each has a particular gift from God” (7:7). This Sunday's reading is a pastor's counsel, not a contempt of marriage.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“I want you to be free from anxieties.” (7:32)
The aim is the same for everyone, and it is what Jesus asks in Matthew 6:25–34.
“and his interests are divided.” (7:34)
This is a statement of what marriage rightly asks. A husband ought to care how to please his wife. Paul does not call this a sin; he describes it as a real claim on time and heart.
“I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.” (7:35)
This verse is the key. Every Christian state of life is to serve one end: belonging entirely to the Lord.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord himself (CCC 1620), and it quotes St John Chrysostom: whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Vatican II calls virginity or celibacy a precious gift of grace by which some give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart, citing this very passage (Lumen Gentium 42). St John Paul II teaches that virginity does not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes and confirms it (Familiaris Consortio 16).
Setting.
This is the first public act of Jesus in Mark. He has announced the Kingdom (1:14–15) and called four fishermen (1:16–20). Now, with them, he comes to Capernaum, a town on the north-west shore of the Sea of Galilee which becomes the centre of his work in Galilee. Mark's Jesus is a Jew who keeps the Sabbath and goes to the synagogue to teach.
The synagogue was the place of prayer and of reading and explaining the Scriptures. The scribes were respected teachers who gave their lives to the Law and handed on what they had received. The contrast here is not that they were bad men, but that Jesus speaks in a way no one has spoken. Visitors to Capernaum today see the remains of a later limestone synagogue, built over older basalt foundations that many archaeologists think may go back to the time of Jesus.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (1:22)
Mark does not tell us what Jesus said. He tells us how it landed. The Catechism notes that Jesus was not content to propose his interpretation alongside those of the teachers of the Law, for he taught as one who had authority (CCC 581).
““What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”” (1:24)
“What have you to do with us” is an old biblical idiom of protest (“leave us alone”). The “us” is plural: a whole realm feels itself threatened. Some commentators think that naming an opponent was a way of trying to gain power over him.
“But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”” (1:25)
Jesus uses no ritual and no name of a higher power, only his own word. This command to silence is the first of several (1:34; 3:12).
“They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching … with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”” (1:27)
Today's Gospel ends where it began: with astonishment, and with a question that the reader must answer.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism sees Jesus' exorcisms as signs that release people from the domination of demons and anticipate his great victory over “the ruler of this world”, for the coming of God's Kingdom means the defeat of Satan's (CCC 550). St Augustine explains that the demons knew Christ not as eternal life but by certain effects of his power (City of God 9.21, in substance). So knowledge alone is not faith: “Even the demons believe” (James 2:19). The Church therefore asks more of us than correct words about Jesus.
Why does Jesus silence the demon when what it says is true?
Three reasons are often given. Truth from such a source is no praise, and Jesus does not accept the testimony of his enemy. The spirit's words are not faith but an attempt at defence. And in Mark, who Jesus is can only be rightly understood at the Cross, where a human being, the centurion, says “Truly this man was God's Son!” (15:39). Many scholars call this pattern in Mark the “messianic secret”.
Is Paul saying that marriage is a lesser way of life?
No, not in the sense of marriage being a poor second. He calls each state a gift (7:7), and he does not say that the married are less holy. He does judge the unmarried state better for undivided devotion (7:38), and the Church has always defended the excellence of virginity for the Kingdom (Familiaris Consortio 16). Yet every state is called to holiness. He is giving counsel about availability, in a time he sees as pressing, and he says that he does not mean to restrain anyone. The Church honours consecrated virginity as a special sign of the Kingdom, and honours marriage as a sacrament. Both come from the Lord (CCC 1618–1620).
Did people in the Bible confuse illness with possession?
Ancient people did not always draw the lines we draw, and the Church today asks for careful medical help before any question of the demonic is raised (CCC 1673). But the Gospels do distinguish illness from possession (Mark 1:34), and the Church holds that the power of the evil one is real and that Christ has overcome it (CCC 395, 550).
In Year B the Lectionary reads the Gospel of Mark through Ordinary Time, and from here on these Sundays will often show Jesus' word at work. When the Scriptures are read in the Church, it is Christ himself who speaks (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7). The same Lord whose word astonished Capernaum then gives himself in the Eucharist, so the Mass has both the “today” of the psalm and the authority of the Gospel. In 2027 this Sunday falls on 31 January, so the memorial of St John Bosco is not kept. He was a priest of Turin (1815–1888), and his care for the young is known across Kerala through the Salesians. His life answers the second reading well: an undivided heart, spent wholly for others.