bg-image

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – A Jubilee Year

Neh. 8: 12-4a, 5-6, 8-10; Ps. 19:8-10, 15; 1 Cor. 12:12-30; Lk. 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Jesus proclaims “a year acceptable to the Lord” and this is our Jubilee Year because he is with us to bring the “glad tidings” to his people.  Pope Francis has declared this our Jubilee Year to pour out special graces upon God’s people and upon this world. We come to him as one body to celebrate because “Today is holy to the Lord your God”.  Let us recognize God’s holiness in his mercy and love as he cleanses us of our sins and restores us in our own call to holiness. 

“Rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”  A Jubilee year is a year of rejoicing giving thanks for all the Lord’s blessings.  The Lord comes to set us free, free of sin, free of evil, free of fear.  The Lord comes to be our strength in a world that remains lost within itself, he guards us against the temptation to follow ideologies of human creation.  Truth comes from the Lord in perfect law, clear commands, right judgment, and lifegiving word.  It is up to us to trust and to follow. 

We follow best when we follow together as one body bring our God given gifts to the service of our faith in God.  As we read today “all the parts of the body, though many are one body” and we all live in the one Spirit of God.  We are each given a different state of life to serve the different needs of the one body.  Even among clergy, a bishop cannot live an isolated contemplative life and neglect his flock, nor a married man ignore his call to work for the support of his family, nor a woman spend her time in prayer when her children need to be fed.  We are each living a different state whether single, married, widowed, young or elderly yet each state offers us an opportunity to be a voice for God right where we are.  It all begins with a state of being a person of love that transcends God’s love for each other. 

In God’s divine wisdom we were all given different gifts in the service of one body that requires of us to come together in support of each other.  We need the other in our life and cannot be living in the illusion of “self-sufficiency”.  There is an inherit interdependence in humanity that we may be humble in receiving and giving of each other to one another with love and generosity.  The body though one is most reliant on the head which is our high priest who reveal himself today as the word made flesh.  Jesus is our Godhead, the source of our life and our salvation.

Jesus’ revelation of himself comes to “proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord”.  Are we ready to celebrate his victory over death and to enter into his glory?  Are we ready to be the difference in our time, in our state of life, with those who share our space, our world, our hopes and dreams?  Our hope and dreams are for the eternal joy to come and it begins now in this our Jubilee year.   

Tags
Shared this
Views

329 views


bg-image

The Baptism of the Lord – My chosen one

Is. 42: 1-4, 6-7; Ps. 29:1-4, 59-10; Acts. 10:34-38; Lk. 3:15-16, 21-22

Jesus is “my chosen one” whom the Lord is well pleased.  When we speak of the baptism of the Lord, we refer to Jesus being baptized by John but we should also recognize the words of John who states “he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”.  Through Jesus’ baptism of us we become his chosen ones.  To be chosen is to be called for a greater good into the kingdom of God.  We are chosen to fulfill a purpose in salvation history.  Jesus “my chosen one” came to free us from sin through his passion, death, and resurrection.  Do we recognize our chosen purpose? 

We are chosen to live holy lives in the practice of our faith.  To give to God our praise and worship and to allow him to work through us in the care, conversion, and covenant of his people.   Care comes through the corporal and spiritual needs of others with the understanding that if one part of the body of Christ suffers, we all share in that suffering and so we lift each other up.   Conversion by our witness in the way we live our lives that gives testimony to our faith.   Covenant by obedience to the commandments and the moral and ethical choices that place God first.   Our “right actions” are to be right before the eyes of God. 

In Jesus we find “the victory of justice” and live in covenant with him.  Jesus came to show us the way and he did it by his care for the people, calling them to conversion by offering himself up to the Father for our salvation and always being one in covenant with the Father and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God.  The victory of justice is to always remain as one with God in the Trinity by doing the will of God.    

Justice is the right action before the eyes of God.  Peter recognizes that the right action of a follower of Jesus is to “show no partiality” based on a person’s state of life that is Jew or Gentile.  Partiality is for the separation of sin from the sinner.  Jesus comes to free us from our sinfulness through “fear” of the Lord and by “acts uprightly”.  “Fear” of the Lord is not the Old Testament view of fear of punishment but fear of separation from the Lord as revealed by Jesus.  Upright acts come through love of the Lord and neighbor.  Love desires and acts for what is in the best interest of the other. 

The love of God for his people meant that what was in their best interest was sometimes a difficult road to travel as we see the Israelites wander in the desert for forty years.  Their final destination was relatively a short distance compared to the years they spent in the desert but it allowed their souls to be purified.  Love of God often comes with cross to carry for our own salvation that we too may act uprightly and be called his chosen ones.  How do we handle our hardships of life?  Some may question God with “why God”, others may find it as a punishment coming from God, while others may simply believe it has nothing to do with God and blame it on “bad luck”.  None of these attitudes serve God’s purpose which is to prepare us for his coming, to free us from sin, and to lead others to himself. 

John points to Jesus as the chosen one who will baptize with “the Holy Spirit and fire”.  Thus, the Spirit of fire comes through Jesus to us by that same baptism of water and the Holy Spirit.  We are anointed priest, prophet and king into the priesthood of Jesus.  We are given the fire to proclaim his word in upright action and to live within the kingdom of God even as we live our earthly pilgrimage.  For this reason, we claim to be in the world but not of the world.  The Passover has been given to us and death has no power in our souls.  In time we shed our mortal bodies to rise up to immortality.  To be among the “elect” is to fulfill a purpose greater than ourselves, to lay down our lives at the feet of Jesus and let God by our God and we be his chosen ones. 

Tags
Shared this
Views

324 views


bg-image

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the Mother of God

Num. 6: 22-27; Ps.67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Gal. 4:4-7; Lk. 2:16-21

Why the Mother of God?  This is the question we get asked as Catholics.  Mary is just the mother of Jesus we are told.  This is the question that is often raised by our protestant brothers and sisters.  Mary is the mother of God because we believe in one God in three persons.  The mystery of the Trinity is that there is but one God in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Jesus lets his disciples know that in seeing him they see God.  What more explanation do we need?  The argument continues “but Mary is the creature and God the creator, how can Mary be before the creator?”  Mary is the creature in who God the creator chose to become incarnate and become visible for our salvation.  He who is and always will be chose Mary as the vessel to manifest his infinite glory. Mary is thus both the Mother of God and Mother of the Church.

Mary as a Jew received the blessing of the Israelites as we hear it from Elizabeth “blessed are you among women” for the Lord’s face shines upon her with kindness and peace to bear “God’s son born of a woman”.  For this reason, we also say to pray to Jesus through Mary.  If Jesus is our brother who intercedes for us to the Father, then Mary is our mother.  The maternal love of a mother always points us to do the will of her son just as she responded at the wedding of Cana with the words “do whatever he tells you”.  A mother’s love always seeks mercy for her children but she also seeks obedience to the father.   

In baptism we are his adopted sons and daughters.  This raises the question then “if it takes baptism to become children of God, what are we before baptism?”  We are God’s creation that is creatures of God with a soul in need of a Father, Mother and brother.  Often the general assumption is made that just by being born we are “children of God”.  All creation belongs to God but baptism makes us reborn of spirit and truth, adopted sons and daughters, temples of the Holy Spirit to share in his divinity.  Baptism is the gate to heaven and to the kingdom of God given to us by Jesus as he commanded his disciples to go and baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” for our salvation.

What was the message given by the angel to the shepherds we hear in the gospel today.  It was the message they had been waiting for that this child was to be the “savior, the messiah” who has come to free us.  Jesus was born during the reign of Ceasar Agustus who was seen as a “god” who was the savior bringing peace to the region.  The world then expected a new king to come and rule over them.  They had no idea the type of king that was born to Mary.  A king both human and divine bringing freedom of sin through mercy and love.  Not exactly what they were hoping for and for this reason in the end they all cried out “crucify him”. 

Today the God of mercy and of peace offers us a different world in the midst sin, war, crime, and hate.  It is a world of his love and peace.  It is transformative when we choose good over evil, when we seek virtue over indulgence, when we show mercy over vengeance.  It is a call to live the word made flesh that is to put on Jesus and let him rule over us.  Through faith we receive power, through suffering we receive redemption, through death comes the resurrection and through judgment a new majesty. 

What New Year’s resolution will we make this year that we will soon be forgotten?  Is it to improve our health, improve our relationships, work to reach a financial goal?  Usually, we focus on what is temporary and forget the eternal.  We are to resolve to prepare ourselves for eternity, for a closer walk with Jesus, for spiritual growth and understanding and to be all that Jesus is calling us to be.  We don’t want to just reach for the stars we want to reach for heaven.  There is no place like home and home is where God is.  God is with us, welcome home.    Happy New Year!

Tags
Shared this
Views

247 views