Reflection for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 28, 2024

by Sr. Margaret Hickey, ND

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20; Psalm 95;
First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, 7:32-34; Mark 1:21-28

Paul says in this Sunday’s second reading:  “I should like you to be free of anxieties.”  Then the first reading, the psalm and the gospel call us to be quiet and to listen—listen to God’s words coming from others, listen to God’s voice within our hearts, listen and discern what is right and what is not. Just listen.

Many of us have various anxieties—the weather, the economy, the state of our nation, the well-being of a loved one, and so much more.  So many times we are called to listen and to pay attention to how God is in all that anxiety—not creating it because we do an excellent job of it ourselves—but saying, “Do not be anxious, I am here with you.  There are ways to work this out, to bring about change, spring will come.  Just listen and wait, and know I am with you.”

Can we let go and let God speak to our hearts each day and can we listen to what God says?  Then we will “come into God’s presence with thanksgiving and joyfully sing psalms to God” with no anxiety.