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.