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Homilies are posted no later than during the week
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3 Ordinary Time
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Third
Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle C
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
A shoemaker, says Edwin Markham, through a dream was told that he would
see Jesus the next day. He waited in his store all day. The only one
who came in the morning was a senior citizen. His shoes were worn out.
The shoemaker gave him a fresh pair at no charge. In the afternoon came
an old woman. She was hungry. The shoemaker promptly gave her his own
lunch. As evening approached, a child came in crying bitterly. She was
lost. The shoemaker took her home to the other end of town. Returning,
he was certain that he had missed his rendezvous with the Christ.
Then he heard a voice. "...I kept my word. Three times today I came to
your door. Three times my shadow was on your floor. I was the beggar
with bruised feet. I was the woman you gave food to eat. I was the lost
child you took home."
Today's Gospel puts the Master back in His hometown of Nazareth. He had
come back for a long weekend. He was anxious to spend quality time with
His mother. At this point, He was a celebrity. The news about the
miracle at Cana had preceded Him. After all, Cana was only about four
miles away. Politely He had declined to appear on the cover of a
national magazine.
His name was on everybody's lips. A local boy had made good. Every eye
in town was on Mary's door. The natives were expecting some kind of
fireworks to erupt from the house. If He could do the hat trick in
Cana, why not in His own backyard? Imagine what it would do for the
town's touristbusiness. However, the Teacher to everyone's
annoyance remained out of sight.
Probably He did much-needed carpentry repairs on Mary's house. No doubt
she knocked herself out making Him His favorite meals. She was appalled
at the weight He had lost on the road. She had heard much about those
fast-food shops down in Jerusalem.
But on the Sabbath Mary's door swung outwards. With her arm in her
Son's, they walked to the synagogue. He would not miss Sabbath worship
for all the olive oil in Palestine. There must have been many times
when He was bored out of His skull by long, dull homilies. Yet, every
Sabbath found Him in a synagogue in whatever town He was. If you have
concluded that He was telling us we should be at Mass each Sunday, you
have broken the code. There was never anything subtle about the Lord.
You can bet your life the synagogue was packed to the rafters that
morning. Not even a shoehorn would get another body in. If scalpers
could have sold tickets, they could have retired that day and moved to
the south of France. I share your hunch that Jesus and His mother were
given two seats on the aisle way up front immediately.
Predictably the synagogue president invited our Leader to read the
Scriptures. He well knew that if he had not, he might be lynched by his
fellow townspeople.
The Teacher deliberately chose the particular passages from Isaiah that
He wanted to share with His neighbors that morning. These are the first
recorded adult words of Jesus the Christ. The sixty first chapter of
Isaiah is oftentimes called the Gospel of the Old Testament. The words
of Isaiah would constitute the inaugural address of the Saviour. They
tell us what Jesus is all about and what He considers His most
important mission.
He had come among His own to bring happy news to the poor, to tell
captives they were free, to open the eyes of the blind, and to relieve
the burdens of the oppressed.
Having finished the reading, He rejoined His proud mother. She realized
that every eye in the synagogue was on her Son.
Luke does not tell us how His audience reacted to the message, for
their reaction is not really important. The one that is crucial is mine
and yours. The Christ allows each of us to make up our own minds.
As we make up our minds, listen to the sixteenth century Spanish
mystic, St Teresa of Avila. "Christ has no body on earth now but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which He is to go about doing good. Yours
are the hands with which He is to bless people now." The shoemaker took
her advice. Why don't we?
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
3 Ordinary Time
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Third Sunday of the Year
Go......Team Christ!
I
want to start this week with a current football reference, so you
sports haters, bear with me because this relates to the second reading
for this Sunday. A while backthe Indianapolis Colts’
quarterback, Peyton Manning, complained that when Indianapolis wins,
the press announces that the team won, but when it loses the press
portrays the story as another Manning loss.Someone also
mentioned that Tom Brady, the New England quarterback, is often
portrayed as a winner in big games, and indeed he has superbowl rings
to prove it, but in two of those games if the fieldgoal kicker
had not made a last minute score, Brady would be portrayed as a loser
not a winner.Yes, Brady is a great player, and so is Manning,
but neither one of them can win a football game alone.They are
dependent on the rest of the team performing well.
A
while back I went to one of the girls’ district soccer matches. One
team, East Lake, had six or seven members of our parish playing.
One of these girls was a star.She scores a lot of goals, and I
saw her score one of the two she had that night.But, she did not
win the game alone.Nor could she.The game was won by the
goalie, the defense, and the other players that scored or passed well,
as well as the girl who scored twice. The game was also won by the
girls who never got in to play, but practiced hard and doing so allowed
their teammates to develop their skills.
Now,
should the goalie who made a great save or the girl from our parish who
stopped a drive on the goal think less of themselves because they
didn’t score goals?Of course not.The team won because it
is a team.
We
are all on a team, Team Christ, if you will.We all have certain
roles to play, certain positions to maintain for the sake of the team,
to help the team win the great contest: the battle for God’s Kingdom on
earth, the battle against the forces of evil that are continually
waging war on each of us and all of us.The position that we have
on Team Christ is determined by our general vocation in life for each
stage of our lives.Some are good Catholic mothers.Others
are good Catholic fathers.Both are necessary so the next round
of troops, their children, can learn how to integrate masculine and
feminine gifts into their Christianity.Some are married but have
no children, or their children have moved on with their lives.
These are called to sustain the Team by filling the world with the
sacrificial love of Christ that is the foundation of the Christian
marriage.
Some
are single, perhaps looking to marry, perhaps not called to marriage,
or perhaps made single by the death of their spouse or by a marriage
that was never a real marriage.Should the single live for
themselves as wild bachelors or immoral seniors, or what have you, then
Team Christ would be deprived of their ability to devote their time and
energy to serving Christ.Our parish has many, many wonderful
singles who cannot do enough to serve Christ in all sorts of different
ways.
Some
of our very senior seniors have refused to give upworking for
the Kingdom, even though they cannot leave their homes.They
spend all day praying for us, calling down God’s grace and strength
upon the rest of us.
Some
of us have been called to the priesthood or religious life.We
are called to serve the Team in Word and Sacrament, to make
intercession for the members of the team before God, and to do battle
against evil as priests and religious.
We
all have unique positions to play on God’s team.
If a foot should say,"Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the
body," it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if
an ear should say, "Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the
body," it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the
whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body
were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God
placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.
That is from our second reading for today from St. Paul’s First Letter
to the Corinthians.
Along with our general call as singles, married, parents, priests, etc,
we are all given unique ways of reflecting God’s love in the
world.The key word here is unique.God has given each of
us unique talents, unique ways that we can reflect His Presence and be
part of the Body of Christ in this world.Our concern should be
to develop these talents well to serve the Lord.We should not be
concerned with whether or not we have the particular talent another
person has. Some of us have beautiful singing voices and can minister
in the choir.Others would serve the Lord better by not joining
the choir.We all have different talents, unique talents.
Our
spiritual gifts are also unique.It is incorrect for someone to
consider whether or not he or she is as spiritual as someone
else.There really is no such thing as a spiritual norm.We
are called to be spiritual, but in different ways. Sadly, so often we
hold ourselves back from proclaiming the Gospel according to our
talents because we see ourselves as inferior to others.What St.
Paul is saying is that we need to have some spiritual self
esteem.Every person here is spiritual, but no two people are
spiritual in the same way.
There is a certain joy to all this.God loves each of us
individually for whom we are.He doesn’t love us for the ways
that we are like others.He loves us for the way that we are the
unique reflections of His Love.And the way that we are unique
reflections of His Love is the role we have been called to fill
in the great contest of the Battle of the Kingdom.
The
coach says to the athlete, “Maybe you want to be a striker, but you are
really not fast enough.But you are tough, and you have a strong
leg.So get out there and play a solid defense. This is what you
can do best at this stage of your life, so get out there and do it
well.”
We
all need to find the best ways that we can serve the Lord according to
our particular talent and stage in life.And we need to go out
there and compete against the forces of evil, compete for Team Jesus,
and use our unique talents to win the world over for the Kingdom of
God.
That
is why we were created, as the old Baltimore Catechism would say: to
know, love and serve God in this world and to be with Him in the next.
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http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/
* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
3 Ordinary Time
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Certainty
of the Teachings
(January 24, 2010)
Bottom line: We have natural and supernatural reasons to trust the
certainty of the teachings in Luke's Gospel and the Bible.
When people pick up a Bible, they sometimes ask, "What if somebody just
made up these stories? How do I know the Bible is true?" I'd like to
give you some reasons this Sunday - or to be more exact, I'd like to
explain the reasons St. Luke gives.* As you just heard, Luke tells us
he wrote his Gospel so we could have "certainty of the teachings"
received. How can St. Luke offer us such certainty?
Before giving St. Luke's reasons, I would like to clear up a common
misunderstanding. Some people have the idea we can't trust the Bible
because it has been translated and transcribed, over and over again,
and must have lost something in all its transcriptions. Well, there is
a science call "textual criticism" that identifies and removes
transcription errors. Using textual criticism, scholars have compared
hundreds of ancient manuscripts - and, because of that work, we have
highly reliable texts of both the Old and New Testaments.
Luke, of course, did not need textual criticism. He wrote the original
text! In his prologue today, he gives reasons for confidence in the
truth of the teachings. The first reason, he says, is that he
interviewed "eyewitnesses." And when he finally wrote down his Gospel,
many (if not most) were still alive. If he did not get things right, he
would have heard from them.
Perhaps a humorous comparison will help: Suppose I write an article for
the Monroe Monitor about my high school days. In it, I state, "I went
to Stanwood High from 1960 to 1964 - and during that time the Stanwood
Spartans beat the Monroe Bearcats in every sport: football, basketball,
baseball and track." Well, I think someone would object: "Wait a
minute. I was here during those years. I don't remember that at all. In
fact, my cousin Jim played for Monroe - and he tells a different
story." Well, even though the events happened over four decades ago,
plenty of people still remember those days. They could easily
contradict my article - either by personal experience or by reliable
reports from those who were there.
Something similar would have happened if Luke got his basic facts
wrong. Luke doesn't write about events filed away in some archive.
Christians constantly talked about Jesus' parables, his miracles and
above all, his death on the cross - and what happened on the "third
day." And being mainly Jews, they reflect on how Jesus' words and deeds
related to the Hebrew Scriptures.**
So Luke gives two reasons for trusting his Gospel: He interviewed
eyewitnesses and many of them were still alive. They formed part of a
community that talked about Jesus' teaching and how to apply them to
their lives.
There is a third reason to trust Luke's Gospel. He doesn't mention it
directly in his prologue, but as you read the Gospel, it becomes clear
that he did not whitewash. Think about it: Peter and the other apostles
held positions of great respect, yet St. Luke openly describes their
cowardice, rivalries and just plain stupidity. He even mentions things
about Jesus that are puzzling, if not embarrassing: how the boy Jesus
got lost for three days or how Jesus allowed himself to be baptized, as
if he were one more sinner. Luke and the other Gospel writers knew they
had nothing to hide, that they could only benefit by laying all the
facts on the table.
We can, then, trust the Gospels on a very human level: They are based
on eyewitness reports - and many were still alive: they formed part of
a living community. And that community shows no interest in
whitewashing. Those are three reasons to believe the Gospels:
eyewitnesses, a living community and no whitewash, no spin.
Now, for us, we have a much greater guarantee: The Holy Spirit. St.
Luke was not only a careful historian and investigative reporter; he
had the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit, for sure, did not use him like a typewriter. Luke retains
his own character. For example, he was a medical doctor and many
passages show the trained eye of a healing professional. At times, he
even used technical medical terms, like when he described Jesus bloody
sweat in the Garden. The Holy Spirit took the man, Luke - with all his
assets and liabilities - and used him write down those teachings
necessary for our salvation.
From a faith viewpoint, the four Gospels have one author: the Holy
Spirit. For that reason, we read the Gospels as a whole, together with
the rest of the Bible - and our two thousand years of Sacred Tradition.
For the Holy Spirit not only produced a book - he has guided a people.
During this past year I have been following a program to read the
Bible, together with the Catechism, in a single year. I warmly
recommend the program. You will be amazed at what you discover not only
in the Bible, but also in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The
same Holy Spirit stands behind both documents.
Interestingly enough, St. Luke's Gospel gives great emphasis to the
Holy spirit. We hear today about Jesus returning to Galilee "in the
power of the Spirit," and opening a scroll of Isaiah that prophecies
the Spirit coming upon the Anointed One - Jesus.
That same Spirit gives assurance of what Luke offers today - and
throughout this liturgical year - "the certainty of the teachings" we
have received.
So, let me sum up: Luke gives good reasons for trusting his Gospel (and
by extension the Bible itself). He bases his Gospel on eyewitnesses,
many of whom still form part of a vital community - a community that
speaks plainly, with no spin, no whitewashing. And above all, we have
the Holy Spirit: He guarantees the "certainty of the teachings."
************
*We are now in "Year C" - the final year of the Church's three-year
cylce of Bible readings. In year A we read mainly from St. Matthew's
Gospel; in Year B from St. Mark - with lengthy selections from St. John
- and this year we focus on St, Luke. (During Lent and Easter of all
three years we read most of St. John's Gospel.) Today we listen to St.
Luke's opening verses - where he lays out his purpose. He explains
that, after compiling eye-witness accounts, he decided to write an
"orderly sequence" of the events regarding Jesus. His fundamental
purpose, he says, is so we can have "certainty of the teachings" we
have received.
**When the Church began receiving non-Jews ("Gentiles") she did not
require circumcision or dietary laws, but the new Christians did have
to learn the Hebrew Scriptures. Tradition has identified Luke as a
Gentile, but one can argue he was a Jew.
General Intercessions for Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C (from
Priests for Life)
Spanish Version
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http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
3 Ordinary Time
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3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Lk 4/21-30
Background:
Jesus patently did not see himself as a political and military
leader. Indeed his claims are in striking contrast of the messianic
portrait in the reading from Jeremiah which is the first reading today.
However, his claims were clearly offensive to his fellow
townspeople. Indeed, he might have had less trouble with them if he
announced, like several other populist leaders of his era, that he was
proclaiming a holy war against the Romans and would lead a march on
Jerusalem.
As we saw last Sunday, however, his vision of the New Age was
drastically different. So he was offensive to his neighbors both
because he made and outrageous claim and because the claim was not, as
they saw it, radical enough.
Story:
A famous novelist came back to his home town after many
years. He had pledged to contribute two million dollars for
a new hospital. Many of his friends from his school days were invited
to a reception for him and his wife. Some of them ignored the
invitation. Why only two million, they muttered. He could have paid for
the whole hospital with all the money he has. The rest went to the
party, but they were not particularly happy about the whole event. Who
does this guy think he is? He’d been a quiet, unobtrusive little guy
when he was in school, the kind of person you’d hardly notice. He
generally was not invited anywhere. None of the women in his class
would have considered dating him if they had been asked, only he never
asked. They had heard rumors that his novels were about the town and
about them. They believed the rumors of course, but since they hadn’t
read any of his books, they didn’t know for sure.
He had to find a freshman to take to the senior prom! So he’d
made a lot of money on his novels?
Why did that make him a big deal?
OK give the money for the hospital, but you should have given
more with all you have, but don’t show up in town and expect us to
cheer for you. You’re not a big deal now and you never were. Nor were
they impressed with the beautiful woman he had married. (They had known
her an obnoxious freshman.) Anyone can look beautiful if her husband
has a lot of money. She was still cheap despite all their money. They
didn’t join the receiving line, because they didn’t want to have to
talk to either of them. However, he had the nerve to walk around the
room and say hello to everyone and recall incidents from their school
days which they never remembered. They tried to be polite but it was
very hard. Then they went home and said to their children. He’s not a
big deal. He never was.
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http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lasso
3 Ordinary Time
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Jan,
24, 2010
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Gospel Summary
With this passage Luke introduces his two-volume work--Gospel and Acts
of the Apostles. Luke's work continues the narrative of God's
liberation of humanity from the mess it had gotten itself into,
alienated from its creator and alienated within itself. It is a
narrative of the creative, divine action of the Spirit beginning with
Israel, continued through Jesus, and now through the Church.
After linking the birth of Jesus to the fulfillment of God's promise of
blessing for all nations given to Abraham and to Israel, Luke tells us
that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. He teaches
in the synagogues to the acclaim of all. Then Jesus goes to Nazareth,
where he had grown up, and as was his custom goes to the synagogue on
the Sabbath. He stands to read the scroll from the prophet Isaiah: "The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad
tidings to the poor..." (a combination of Is 58:6d and 61:1d). Rolling
up the scroll, Jesus hands it back to the attendant and sits down. The
eyes of all in the synagogue look intently at him. He says to them:
"Today this passage is fulfilled in your hearing."
Life Implications
Writing during the fifth decade of the Church's life, Luke wants us to
understand that the same Spirit that was upon Jesus also came upon the
Church at Pentecost. Peter said in his Pentecost speech: "Exalted at
the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from
the Father and poured it forth, as you see and hear" (Acts 2:33). All
that Jesus began to do through the power of the Spirit during his
earthly life he continues to do now as Risen Lord in the Church. It is
through the power of the Spirit of Jesus that the Church brings glad
tidings of liberation and new life to all the peoples of the world.
Today's gospel passage begins this liturgical year's cycle of readings
taken principally from Luke's gospel. I would suggest a reading of
Luke's gospel and the Acts of the Apostles comparing how Jesus acted
through the power of the Spirit during his earthly life and how he is
acting now through the Spirit in our own lives and in the life of the
Church. Gerard Manley Hopkins provides a word of encouragement with his
observation: "To hear of him and dwell on the thought of him will do us
good."
There is an immediate life-implication of today's passage that is easy
to overlook. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Jesus and comes upon the
Church in order to bring glad tidings. The presence of the Spirit means
joy. In the 21st century we're OK with entertainment and pleasure, but
are suspicious of joy because it might be a pie-in-the-sky illusion.
How can we talk about joy, or even allow ourselves to experience joy,
when there is so much false hope, so much suffering, so much serious
work to be done?
Luke and other writers of the New Testament, certainly as aware of
suffering as much as we are, did talk about glad tidings and joy. When
the holy Spirit came upon her at the Annunciation, Mary sang "My spirit
rejoices in God my savior for he has looked upon his handmaid's
lowliness" (Lk 1:47-48). Repeatedly Luke tells us that Jesus was filled
with the Spirit. He reports this reaction when Jesus recognized that
though many people were rejecting him, Satan would finally be defeated:
"At that very moment he rejoiced in the holy Spirit and said, 'I give
you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have
hidden these things from the wise and learned you have revealed the to
the childlike’'' (Lk 10:21). At the Last Supper when his own suffering
was at hand, Jesus spoke of returning to his Father and sending their
Spirit: "I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your
joy might be complete" (Jn 15:11).
The supreme paradox of Christian faith is the cross of Jesus. The cross
symbolizes the pain and sorrow that Jesus and we know so well. At the
same time, the cross of Jesus is the symbol of joy because it is the
ultimate revelation of the love of his sacred heart for us. "For the
sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross despising its
shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God" (Heb
12:2). The joy that lay before him was not only that God would wipe
away his every tear, but that through his self-giving love, his joy
might be in us and our joy might be complete.
At our Eucharist today we pray for the gift of anointing in fullest
measure by the Spirit so that even in this valley of tears we might
share the joy of Jesus' heart. We pray too that as individual
Christians and as Church, through the power of the Spirit, we will have
the courage to bring glad tidings of great joy to the poor, liberty to
captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed.
Campion P. Gavaler, OSB
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html
Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
3 Ordinary Time
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THIRD
SUNDAY
Nehemiah 8, 2-4, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19, 8.9.10.15; 1 Corinthians 12,
12-30; St. Luke 1, 1-4; 4, 14-21
Isaiah the prophet proclaimed the coming of Jesus the Messiah, the
Christ, the "anointed" one. The Lord knows who he is, not simply
because as a good Jew he reads Isaiah, but with every fiber of his
divine Personhood: he is the God-man, the divine Messiah foretold and
exalted by the holy prophets. The Lord reads the words of Isaiah to the
assembly in the synagogue with the purpose of declaring the truth of
his divinity to the whole world: "Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing." (Lk 4: 21)
The Messiah's characteristics are revealed above all in the "Servant
songs." (Cf. Isa 42: 1-9; cf. Mt 12:18-21; Jn 1:32-34; then cf. Isa 49:
1-6; cf. Mt 3:17; Lk 2:32; finally cf. Isa 50:4-10 and Isa 52: 13- 53:
12.) These songs proclaim the meaning of Jesus' Passion and show how he
will pour out the Holy Spirit to give life to the many: not as an
outsider, but by embracing our "form as slave." (Phil 2:7) Taking our
death upon himself, he can communicate to us his own Spirit of life.
(CCC 713)
This is why Christ inaugurates the proclamation of the Good News by
making his own the following passage from Isaiah: (Isa 61: 1-2; cf. Lk
4: 18-19)
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the
afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are
bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (CCC 714)
The anointing by which Christ brings "good tidings", binds up the
"brokenhearted", and frees those imprisoned is carried out in our
midst, at this moment, only in the Holy Spirit, poured out upon us by
the Lord-Messiah according to the heavenly Father's loving plan for our
redemption. Only in that Spirit of love can we call out to Christ as
Lord in faith. Only in that Spirit do we receive and give authentic
love.
The prophetic texts that directly concern the sending of the Holy
Spirit are oracles by which God speaks to the heart of his people in
the language of the promise, with the accents of "love and fidelity."
(Cf. Ezek 11:19; 36: 25-28; 37: 1-14; Jer 31:31-34; and cf. Joel 3:
1-5.) St. Peter will proclaim their fulfillment on the morning of
Pentecost. (Cf. Acts 2: 17-21) According to these promises, at the "end
time" the Lord's Spirit will renew the hearts of men, engraving a new
law in them. He will gather and reconcile the scattered and divided
peoples; he will transform the first creation, and God will dwell there
with men in peace. (CCC 715)
We live out our love for the Lord when we confidently declare that he
is Lord and God to all we meet. Others will know we love them if we
declare the divinity of the Savior, he who alone can forgive our sins,
heal us and raise us up to holiness and joy.
Let's pray for each other until, again next week, we "meet Christ in
the liturgy", Father Cusick
(See also nos. 436, 544, 695, 714, 1168, 1286, 2443 in the Catechism of
the Catholic Church.)
(Publish with permission.) http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
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3 Ordinary Time
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Third Sunday of Year C
We have for the Gospel text the dramatic beginning to Jesus’ public
ministry as recorded in the Gospel of Luke.
Jesus stands up in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth and
proclaims the prophecy of Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord has anointed
me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim
liberty to captives, to give the blind new sight, to set the
downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.
And then he makes the most dramatic statement of all: Today this is
being fulfilled even as you listen.
This extraordinary statement was clearly understood by the worshipers
to mean that Jesus had proclaimed himself to be the Messiah. And we
hear in the Gospel as it unfolds next Sunday how this caused such
controversy in the town that they hustled him out of the synagogue and
attempted to push him over a cliff.
Not a very auspicious beginning to Christ’s public ministry perhaps;
but, of course, it shows right from the very beginning the kind of
opposition that was to dog Jesus throughout his ministry and was
ultimately to bring it to its conclusion and its glorious final outcome.
It is worth noticing the phrase at the beginning of this text: Jesus
with the power of the Spirit in him returned to Galilee. This is
because Jesus has just returned from forty days fasting in the desert,
which Luke in common with Matthew and Mark places immediately after his
Baptism and immediately prior to the commencement of his public
ministry.
He was validated by the Father in his Baptism and he has overcome
temptation in the wilderness and is now ready to embark upon his public
ministry. And what we are to learn from his intervention in the
synagogue of Nazareth is the nature of the ministry he is to undertake.
So Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, proclaims the prophecy
of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah. We are therefore given
to understand that Jesus makes this prophecy his own. And we realise
that this programme that Jesus sets out for himself is in fact a
prophetic programme. He is to be a prophetic Messiah—not a military or
majestic Messiah. And we know what happened to the prophets—they
frequently faced opposition and many of them had ignominious deaths.
The year of the Lord’s favour that is proclaimed in the last line of
the prophecy is a Year of Jubilee that comes around every fifty years
when debts are forgiven and slaves set free. We are familiar with this
idea because of the Jubilee Debt release campaign that took place
during the Millennium year and continues today.
But in this case Jesus does not mean the jubilee to be just a year but
forever. The salvation he brings is to be the culmination of all the
jubilees.
But this is plainly not something general because it is not taken up by
the religious authorities; they proclaim no jubilee. No, it is for
those who come into contact with Jesus and who accept his message. It
is personal to him. An encounter with Jesus is liberating, healing,
forgiving. Remember the Woman at the Well—he told me everything I ever
did.
His job is to proclaim good news. But this is not good news in some
distant future time; it is good news here and now. It is no mistake
that the incident occurs in Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, the place he
grew up.
And it is there in Nazareth that he proclaims himself as Messiah, as
the Saviour of the World. The marvellous dramatic flourish he gives
when he says this text is being fulfilled today even as you listen
situates salvation in the present moment.
And this is vital—for salvation is not something over the horizon. No,
salvation occurs in the present moment, right now! We don’t and can’t
wait for it; we need it right now!
But there is an interesting distinction to be made between what we need
and what we are prepared to do. Yes, it is easy for us to say to God:
Come Lord, Come right now and bring me salvation right this minute,
give it to me now, my heart is aching to receive your healing, your
forgiveness and your love.
But it is not so easy for us to make the changes that would be required
if this prayer of ours was answered. We all remember the famous prayer
of St Augustine: Yes, but not yet Lord!
We know that if we opened ourselves up to the fullness of God’s love we
couldn’t go on living the way we are doing now. We know big changes
would be required and we haven’t ever found it easy to make those
changes; we always want to put them off till tomorrow. The desire is in
our hearts but putting it into practise is where we fall down.
This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen; those are the
words Jesus says. He is not simply referring to the day on which he
uttered those words. He is meaning much more than this, he means that
all days are days of the Lord’s favour.
By his incarnation he has entered into time and so has sanctified it.
He has come into the world and so has redeemed it. The salvation Jesus
brings will be worked out and made clear in all the subsequent events
of his life on earth.
The salvation he brings will be explained in his teaching, it will be
made manifest in his miracles, it will be made definitive for all time
in the Last Supper and it will come to a reality in his death and
resurrection.
And through the events that followed, the Ascension and Pentecost, the
Apostles will be mandated to bring this Good News to the ends of the
Earth. And this mission will be to help people to realise that
salvation is already here; that they are redeemed; that Christ wants to
live in their hearts and minds; that he wants them to be part of his
Kingdom.
And that is what helps us to make the transition from the desire to the
action. We want to experience the power of Jesus’ salvation but we just
find it difficult to do what he wants of us. But the realisation we
need to come to is that his salvation is already here. It was worked
out on the hill of Calvary and out of the tomb in the hillside.
It is not a question of us doing a lot of things. It is a question of
us opening up our hearts to the realisation of the fullness of his love
for us, to the realisation that his love and salvation has already been
poured out on us, that we have been walking in the Spirit all our lives.
This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen. Whatever the
precise chronology Luke was right to place these words at the very
beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. As he says to his readers at
the very start of his Gospel: this is an ordered account. Luke puts
everything in the right order; but it is an order of importance not an
order of chronological times and dates.
This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen. This text is
being fulfilled in your life and mine right now. We poor already hear
the good news. We captives have already been given our liberty. We
blind now can see. We downtrodden are free. And this and every other
year really is a year of the Lord’s favour!
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Father Bonar will not be posting homilies for Cycle B to allow himself
time for other projects. His collection of homilies (including homilies
for Cycle B) is available at www.clydebonar.com.
3 Ordinary Time |
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These
homilies may be copied and adapted for your own use;
however, they may not be commercially published without permission of
the author.
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