Chapter Five is a chapter of healing. Firstly, Jesus heals a man with a demon. Then he heals a woman and Jairus’s daughter. When he tells them that the child is not dead – as they suspect – but sleeping, they laugh at him. But he says “Talitha cumi” which means “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”

Reading Mark in Advent is an 18-part podcast series that sees us upload a chapter of Mark’s Gospel each weekday of the season.

With a global pandemic sweeping the world and lockdowns and restrictions placed on our everyday living – not to mention patterns of worship and prayer – this is very much “the Word in Lockdown”.

But the Word of God is never locked down, isolated and contained. As Pope Francis says:

“The word of God is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12); it does not die, nor does it age, but it remains for ever (cf. 1 Peter 1:25). It stays young in the presence of all that passes away (cf. Matthew 25:35) and preserves those who put it into practice from inner aging.”