1. Can you think of people who have caused an “uproar” announcing the spirit of the Gospel in our time? Who are they? Today, who is “making noise” about racial bias? Climate change? Gun violence?

2. Does God raise ordinary people from our midst to become prophets? Is there a cause for which you might become a prophet?

Second Reading
1 Corinthians 7:32-35

1. Paul says, “Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties.” Who has anxieties of one kind or the other? How about the prophets in the First Reading? Could everyone living today have them?

2. What are the anxieties you most feel? Do you have a way to deal with them? What virtue do you think might help most in your attempts to control anxieties

Gospel
Mark 1:21-28

1. Jesus “taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” Was there an incident that confirmed Jesus’ teaching and showed people its authenticity? If you can’t have absolute confirmation, as they did, will trust work for you?

2. What are some “demons” in need of defeat that you think Christ’s preaching should be directed at today? What might your job be? Prophet, preaching for Christ? Listener?

He preaches and heals. … The second aspect, healing, shows that Christ’s preaching is intended to defeat the evil present in humankind and the world. His word is pointedly directed against the kingdom of Satan: it puts him in crisis and makes him recoil, obliging him to leave the world. Touched by the Lord’s command, this possessed, maniacal man is freed and transformed into a new person. In addition, Jesus’ preaching conforms to a logic that is contrary to that of the world and of the evil one: His words reveal the upheaval of a mistaken ordering of things. In fact, the demon present in the possessed man cries out as Jesus approaches: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” (v. 24)

Angelus for 4 Ord B, Pope Francis
Jan 31, 2021