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Homilies are posted no later than during the week
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2 Ordinary Time
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Second
Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B - John 1:35-42
Victor Hugo in Les Miserables wrote, "To love
another is
to see the face of God." Hugo was speaking figuratively. But John the
Baptist and Andrew had the good fortune to see the authentic face of
God. Immediately they fell in love with Christ for life and were never
the same again. It was love at first sight.
Today's Gospel is the word painting of two
extraordinary people. One is John the Baptist, who gets much attention
and does not like it. The other is Andrew who is put on
everyone's back burner and could not care less.
At this point, John is the star of the show.
He is
surrounded by great numbers. He is lionized by the press. People travel
hundreds of miles on foot to hear him. Everybody wants a piece of him.
And yet the Baptist is about to throw all that adulation overboard.
Standing before him is One whom he cannot ignore. It is the Messiah. At
this point, Jesus is a non-person as far as John's admirers are
concerned. It is John who puts the spotlight on Him. The only loser
will be himself. Perhaps then we can better understand why John is the
only person of whom Jesus says He stands in awe.
The day before this Gospel opens, John was
surrounded by
a mob of fans. He points to Christ and announces Him as the Main Man.
The Baptist is eager to step back into the desert. His job as Christ's
"advance man" is ending. Life in the fast lane is not to his taste.
In the Gospel, John stands with two fans. One
is our Andrew. The other is not identified. Many scholars assume it was
John, today's author. Modesty forbade him mentioning his own name.
Once again, their leader points to the
Nazarene and
identifies Him as the Chairman of the Board. And, as John foresaw and
even hoped, the two tipped their turbans to their now former guru and
followed Christ. They were unknowingly following out a plan that had
been programmed from day one.
There could not have been an ounce of envy in
the Baptist's person. He had his fifteen minutes of fame. Willingly he
surrenders his notoriety to the better man. If your problem is pride,
John the Baptist is your medicine man. He will teach you "no one has
ever choked to death from swallowing his own pride."
The Christ plays the host and invites Andrew
and his
friend to stay with him. He was hardly bunking at the Jordan
Hilton. In most probability, the Hilton in question was a
primitive hut along the Jordan River. One can still observe
these huts set up along the riverbank. They are built by farmers so
that they can guard their crops from night poachers. I suspect that
both Andrew and his friend kept Jesus up into the early hours with
their questions. When did He sleep? What a pity we do not know even a
fraction of their conversation into that morning! Oh, for even a twenty
dollar tape-recorder.
At dawn, Andrew rolls out of his sleeping bag.
He does
not even take time for cappucino and an onion bagel. He is most anxious
to introduce his brother Peter to their extraordinary Host. Peter too
was bedding down in the area. He had walked down from Caphernaum in
Galilee with Andrew to check the Baptist out for himself. Andrew makes
the proper introductions. Then he willingly surrenders front stage to
Peter.
From this point on, Andrew will lose his
identity. He will be spoken of constantly as the brother of Peter. It
will be his fate to live in his brother's shadow. But there is no hint
of sibling rivalry between them. While Peter will be referred to ninety
times in the Gospels, Andrew will be referred to seldom.
Even though Andrew was a charter member of the
apostles, it
was his fate never to become a member of Christ's inner circle or
kitchen cabinet. Yet, there is no evidence that this ever upset him. He
was willing to play second fiddle.
His gripes about riding in the back of the bus, had
he made them, would have been legitimate. Were we in his sandals,
we would have sounded off. But Andrew was willing to be the low
man on the totem pole. He considered himself a winner just to be
numbered among Christ's company. So should we. Most of us have been
lucky in life but never luckier than to be Jesus's follower.
Andrew advises us that when we tell others what
Jesus can do for them, we should first tell them what He has done for
us.
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
2 Ordinary Time
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nd
Sunday of Ordinary Time: Sexual Morality
Today I want to focus in on the second reading from 1 Corinthians
6. As in most of the year, the second reading does not follow the
same theme of the first reading and Gospel reading this Sunday.
They are about the call of the Lord. The second reading is about
morality, specifically sexual morality.
I
often try my best to avoid this topic because it hits too close to
home. Just like every person, I also struggle with this, but then
again, just like every person here, I am also human. Still, when people
tell me in confession that they struggle with sexual temptations, I
usually mention to them that when we stop struggling we should take our
pulse because we will probably be dead.
Paul
addresses his letter to people who lived in Corinth. That was the
ancient equivalent of Sin City. Most of the people of the pagan
world engaged in blatant immorality, but some of the worst were those
in Corinth. They even had their own saying to justify their
behavior. No, it wasn’t, “What happens in Corinth stays in
Corinth.” It was, “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for
food.” It was like saying, “You have no choice: you have got to
eat, and you have no choice, you have got to behave immorally.”
Paul tells them and us that we are so much better than that. Our
bodies belong to the Lord. We are members of the Body of
Christ. We are far more than animals with nothing but animal
instincts. He goes on to use a very important phrase: our bodies
are temples of the Holy Spirit. If we are immoral, we are
sinning against our own bodies, sinning against our union with Christ.
That
is a beautiful concept: we are Temples of the Holy Spirit. A
while back I overheard some of our Teens talking about the type of
dancing that was going on at the high school homecoming. I was
about to join in the conversation when I heard one of the girls say, “I
don’t do that. I’m a sacred vessel.” I kept moving.
This young one had the situation under control.
She
also understood why we avoid immorality. It is not a matter of
some sort of Catholic No No, rules that a person might not understand
but does his or her best to follow anyway. This whole area of
morality is far more important than that. It goes to the heart of
whom we are. We are Christ's and He is ours. So, we do our best
to fight off our temptations because we are united to Christ. He
flows through us. We are not animals. We are so much better
than that.
Let’s take a tour of Rome, specifically the most beautiful chapel in
the world, the Sistine chapel. The chapel is beautiful not because on
its architecture. It is rather plain that way. It is
beautiful because of the art work inside it. Here in this relatively
small building attached to St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican complex
in Rome, we come upon frescos by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio,
Perrugino, and others. Every year, hundred of thousands of
visitors gaze up at the ceiling at Michelangelo’s depiction of creation
and the first sections of the Bible. The cardinals who meet in
conclave to pick a new pope also do so under these magnificent
frescos. This is shocking to people who depict Catholics as
sexually inhibited prudes. The frescos are, as you know,
nudes. They emphasize the beauty of the human body with God
himself as the source of this beauty. In the frescos the creation
of man begins with God touching Adam’s hand and concludes with the
creation of Eve. Adam needed Eve and Eve needed Adam to overcome
the loneliness of the human condition. They needed to give themselves
totally to each other. And here is the message behind these
frescos: the only way that we can find ourselves is by giving ourselves
away. We are made in the image of God. God is a Trinity of
Love, Father, Son and Spirit, forming a community of self giving love
for all eternity. We are created in the image of this love, in the
image of God. When Adam and Eve gave themselves to each other, they
felt no shame. They could be naked. Shame came when they
began to use each other.
Blessed Pope John Paul II spoke about this in the lectures that make up
the Theology of the Body. He said that human happiness depends on
self giving, not self assertion. That is the difference between
love and lust. Love makes a gift of oneself to another for the
other’s good. Lust is taking from another for personal
pleasure. For us Catholics, sexual morality is more than self
control. It is self mastery. For us sexual morality is the
mastery of the desire that allows us to give ourselves to another in a
way that affirms the other. Married love is the human reality
that best images the commitment, the intensity and the passion of
Christ’s love for the Church, for
whom He laid down His Life.
Now
back to Corinth and to ourselves. Using others to fulfill selfish wants
is no different than the sexuality of animals. It is imposed,
instinctive and merely physical. We are far more noble than
that. We have been created for love, love freely given and freely
received, love which is based on a commitment for life. In this
light Blessed Pope John Paul II speaks about chastity not as a matter
of what we can’t do, but as a virtue that frees us to love another
person as a person, not an object. That is why we speak about the
chaste love of husbands and wives for each other. The married
give their deepest selves totally to each other, entrusting their
emotional center to each other. You here who are married are free
to love each other as Christ loves us.
How
should we teach this to our children, adolescents and Teens? Our
emphasis should be on our human dignity as well as the dignity of
others. We need to teach our children to respect their own bodies
as well as those of others. They are God’s most beautiful
creations. We should extend our “good-touch, bad-touch” lessons to the
little ones to include how they treat themselves and how they treat
others. We need to assure our adolescents that the massive changes that
are rushing through their lives are gifts from God which will allow
them to love as God loves. We should help them understand that
going to Mom and Dad to learn about these changes is going to God who
entrusts His children to their parents. We should tell them that
going to the internet to learn about these changes is going to the
devil. We need to reassure our Teens that they can fight off immoral
society’s objectification of others. They can prepare themselves
to be giving and not taking. They can prepare themselves for
love. We need to assure them that they are not animals and should
be repulsed by anyone who insults them by treating them as though they
were animals as those do who say, “Here, take this, use this, because
you are probably going to have sex.” What an insult! How
degrading! Yes, in high school and college they probably will be
tempted to enter into immoral relationships, but instead of
facilitating these temptations, we need to strengthen our Teens by
reaffirming in them that relations outside of marriage violate the
integrity of love as giving because they lack promise and commitment.
I
ask you, to reflect again on Paul’s message to the Corinthians, and us.
“Do you not know that your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit within
you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For
you have been purchased at a price, the Body of Christ on the
cross. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
This
is not the way of the world. But we are called to holiness, to be
separated from the world. Sexual morality itself is one of
the many ways that we express this holiness.
So today, as always, we pray that we may we have the
courage to be Catholic.
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* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
2 Ordinary Time
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Behold
the Lamb of God
(January 15, 2012)
Bottom line: If we have in our hearts anything like the Jewish people -
or the peoples of America - we would thrill to hear John's exclamation:
Behold the Lamb of God.
At the beginning of Advent we received a beautiful gift: the new
English translation of the Roman Missal. Many of my priest friends -
especially the younger ones - have commented on how much they
appreciate this new translation.
One of the parts I particularly like is the invitation to Communion.
The priest holds up the Host and says, "Behold the Lamb of God..." We
hear these same words in today's Gospel. John the Baptist sees Jesus
and exclaims to Andrew, "Behold the Lamb of God."
To understand John's exclamation we need to know some of the Old
Testament background. Each year the Jewish priests led a lamb - a
year-old male lamb with no blemish - to the high altar. They placed the
gentle animal's head on the stone and with knife opened its throat. The
lamb's blood flowed on the altar. The priest took some of the blood and
sprinkled it on the people. It brought forgiveness of sins.
When John called Jesus the Lamb of God, he was saying a lot. Jesus is
gentle and like a lamb, submissive to the will of his Father. In
obedience to his Father, he would offer his life on the altar of the
cross. He would make a sacrifice so complete that it would not need
repitition. As the letter to the Hebrews says, it would be "once and
for all."
It is interesting how people in many different places have anticipated
the sacrifice of Jesus. I am writing this homily in Peru where I have
had a chance to see some of the magnificent Inca culture. They built
their great monuments around temples - places where they offered
sacrifices of animals and cereals. To offer sacrifice is a natural part
of religions everywhere.
Jesus brings to perfection the sacrifices, not only of the Jewish
people, but of all who recognize the need for a divine power. If we
have in our hearts anything like the Jewish people - or the peoples of
America - we would thrill to hear John's exclamation: Behold the Lamb
of God.
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http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
2 Ordinary Time
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January 15th 2012 A.D.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Background:
Jesus had peculiar taste in friends. You put the whole crowd
together and they were not as smart as one of the third rate
philosophers in Rome. Maybe some of them could read and write. They
were perhaps street smart, but you were going to announce the nearness
of the kingdom of God would you surround yourself with folks that
wouldn’t make assistant precinct captain? They were utterly insensitive
to Jesus’ spiritual message and interested only in the power and
prestige they were going to have in his kingdom (which they didn’t
understand at all). One of them was a thief and ten of them cowards.
Surely, even if he had decided to limit is choice to Galilee Jesus
could have done better? Why these sluggards and nerds? Why indeed? And
why do we pretend that our leaders today are better than they were?
Patently the first Pope and the first bishops (if we want to use that
analogy) were not sacred persons, but inept, often stupid human beings?
Why do have to pretend that their successors are any better? Why should
they be immune from criticism? Have we missed the point somewhere along
the line that the leaders of the church and the followers in the church
are fragile, imperfect human beings and that Jesus chose them precisely
because he wanted a human church. If he wanted something better, he
should have turned it over not to the philosophers in Rome but to the
Seraphim.
Story:
One upon a time there were a group of young men who idolized the
quarter back on the local NFL team (no cities in mind in this story).
He was a great passer, a gutsy runner, he played despite pain, he was
modest at media interviews, generous with volunteer work, kind to kids,
and signed autographs till all had been accommodated. He was humble and
respectful and prayed before every game. He was practically perfect, it
seemed, a great role model for kids in the city and around the country.
Then one night he came into the tavern where these young men hung out.
He was roaring drunk and abusive. He pushed a couple of women around,
insulted the bar tender, picked a fight with a little guy, and sneered
at our group of idolaters. They were shocked into silence. However, one
of them, a bit of nerd, actually asked the QB for his autograph. He
knocked the pen out of his hand, shoved him back against the bar, and
cursed him out. What a jerk the crowd said. We'll never cheer for him
again. He probably uses drugs too. He's no role model for children. The
team should trade. But, the nerd said, he's only human. That's no
excuse everyone else agreed.
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http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/sunday_homily
2 Ordinary Time
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January 15, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
John 1: 35-42
Year B
Gospel Summary
John the Baptist, standing with two of his disciples, upon seeing Jesus
exclaims, "Behold, the Lamb of God." When Jesus notices that John's
disciples are following him, he says to them, "What are you looking
for?" They reply, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" Jesus responds,
"Come, and you will see." Andrew, one of the disciples, goes to find
his brother Simon, tells him they have found the Messiah, and
introduces his brother to Jesus. Jesus looks at him and says, "You are
Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas (Peter)."
Life Implications
There is a true story about a professor who was invited to give a
lecture at a major conference on religion. The subject of his lecture
was the nature of God. His many hours of research were rewarded by the
enthusiastic response he received upon completion of the lecture. On
the flight back to his university, however, his euphoric satisfaction
about his work was shattered when it dawned on him, as he later
reported: "I talked to everyone about God, but God."
We can easily have an experience similar to that of the professor as he
was preparing his lecture about God. With a little research we can
discover many interesting, even beautiful things about Jesus and his
disciples.
Thus, in today's gospel passage, we discover that when the two
disciples ask Jesus where he is staying or dwelling the question isn't
simply about a street address. John uses the same Greek verb
(translated as "staying or dwelling") when Jesus at the Last Supper
tells his disciples that he "dwells" in the Father and the Father
"dwells" in him (Jn 14: 10-11). We also discover that when Jesus says
"Come, and you will see," the essential meaning of "seeing" is the
seeing of faith (Jn 9). Only with that seeing can the disciples know
where Jesus truly dwells, with-in the Father.
Thus far there is no life-implication for us beyond appreciation of a
narrative about Jesus and his disciples. A life-changing implication
occurs only when we realize that Jesus is addressing each of us today
in as personal a way as he addressed the two disciples. The gospel is
essentially about an encounter with the Risen Lord now, not about
historical knowledge, however orthodox, about Jesus. The
historical-critical method of scholarship (like John the Baptist) can
give us valuable information about Jesus, but this knowledge cannot
enable us to see Jesus in faith -- that seeing is a gift of the Spirit.
Because faith means a personal union of friendship with Christ through
his Spirit, life implications will be unique and particular for each
person. Nevertheless, from the life of Christ and the lives of the
saints, certain patterns emerge that are actualized in the
particularity of each person's life. Union with the Risen Lord means to
share his relationship with the Father. It means that each of us is
able to hear with Christ "You are my beloved" and to say with Christ
"Thy will be done."
To be in communion with Christ means to pray, always and everywhere.
The second reading of today's Mass (1 Cor 7: 32-35) shows us that a
disciple's personal union with Christ through his Spirit is the
foundation of choices about moral behavior. Finally, we see that
through union with Christ the saints are not defeated by the setbacks
of life. Saint Paul speaks for them all when he wrote: "What will
separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in
all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us"
(Rom 8:35-37).
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
2 Ordinary Time
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SECOND
Sunday
1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19; Psalm 40;
1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20; John 1:35-42
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
St. John the Baptist, the first to preach Christ, the last and greatest
of the prophets, could not contain himself and cried out "Behold, the
Lamb of God!" to the two disciples with whom he stood. (John 1:35, RSV
CE) Truly filled with the Holy Spirit, St. John overflows with the
divine love in which he shares, a love which seeks ever to pour itself
out and embrace every soul. He cannot help but shout aloud the
fantastic news of salvation in Christ, the perfect paschal Lamb who
will offer himself in the perfect sacrifice of the Cross.
The two disciples, having heard the Word proclaimed, are capable in
faith of recognizing the Lord as "Rabbi", teacher, with the humility of
authentic discipleship. They follow the Lord, as he invites them to
"come and see" the place where he stays.
One of these two among the first disciples was St. Andrew. He too,
filled with the Holy Spirit and unable to keep the news of the Messiah
to himself, "first found his brother Simon, and said to him, 'We have
found the Messiah' (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus."
(John 1:41-42). The missionary impulse, the desire to proclaim Christ
with burning charity for the salvation of others which we see in Saints
John and Andrew, is at the core of the Christian message, and has been
present from the beginning.
In recent remarks the Holy Father spoke of the missionary impulse of
authentic faith, seeking to spread itself, and of the work of the
Church for the Jubilee Year 2000. Evangelization, he said, is the
normal way in which the Church makes the light of Christ visible to the
world. This light - "of love, of truth, of beauty" - cannot be imposed
by force but must "illumine the spirit and attract the heart".
Evangelization flows from the Eucharist which is the center and the
nourishment of the Church's missionary activity. The Holy Father speaks
of the supernatural desire of those who love Christ to preach the
Gospel and to lead others to meet Christ in the sacraments,
particularly the Eucharist.
The Church teaches that the faithful cannot be silenced, that the
impulse to spread the Gospel, to proclaim Christ as Messiah, is not an
option, but rather an obligation. The Church is not "catholic", not
universal, if the Church is not also missionary. " 'Having been
divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament
of salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder
and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives
to preach the Gospel to all men': 'Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the
age.' (Matthew 28:19-20) " (CCC 849) Christ has commanded that the
Church grow to embrace all peoples, languages and cultures. God's love
is satisfied only by reaching out to every single human being.
There are some Christians who have the odd idea that it is somehow an
imposition upon others to speak of one's faith in public places, in
schools, at work, in the marketplace. The truth is quite the opposite.
From the beginning authentic Christians did not hesitate to proclaim
Christ as Lord in word and action. The host of martyrs who have the
illuminated the way for the Church for nearly two millennia witness to
this by their blood. You and I are not Christians in the authentic,
wholehearted, sense unless we receive from Christ the fire of His love
which cannot be stamped out, and which seeks to spread itself and to
consume other souls in a conflagration which will light the way to
salvation for all the world.
Let the Church's preparation for the two thousandth anniversary of the
Incarnation be the opportunity to discover and practice a love which is
an undeniable sign of and sharing in God's own love. Preach, teach and
live Christ. Do not keep the Messiah a secret. If you truly have his
love, you will speak of him. You will not be able to keep silent.
"Come and see; we have found the Messiah!"
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we
"meet Christ in the liturgy", Father Cusick (Publish with permission.)
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http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
2 Ordinary Time
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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
John the Baptist looks hard at Jesus and says, ‘Look there is the Lamb
of God.’ The two disciples with him immediately follow Jesus. This says
a lot about John the Baptist. It says that he had schooled his
disciples to follow Jesus when he was finally able to point him out. It
says that he was a good teacher since his disciples didn’t need to be
told twice and furthermore it says that John the Baptist wasn’t
interested in his own glory; his job was finished and it was time for
him to get off the scene.
He knew his mission and that was to be a forerunner for the Messiah
when he made himself known. When the moment came, there was no
hesitation or second thoughts. John hands over to Jesus and immediately
steps into the background.
Knowing one’s task or profession thoroughly is a sign of great wisdom.
Confining oneself to that particular task shows even greater wisdom. We
all know of craftsmen who have learned a given task so thoroughly that
it has become almost part of them. These men confine themselves to what
they know and could never be described as jacks of all trades. They are
true craftsmen.
These craftsmen and women are a dying breed, mores the pity. But we can
learn from them because they are invariably very steady people, they
never seem to be in a hurry; they have a rhythm to their work and
rarely make mistakes. They know their business and all its aspects
thoroughly. They are the very salt of the earth.
We are Christians, followers of Jesus. We too ought to know our task
and carry it out assiduously. That means we must know Jesus, study his
Gospels, and most of all spend time with him in prayer.
A lifetime spent in this way will have incalculable effects on our
lives. It will mean that we will have rooted out petty jealousies,
risen above mundane squabbles, and consistently avoided superficial
judgements. We will have become so identified with our subject that no
one will think of us without being reminded of Jesus’ own qualities of
goodness and kindness.
These two disciples of John the Baptist slipped very easily from one
master to the other. They did so because they could see that Jesus was
truly the one who was foretold by the Prophets. They had listened to
John and come to understand what kind of person the Messiah would be
and so were able to recognise him when he was finally pointed out.
Quite naturally they begin to call him rabbi, teacher. It was as if
they had moved up a class in school, moving on to higher studies.
Moving from an elementary teacher to a true master. Later in John’s
Gospel they will drop this title rabbi and call him Lord reflecting a
deeper understanding of his role.
In John there is a quite different approach taken than in the other
Gospels to the very first disciples and how they came to follow Jesus.
There Jesus takes the initiative; here the disciples take the
initiative. There are good theological reasons for John’s different
approach.
Jesus asks, ‘What do you want?’ or in other translations, ‘What are you
looking for?’ By this John the Evangelist does not mean a banal enquiry
as to why they are following Jesus. He is drawing attention to the
basic need of man that causes him to turn to God.
And the answer that the disciples give is meant on the same theological
level. They want to ‘stay’ with him. Here John means not just spending
some time with Jesus but the need in man to find a lasting dwelling
place, something that amidst the transient things of this world is
truly permanent. Jesus answers, ‘Come and see.’ Once more we are on a
theological level. Seeing for John means faith. They see with the eyes
of faith which means that they believe in him.
These two first followers immediately act like disciples and go out to
recruit others, most important among them being Simon Peter. You will
notice that just as John the Baptist looked hard at Jesus and said,
‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ now Jesus looks hard at Simon Peter and says,
‘You are to be called Cephas’ –meaning rock.
As we have said there is a lot in this looking, this seeing. John the
Baptist says, ‘Look there is the Lamb of God.’ Jesus turned around and
saw them following and after they say ‘Where do you live?’ he replies,
‘Come and see.’ They went and they saw where he lived.
Seeing is believing, so runs the proverb. In John’s Gospel this is
quite literally the case.
So with the fourth Gospel you must always try to look below the surface
and see the significance of these key words and discover the hidden
layer of meaning which is so rewarding.
There are very many lessons for us in this particular Gospel passage
and we have adverted to quite a few of them already. However, if I was
to take one which I think is more important than the others I would say
it is this: we have to graduate, to move up a step in our discipleship.
I hope it is true that we all see ourselves as disciples. We are
certainly all Catholics, we believe in God and in Christ and in his
Church. But without denigrating the belief of any single person here I
would like to suggest that you ought to think of cranking things up a
notch or two.
Think about those two disciples: Andrew who was named and John himself
the writer who didn’t give his name but who certainly knows what he is
talking about. Think about them, they follow the Baptist and they
surely believe that they are doing quite well. John can’t have been
very easy to follow; his Gospel of Repentance was surely hard to live
out in practice; and that’s saying nothing about his diet of locusts
and wild honey!
They are prepared by John for the coming of the Messiah and all at once
there he is standing before them and John the Baptist quietly fades
into the background. Suddenly these two are in the presence of the real
Master and they discover that with John the Baptist they have been only
paddling in the shallow-end. Now with Jesus they must dive in the
deep-end and they do so with great success.
It’s the same with us. There is a call within a call.
There is the call which brings us into the fold of the Church. This
might be through conversion as with quite a few here or, as with the
majority, through coming to a personal decision to stay in the Church
in which we were raised.
That’s the first call. But then there is the second call, the call
within the call, and that is to follow Jesus in a deeper more radical
way. It is to take up with him completely and to dedicate one’s entire
life to following him wholeheartedly.
It means spending a lot of time with him in prayer each day, it means
studying the scriptures, it means going the extra mile, it means loving
till it hurts, it means avoiding all forms of evil, and it means
helping to carry his cross. Most of all it means dying and rising with
him.
This is moving up to the big class. This is achieving one’s full
stature as a Christian. This is the challenge that lies before each one
of us.
This is letting Jesus look us full in the eye, like he did to Simon
Peter, and saying from now on you will be called ‘rock’.
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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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