Recognizing Jesus!

Monday, February 9, 2026

1 Kgs 8:1-7, 9-13; Mk 6: 53-56

Today’s Gospel highlights the theme of recognizing Jesus. 

But the Gospel too prompts us to ask why we should recognize Jesus. In other words, do we recognize Jesus just to feel better or to transform ourselves radically?

There are two kinds of understanding about religion. For some, religion is therapeutic, and for others, it is transformative. 

1. Therapeutic Religion: This view of spiritual life reduces religious experience to a better feeling. Here, religious experience borders on a psychological well-being of the self, and it views religion as a support system for mental and physical wellness. This ‘feel-good’ view increases focus on the self, looks at God as a counsellor, and regards the faith community itself as a therapy group. In sum, within the therapeutic understanding of religion, the dominant idea of self-improvement results in a complete alienation of the idea of the other.  

2. Transformative Religion: This approach to spiritual life focuses on the fundamental change of the self. It not only transcends the self but also makes the suffering other the central focus of religious practice. Here, religion is relevant insofar as it can give social thrust so that a radical social thought replaces an unhealthy obsession with self. The believer’s self-denial is linked with transformative social action. In sum, it finds God as a companion of the marginalized and inspires the believers to find God in the least of society. 

In the Gospel text, the crowd’s reaction and response to Jesus’ presence invite us to examine if our discipleship is centered around a therapeutic or a transformative idea of religion.

Recognizing and following Jesus amounts to replicating his solidaristic love and action.

Let us pray that we may inherit an idea of the faith that does justice in the context. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar