3rd Sunday Year C 2022

 

 Third Sunday of the Year(C)

(Nehemiah 8: 2-4, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27; St. Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21)

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Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we have in our Gospel reading today an incident that seems to have occurred shortly after the marriage feast at Cana where Jesus had performed His first miracle, having received His mother’s blessing for the inauguration of His Messianic mission.

That first miracle meant so very much to Jesus: it was not of His own choosing, but, if I might so speak, it was recommended to Him by His heavenly Father at His mother’s prayer; and it promised the ultimate triumph of His Messianic mission by foreshadowing -- at that local wedding celebration -- His heavenly Father’s infinite goodness and generosity as Host at the eternal banquet of the beatific family of God.  

Here, in words spoken by Our Blessed Lord Himself, Saint Luke wants us to understand, that all things had thus been fittingly prepared for this most symbolic and important synagogue and Christian pronouncement:

TODAY, this (supremely important and Messianic) Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

Why does the Evangelist insist so emphatically that Isaiah’s prophecy was brought to its fulfilment by Jesus reading the prophetic passage during that Sabbath assembly in the synagogue of Nazareth on this very day?

It seems to me that here St. Luke is picturing something that St. John declared in direct words at the beginning of his Gospel (1:6-11):

A man named John was sent from God.  He came to testify to the light so that all might believe through him; (for) the true light, which enlightens everyone, was in the world and the world came to be through Him but the world did not know Him.  He came to what was His own, but His own people did not accept Him. 

What John – considerably later in life -- expressed as a mature, you might say dogmatic, theologian, Luke here expresses as an evangelist, eager to draw attention to facts of Jesus’ human experience, facts about His Personal human relationships with His mother and His own townspeople; and in doing so he gives prominence to the ancient hopes and expectations of God’s Chosen people.

Those words of Jesus:

Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,

are immensely important for all of us today who read the Scriptures searching for greater hope in God to strengthen us as disciples in the fight against sin, and above all, for love leading to eternal life with Jesus in the family of God.

Jesus Himself once said to the Sadducees:

You are misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God; have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?  He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matthew 22: 29-33);

We are thus assured that the Scriptures are always capable of present-day fulfilment in the lives of those who are humble enough to patiently wait and prayerfully listen for Him in the course of their every-day Catholic and Christian lives; and many are the saints of Mother Church whose lives were formed or transformed by such awareness and responsiveness to God speaking to them personally in the Scriptures, such as St. Anthony the Great whose memory we have just recently celebrated.

There is much else to be noted in our Gospel reading which is also most appropriate for us today.

Salvation, it tells us, begins ‘at home’, among those fellow citizens of Jesus at Nazareth and co-members of the local synagogue and the Chosen People.  Likewise, any spiritual renewal for Mother Church today must begin, first and foremost, deepest and most lovingly, in the hearts and minds of all her apparently faithful children standing as Catholics and Christians before our modern world. 

For too long the awareness of the individual ‘devout’ Catholic’s responsibility for the good name of Mother Church and, indeed, for appropriate witness to our Catholic Faith in God, has been downplayed to merely human endeavours to make Church-going popular, and to an appreciation and acceptance of people, not as God’s loving creation, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and possible supernatural children of God the eternal Father, but uniquely as individuals with human rights not including responsibilities; to the extent that a welcoming and accommodating relationship with others is now regarded as ample justification for a change in or break with ones response to God’s law, and even to the denial of God Himself: witness all the ramifications of modern sexual expression: gay marriage (I am not speaking in any way against same-sex friendships), sex and gene modification, abortion advice and contraception facilities, and the ever-growing lobby for the easy procurement of life ‘as one likes it’, and for death ‘on demand’.

In today’s Gospel Jesus stands before us putting first-things-first for all believers:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, (and) to let the oppressed go free.

In our modern context that means that any and every renewal in Mother Church must begin with a renewal of our relationship with Jesus, our God and Saviour, the Light and the Glory of our lives; and that renewal has to be a deepening, a ‘bettering’, as Jesus Himself said to the Samaritan woman shortly before today’s synagogue event:

The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth, and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship Him.  God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth.  (John 4:23-24)

All human beings are – we know by faith and experience – sinners; a priori, we accuse none as personal sinners, and likewise, we excuse none as being worthy to take what should be God’s place in our life.  Some Jews once asked Jesus (John 6:28s.):

‘What can we do to accomplish the works of God?’  Jesus answered and said to them: ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in the One He sent.’  

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus, and our relationship of faith in Him and love for Him, is absolutely essential.  We can only do good in our world for our fellow human beings in so far as we share in that Spirit of the Lord by ever-deeper, closer, oneness with Jesus.

Today’s Gospel has more absolutely essential teaching for all seeking to be and become better disciples of Jesus; in one, word:

Today, this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.   

 

TODAY!  That one word has its very own resonance for Jesus:

 

It is said: “Oh, that TODAY you would hear His voice: ‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.’” (Hebrews 3:15)

What was done at the rebellion?  They heard God’s voice but they did not welcome and embrace it as God-seekers, or believers; but as worldlings they PROVOKED Him and TESTED His words:

            And we see they could not enter (into His peace) for lack of faith. (v. 19)

Scripture assures us that God speaks to all human beings in accordance with their ability and willingness to hear and learn from Him ... blessed, indeed, are those who, on hearing His ‘still, small, voice’, calm their inner turmoil for just long enough to begin to learn from Him and gradually follow Him; for He is not only the light and strength of our earthly lives, He is the supreme joy and peace of our spiritual and eternal being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd Sunday of the Year C 2022

 

 2^nd. Sunday of Year 2022 (C)
(Isaiah 62:1-5; 1^st. Corinthians 12: 4-11; St. John’s Gospel 2:1-11)

 

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You will all, surely, remember one or several of the numerous passages in the Gospels where we read that Jesus chose to ‘take with Him Peter, James, and John the brother of James’ apart from the other Apostles.  Jesus did that because Peter would ultimately become the leader of the Church Jesus would leave behind to spread -- in His name -- His saving teaching and to offer His sacramental grace to the whole of mankind; and James would be the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom for the name of Jesus, under the Roman-appointee, King Herod Antipas.

But what about John, the young boy in the midst of those two mature and pre-destined men? Perhaps today we may be allowed to try to seek some appreciation and understanding of the reason for and the purpose of Jesus’ choice of John.

Mature men are – by definition -- already formed in both their manhood and their personality to a large measure, though they can subsequently become fully committed and truly loving disciples.  John, however, was not fully mature: he was still receptive to and impressionable under personal influences and, obviously, much more so when in close proximity with Jesus’ divinely human Personality.  St. John’s Gospel might therefore offer us, quite uniquely, an intimacy of access -- John’s very own -- to Jesus that could encourage us to forget ourselves and, intuiting something of Jesus’ Personality, whole-heartedly love His very Self, along with John. And today’s Gospel reading is an excellent example of John’s opening-up-of-Jesus for us in that way.

A wedding was taking place in Cana to which Mary had been personally invited as were, it would seem, Jesus and His new disciples being members of the local community.  During the course of the rather long and somewhat indeterminable celebration we are told that:

         The wine ran short and the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

 

Obviously, Mary was not just ‘concerned’ about the lack of wine; she was expecting, or at least hoping, that Jesus might be able to do something about it.  Jesus, on the other hand, was surprised at His mother’s concern; indeed, being somewhat puzzled at her attempt to involve Him in the matter He said to her:

          Woman, how does your concern affect Me? My hour has not yet come.  

Mary, however, was not to be put off:

            His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever He tells you.”

That surely was moral pressure!   For Mary – very well known to all as Jesus’ mother – publicly, even though you might say, in a confidential way, advises the servants (who will most certainly talk!) to be ready to do whatever Jesus might tell them.

Jesus had not intended to tell them to do anything, but now those servants were looking to Him, waiting for Him, to say something, to do something!!

So, here we are now, ourselves being made aware of an intimately personal dilemma Jesus was experiencing!

When, as a very young man, close to the officially recognized beginning of male adulthood, and present at an ‘obligatory for Joseph at least’ feast in Jerusalem, Jesus had become aware of a man’s responsibility before the Law with regard to its obligations and duties.  Fascinated, Jesus had remained behind in Jerusalem in the Temple listening to and talking with the teachers while the Nazareth caravan had left for home, leaving Him, as it were, lost to Mary and Joseph.  He, however, confessing His heavenly Father had refused to apologize for what Mary thought had been a wrong done to Joseph and herself.

Now, many years later, after having been confessed before John the Baptist by the voice of His Father from heaven, and having prepared for immediate entry upon His public ministry by vanquishing the Devil in his desert lair, that bond of supremely cherished love and sovereign obedience between Jesus and His heavenly Father manifested all those years ago, was never at any risk of now being made contingent upon, or adapted to conform with, merely human standards or expectations, not even those of His mother Mary.

We should, therefore, most humbly attention to and try learn from every single word of Jesus, even the very least; indeed, we must also, at times, notice and try to appreciate His Gospel silences which could have been occasions of His, perhaps most intimate, Filial prayer.

Jesus was not concerned about the couple’s shortage of wine, that is, He had no intention whatsoever of using powers given Him by His Father for anything but His Father’s purposes, ‘Woman how does your concern affect Me?’

However, although Jesus was not much embarrassed by Mary’s concern as such, He was nevertheless puzzled by her subsequent actions:

            His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever He tells you.”

How could she, preaching obedience to the servants ‘Do whatever He tells you’, herself be so insistent about what she wanted Him to do? She had never behaved in this way before, and that, as I said, was puzzling for Jesus.

John tells us nothing, and that very nothingness is one of those silences of Jesus I just mentioned that we should carefully attend to, for when Jesus was puzzled, He would turn to but One, His Father.

Jesus was always -- literally always -- and most intently, aware of and responsive to His Father’s will,  And just as all those years ago -- although in no way apologizing for having remained behind in Jerusalem -- He had nevertheless returned home with Mary and Joseph and, through all the intervening years been obedient to them.  So now, Jesus learned again from His Father that, by embracing His mother Mary’s concern for the young couple and their guests, He, Jesus, was being offered the opportunity to use, most appropriately, divine power for the truly divine purpose of evoking the ultimate wedding feast of all in heaven by foreshadowing His Father’s infinite goodness.

The heavenly Father never forgot Mary’s Calvary-like self-sacrifice at the Annunciation: ‘Be it done unto me according to Your will.’  Here Mary’s concerns for the couple were merely incidental to the truly reward and gift the Father was about to bestow on Mary. The Father wanted to have His Son-made-Man -- setting out on His Messianic work for which He, the Father, had sent and blessed Him -- to begin that mission with His mother’s blessing also. Therefore, He made Mary’s concern the apparent cause of the blessing He planned:  she, through such concern, would apparently lead her Son to work His first miracle as Messiah, and that wonderful privilege would serve most fittingly as her blessing upon her Son’s subsequent life’s work.

Jesus, God made Man in Mary’s human flesh and blood, would thus begin His earthly mission for which He had been ‘sent’ by His heavenly Father, with a double blessing, divine and human: the Spirit given Him by His heavenly Father, and Mary’s blessing leading Him to foreshadow the glorious fulfilment and joy of the wedding feast of heaven through the aspirations, anxieties, and final gratitude of two young friends of Mary at the success of their wedding celebration.

Jesus’ miracle would be totally divine, even symbolically, for there would be more wine, better wine, than Mary could ever have conceived of for the newly-wed’s; and it would be a miracle rejoicing Jesus’ most Sacred Heart to the utmost: giving Him truly sublime delight in foreshadowing His Father’s glorious generosity at the divine and heavenly banquet of the family of God, gathered together by the Spirit in the name of Jesus at the table, and before the Person, of the Father of all.

Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So, they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So, they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him:

 

Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now!

Dear People of God, today you have not been taught any particular doctrine of Catholic divinity (as Pope Benedict did so beautifully) nor exhorted to any particular Catholic moral attitude or practice (as Pope Francis does so diligently) because ultimately, whatever we think, whatever we profess or do, will only bear fruit to the extent in which it is penetrated by our personal and humble experience of and response to Jesus Himself as revealed to us by His own Divine Words in the Scriptures and opened-up for us by His own Most Holy Spirit.

I fear at times that too many disciples of Jesus are too desirous to know facts, to have information, to be able to answer many questions ABOUT JESUS; whereas what is supremely necessary and uniquely fulfilling is personal knowledge of, personal love for, personal fullness of satisfaction with, personal commitment to, JESUS alone.   Take therefore to heart these most beautiful words of His:

 

I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God. (John 16: 26-27)

 

Baptism of Our Lord Year C 2022

 

BAPTISM of Our Lord (C)

 (Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts of the Apostles 10:34-38; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22)

 

There was an atmosphere of tense expectancy among the crowds thronging to John by the banks of the Jordan: there was something about the man -- his solitary life-style, his obvious asceticism, and his fiery words resonant with spiritual authority – all of which made him seem like one of the great prophets of old -- most especially Elijah -- of whom the present generation of Jewish faithful had heard traditional memories from their fathers, tales always told and heard with awesome respect.

Indeed, there was something special, something very different, about John the Baptist; he was undeniably brave in condemning royal scandals and Lawlessness, and there was a yet more mysterious something about him when he spoke about God and His mission for John himself and His purpose for Israel’s immediate future, all of which was causing many of them to think that he might possibly be the Christ, the promised Messiah, for whose coming Israel had been praying for centuries.

Although John did his best to dampen people’s expectations of him, nevertheless, they still came crowding to him for his baptism, and they were so centred on the person of John that they probably did not notice at all an unknown young man quietly joining the queue moving forward for baptism.  Nevertheless, John was about to show that this hitherto unknown young man was not unknown to God; indeed, he was the essential core of what was to be God’s ultimate purpose for Israel.  For, when that young man was actually receiving John’s baptism:

heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased."

 John saw the dove and he recognized Jesus, for God had told him that:

One mightier than he (John) was coming, Who (would) baptize (the people) with the Holy Spirit and fire.

John might even have been permitted to hear those words the voice from heaven spoke to Jesus after John had baptized Him; nevertheless, whether or not John did hear the words, he most certainly saw the Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus, and would, undoubtedly, have immediately recalled what had happened to Noah in the beginning:

Noah sent the dove out from the ark.  Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.  (Gen. 8:10-12)

Noah had realised that mankind’s punishment had come to an end when the dove returned to the Ark bearing the olive branch in its beak, for that was a sign that the waters of the flood were retreating and land was once more to be seen: land waiting to bring forth fruit again for those saved from the punishing flood.  Likewise, when John saw the Spirit descend like a dove on Jesus it is highly likely that he was prophetically privileged to appreciate that mankind’s ancient servitude to sin – against which he, John, had spent his prophetic life campaigning -- was coming to its end and that true Israelites would soon be enabled to find, once again, acceptance and peace with God through this mysterious young relative of his, Jesus, now standing before him, dripping water and engrossed in prayer.  John knew well those words of Isaiah which we heard in our first reading:

Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights!  I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.   He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands shall wait for His law.

Indeed, it was with such a One in mind that he had told the waiting people:

I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

The Son, of Whom the voice of the Father declared His soul delighted in, was -- as the Word of God -- One with the Holy Spirit in the glory of the Father; He was therefore able to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit in His human nature.  Therefore, as Jesus,  the Messianic leader, He would shortly ‘deploy’, so to speak, that, His human fullness of the Spirit of Holiness, Wisdom, and Power, for the establishment of the Kingdom of God: in His imminent encounter with and triumph over the devil in the desert, before entering upon His definitive public ministry in Israel for the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles  and the foundation of His future Church.

We learn from words of Jesus recorded by St. Luke (12:49), words spoken shortly before His final and supreme encounter with the Satan on Calvary, with what dispositions Jesus received His baptismal endowment of the Spirit:

I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

Jesus, as I said, received in His own humanity the fulness of that Spirit He would subsequently pour out over human kind through His Church.  The hearts and minds of those called to faith in Jesus could only be purified of their sinfulness by His gift of the Holy Spirit, to be not only with them but in them, ever purifying and sanctifying them.  And in that work of purification He would indeed be a Spirit of fire, preparing the way for new life and growth.  Thus, purified themselves by Jesus’ Gift of the Spirit, the Apostles would then begin to fulfil that secret longing of Jesus to ‘send fire on the earth’ for which, having risen from the dead, He expressly equipped His Church (Acts 2:1-3):

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.

When John the Baptist had spoken of the work that Jesus’ baptism would accomplish, he had said, as you heard:

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.

That was how he, the greatest of Old Testament prophets, understood the image of fire.  However, that is an understanding we can appreciate more fully in the light of the subsequent work of Jesus here on earth and of His Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.   The Spirit would indeed ‘burn the chaff’ in the hearts of His chosen ones, and the greater their obedience and docility, the more they would allow Him a free hand in their lives, the greater would be the blaze of purifying love with which He would consume them.  For the world at large, however, for those stumbling and hurting themselves in the darkness of sin, He is the Spirit of Love and of Truth, a gentle tongue proclaiming Good News as Jesus promised His apostles (Matthew 10:20):

It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

People of God, let us learn from the baptism of Our Lord something of the nature of our vocation.  If the Spirit of Jesus is to be heard by the world around us, a deeply sinful world; if He is to be heard by them in the manner of that beautiful word-picture painted by the great prophet Isaiah:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation (Isaiah 52:7);

and if, indeed, we are to help our world encounter Jesus as He Himself wanted to be found by them:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18),

then, People of God, we must implore the Spirit of Jesus to work in us as a purifying fire: purging us ever more and more of our multi-layered and long-disguised-and-indulged sinfulness, and enabling us to commit ourselves more and more whole-heartedly to the Lord our Saviour, and to the furthering and fulfilment of His work on earth.  That is the only spirit of sacrifice, the only testimony of fraternal love, that can make us true disciples of Him Who sacrificed Himself for our sins and the sins of the whole world.

Let us not, in these days of widespread Godlessness, self-confidence and self-satisfaction, trust in our own presumed zeal and good intentions, for what is needed most of all today is not that we, as individuals, show off ourselves as good people by doing good things; nor that we, as a body, continually try to come up with new ideas, new gimmicks, to attract people; but that the Spirit of Jesus Himself finds a welcome into the hearts of the men and women of our day through our sincere service of and humble witness to Mother Church’s authentic proclamation of Jesus’ Good News, and by our own deepest prayers and humble endeavours to allow the Spirit to work fully and freely in us, leading us along the ways of Jesus for the good of our brethren and for the praise and glory for our Father in heaven.

                                      (2004, amended 2010, not given anywhere.)