Jesus begins to preach and cure the sick

Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Matthew (4: 12-17, 23-25) in which Jesus begins to preach and cure the sick.

In today’s Gospel we hear the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and, Fr Paul says, Matthew does this by first introducing us to a place – Galilee – and we hear quotes from the scriptures to show that these scripture passages are being fulfilled.

As we hear in the Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry by saying the kingdom of God is close at hand, that the coming of the kingdom is imminent.  The kingdom will be the subject of all Jesus’s activity. The part we don’t read today, between the beginning and end of this Gospel, is the calling of the first four disciples. Such is the charismatic power of Jesus that the disciples leave everything at once and follow him.

For our reflection today, Fr Paul says, we might call to mind this message of Jesus, that the kingdom of God is close at hand, and being mindful of the calling of the first four disciples, challenge ourselves to remember that we are disciples in our world here and now. Fr Paul says it is our task to continue the ministry of Jesus and he invites us to reflect on how we can do that with those who live and work around us.