8 February 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” Mark 6:56
The weekday readings now open the Bible at its first page: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Into that darkness God speaks: “Let there be light”; and there was light. Day by day the formless becomes ordered: light and darkness, sky and sea, dry land and plants, sun, moon and stars. Again and again we hear the refrain: “And God saw that it was good.” Creation is not an accident or a battle of gods, as the neighbouring peoples imagined; it is the free gift of one good God who speaks and it is done. The sun and moon that others worshipped are simply lamps hung by God to mark the seasons.
The Gospel shows the same creative goodness at work in Jesus. When he lands at Gennesaret, the people recognize him at once and rush about the whole region, carrying the sick on mats to wherever they hear he is. In villages, cities and farms they lay the sick in the marketplaces and beg “that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” The Word through whom all things were made now walks among his creatures, and his touch restores what sin and sickness have marred. Today the Church may honour St Josephine Bakhita, the Sudanese slave girl who found in Christ “a Master” who loved her, and became a Canossian sister. In her the Creator's goodness was restored to a life that cruelty had tried to destroy.
Theme: “All who touched it were healed.”
The good Creator who speaks light into darkness, and the Word made flesh whose touch heals.
“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” Genesis 1:3
“For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6
Apply: Begin each day this week with a short prayer of light: Lord, shine in my heart.
“O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” Psalm 104:24
“Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” Romans 1:20
Apply: Waste less this week: food, water or electricity, as a thank-you to the Creator.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
“And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” Mark 6:56
Apply: Visit, call or pray for one sick person by name.
The world is the good gift of a good God.
In Jesus the Creator walks among us and heals.
Take-home resolution: Thank God for one created thing every day this week.
Dear friends, today we begin to read the first page of the Bible: in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Darkness covered the deep, and God said: let there be light; and there was light (Genesis 1:3).
Day after day God gives order and life, and again and again we hear: God saw that it was good. Creation is not a god to be feared or worshipped; it is a gift from the one good God. Even the sun and moon are lamps he has hung in the sky.
In the Gospel the people of Gennesaret run through the whole region bringing their sick to Jesus. They beg to touch even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touch it are healed (Mark 6:56). The Word who made all things now walks among us and heals.
Today we may remember St Josephine Bakhita, sold as a child slave, who found in Jesus a Master who loved her. Let us thank God for his creation, bring our sick to Jesus, and pray for all who are not free. Amen.
Children, God said: Let there be light! And there was light. Everything God made is good, and you are good too! Let us say thank you to God.
Lord God, Creator of light and of all that is good, you spoke and the world came to be, and in your Son you touch and heal what is broken. Open our eyes to the goodness of your works, bring our sick to the fringe of his cloak, and through the prayers of St Josephine Bakhita set free all who are held in slavery. Amen.
In the last days before Lent the Church opens the first page of the Bible and, beside it, a short scene from Mark. Genesis shows God bringing order out of darkness by his word alone. Mark shows crowds running through the villages with their sick, begging only to touch the edge of a cloak. The psalm gives the response of a creature who looks at all this and says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” The God who said “Let there be light” has come near enough to be touched.
Setting.
This is the opening of the whole Bible, and the Lectionary divides the account: today the first four days, tomorrow the rest. Many scholars think this page received its final form among Israel's priests around the time of the exile in Babylon, in the sixth century BC. The Babylonians had their own stories of creation, in which the world came out of a war among the gods, and they honoured the sun, moon and stars as divine. Genesis tells a different story: one God, no battle, and a world that is good.
The writer uses the picture of the world known in his day, with a dome overhead and waters above and below it. The Church does not read this page as a lesson in astronomy. It teaches, in the form of a solemn hymn, who made the world and what the world is for (Dei Verbum 11–12).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” (1:3)
No struggle and no effort. God speaks and it is. St John begins his Gospel with the same words, “In the beginning”, and calls this creating Word a person.
“And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.” (1:4)
God does not call the darkness good, but he gives it a limit and a name (v. 5). Nothing in the world stands outside his rule, not even the night.
“God made the two great lights” (1:16)
Genesis does not use the usual words for sun and moon here, only “the greater light” and “the lesser light”. Many scholars think the writer chose this on purpose: to neighbouring peoples these were gods, and here they are lamps hung up to mark the seasons.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Scripture presents the Creator's work “symbolically as a succession of six days” (CCC 337), and draws from it that nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God, and that each creature has its own goodness (CCC 338–339). The Church confesses that creation is the common work of the Father, the Word and the Spirit (CCC 290–292). She proclaims this same page at the Easter Vigil, by the light of the paschal candle, because the Resurrection of Christ is the beginning of a new creation.
Setting.
This is one of Mark's summary passages, in which he sums up many days in a few lines. It comes straight after Jesus walks on the water, a scene that ends with the disciples unable to understand, “for their hearts were hardened” (6:52). Gennesaret is the fertile plain on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee. They had set out for Bethsaida (6:45) but land here, and the crowds find them at once.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him,” (6:54)
The disciples in the boat have just failed to understand him, and the people on the shore know him immediately. They do not yet know the whole truth about him, but they know where to bring their pain.
“and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.” (6:55)
A whole district on the move, carrying those who cannot walk. The healing depends in part on the people who do the carrying.
“and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” (6:56)
They have probably heard of the woman who was healed by touching his cloak (5:27–29). There is no magic in the cloth. The power is his, and the touch is an act of faith that even a person with no words can make.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism draws a line from this scene to the sacraments: the sick try to touch Jesus, and in the sacraments Christ continues to “touch” us in order to heal us (CCC 1504). The Word of creation has taken flesh, so God's power can now reach us through what is seen and touched: water, oil, bread, a hand laid on the head.
Does Genesis 1 contradict science?
No. Genesis teaches that the world comes from God and is good; it does not teach how many years creation took or how the sky is built. St Augustine warned Christians not to speak foolishly on natural matters in the name of Scripture (in substance). The Catechism welcomes scientific study of origins (CCC 283) and says that there can never be a real conflict between faith and reason, since the same God gives both (CCC 159). The order of the days serves the message: that is why there is light on the first day and a sun only on the fourth.