3rd Sunday of Year A 2023

 

 3^rd. Sunday of the Year (A)

(Isaiah 8:23-9:3; 1st. Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23.)

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When Jesus heard that John had been arrested He withdrew to Galilee, (and then) leaving Nazareth He went to live in Capernaum by the sea.  From that time on Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ 

Jesus -- anointed by the Holy Spirit and proclaimed by the voice of His heavenly Father after His baptism by John the Baptist in the river Jordan -- had left Judea on hearing of John’s subsequent imprisonment and returned home; not to His  home at Nazareth, but rather to Capernaum, though not without His mother’s ‘blessing’, given at the wedding feast at Cana.   ‘Blessing’? you might be thinking; yes, blessing, because she most humbly yet persistently urged Him to do that first of His miracles which His Father in heaven intended to set the tone for all Jesus’ subsequent works and words, meant to bring ultimate joy and fulfilment for all those willing to believe in His Gospel and live humbly, loving their fellows and in obedience to God’s law.

Jesus was in Capernaum, with some disciples who had come with Him from Judea … He was obviously thinking about the divine mission now taken from John’s shoulders and committed to His own burning zeal for the glory of His heavenly Father’s name and the salvation of all men and women willing to ‘repent’ on learning of the Father’s glory and goodness.

As He was walking by the sea of Galilee He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.  He said to them, ‘Come after Me and I will make you fishers of men.’

‘Come after Me’ … leave your home and family, and follow Me!!  Come! Not on some common project as equals, but as My disciples, and I will make something of you.’

Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee and looking at those He saw and, by the grace of the Spirit given Him, knowing and deciding who to choose and call to Himself!

There is no one on earth doing that today, dear People of God!  Nevertheless, the Spirit of Jesus IS still here on earth in the Body of Christ which is the Church; at work, choosing and inviting, still calling those to whom the Father sends Him whispering in their hearts and minds, ‘Believe in Jesus, and let His Word and Sacraments make something of you!  I will most certainly help you do what you cannot do of yourself … become a child of God and heir to eternal life in heaven.

How very intriguing those few words ‘Come follow Me’ must have been for the two brothers!  This was not the very first time they had encountered Jesus; they had learned of Him from John the Baptist (JB to Andrew to Peter), and at the recent Passover festival in Jerusalem they had witnessed, or at least heard eye-witness reports of, His remarkable activity and confrontations with Temple authorities.  And then, as I have already mentioned, the  subsequent marvellous happenings at the marriage feast in Cana on the way back to Galilee.  In other words, Peter and Andrew already knew quite a bit about Jesus. 

Today however, things were different somehow, very different.   Jesus was obviously starting something totally new --- His divinely-commissioned Public Ministry --- and for that He was intent on Personally choosing disciples to follow Him now, and accompany Him throughout His missionary journeys.  Such intimacy and proximity was essential, that thus they might learn at first hand His ways and His purposes, so that, ultimately, they might be able not only to continue His work in Israel but even extend it world-wide. 

                Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men!

What an ideal, perfect, call for men for men such as Simon and Andrew: few words indeed, but full of meaning, promise, and challenge!  At once, they left their nets and living and followed Him!

See, there, People of God, how imperious a vocation to follow Jesus can be, and is, essentially!!

Going further He saw James and John in a boat with their father Zebedee,

He called them,

and though we do not know what specific words of invitation Jesus used, the fact is that His words lit up a firebrand in their hearts which remained with them throughout their lives with Him and for Him, earning them the appropriate nickname of ‘sons of thunder’:

And immediately they left their boat and their father and followed Him.  

 

Now, People of God, can we, dare we, say that Jesus wants all of us -- who like to think of ourselves as disciples of Jesus -- to have something of that original spirit of absolute, unquestioning commitment manifested by those first, specially chosen, Apostles, in our relationship with Him?  Surely, I think you will agree.  Let us therefore look at what that means.

With these first-choice disciples Jesus went immediately upon an introductory mission throughout all Galilee, acquainting them with His ways and teaching them His purposes:

Teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom (‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’), and curing every disease and illness among the people.            

He wanted these chosen disciples to come to know Him Personally.   ‘Come after Me’, ‘Come follow Me’, ‘Come and see’, had been the words He used.  The two pairs of brothers certainly saw much that was interesting, remarkable, and inspiring as they accompanied Him around Galilee: devils were not allowed to disclose Him, human titles and dignities He rejected, and the people’s earthly expectations He made no attempt to satisfy.   Obedience and self-commitment were all that Jesus required of them at first.  However, a humble awareness of and responsiveness to His Holy Spirit -- inclining and gradually inspiring them to sincere acknowledgement of Jesus’ extraordinary dignity and to an ever-deeper love for His Person -- was that to which He aspired for them.

Their daily work on His mission was to help Him by finding food and lodging, preparing food, protecting Him from over-enthusiastic crowds, warding off troublesome individuals, answering simple questions of the people, and perhaps reporting to Him concerning the people’s mood and/or expectations, the variety of needs in their society, and inevitably, helping individuals taken ill, children lost etc., etc.   All very helpful for Jesus but not what Jesus had really chosen them for in the first place; not what He ultimately intended for them.

Their supreme work was to be that of themselves imbibing of His very Spirit to the utmost of their being, to the utmost of God’s gift to them, by observing not only His teaching and guidance, but His every gesture and even the tenor of His general bearing and facial emotions;  and most importantly, by always trying to get better at waiting before forming any personal opinions about what He would do, should do or had done, or about possible reasons for His behaviour.  

Dear People of God, that picture of the originally chosen Apostles setting out to follow Jesus on His inaugural public mission is a remarkable and truly inspiring model for all of us wanting and longing to give authentic witness to Jesus and help in His work today.  For that end, there is nothing better than a deep commitment to and understanding of our Catholic faith; plus a measure of spiritual sensitivity that can be determined only by the sincerity and depth of our personal humility and the infinitely wise and generous measure of God’s Gift -- His Spirit -- in our lives.   Faith in Jesus directly, mediated to us through His Church indeed, but not by her substituting for, or taking the place of, Jesus Himself; spiritual sensitivity, that is, awareness of and responsiveness to, the guidance and inspiration of His most holy Spirit working through His Church, in our lives. 

True, we do not have Jesus walking before and alongside of us; but we do most certainly have His presence with us in Holy Mother Church, in her Scriptures, especially the Gospels and New Testament Epistles, in her Sacraments, above all we have His physical Presence in her Eucharist; yet more intimately, we do have the presence of His Most Holy Spirit ‘gifted’ to Mother Church that He might all the better come to us and form us who are willing, into  ever-truer likenesses of Jesus for the glory of His Father and  the well-being and salvation of all our brothers and sisters in Christ.

My dear People, let us now, at the end of these short considerations recall, understand more fully, and whole-heartedly delight in, these words from the  inspiring psalm we heard earlier:

The Lord is my light, my light and my salvation, whom should I fear?  One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord (and) gaze upon the beauty of the Lord all the days of my life.  I believe I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord with courage; be stout-hearted, and wait for the Lord. 

 

 

2nd Sunday of Year A 2023

 

2^nd. Sunday of Year (A)

(Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6;  1^st. Corinthians 1:1-3;  John 1: 29-34

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Our readings for today, dear People of God,  are presented as a kind of spiritual sandwich! The first reading and the Gospel – the bread and substance of the sandwich, so to speak -- give us wonderful pictures of the Messiah as promised to Israel through the great prophet Isaiah; and then as offered to Israel before being given to the Church as the Word of God, become flesh as Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary of Nazareth, and prospective Saviour of mankind.

The first reading told us:

The Lord said to Me: You are My servant, Israel (the Messiah pictured as the perfection of Israel, the People of God), through whom I show My glory. The Lord has spoken Who formed me as His servant from the womb … and I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength.  It is too little, the Lord says, for you to be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel, I will make you a light to the nations, that My Salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

And in the Gospel we heard:

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and said: “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.  I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon Him,iH

          … He is the Son of God.

There we are told of the glory of Jesus and of His work as messianic Saviour of the whole world.

Next, in between those two texts, the meat, as it were sandwiched for our spiritual feeding today, where we are told how Jesus, as Perfect Man-for-our-admiration-and-imitation, lived so as to become our Saviour from sin:

Here am I, Lord; I come to do Your will.  I waited for the Lord, and He put a new song into My mouth, a hymn to our God.  To do Your will, O My God , is My delight, and Your law is written within My heart.  I announced Your justice to the great assembly.

And then St. Paul himself – adding as a perfect condiment just for today -- specified that example for our imitation:

            You who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus (are) called to be holy.

Dear People of God, the meaning and significance of human creation as a whole, and of our individual life-purpose therein, is a divine and most wonderful mystery and yet, we must recognize that God’s supreme desire when sending His very own Son to be for us the Word-made-Flesh,  was that:

            His salvation may reach the ends of the earth and take away the sins of the                 world;

and therefore, though our own individual life-purpose is mysterious – that is, holy, not blatant --  God’s salvation is nevertheless meant to reach the ends of the earth, mankind as a whole, and therefore must be both understandable, desirable and achievable, for those called.  

Humankind – alone of all creation -- was made in the likeness of God for communion with God, and because God is all Holy and True, therefore, our communion with Him must express P/personal love and enable us to share, somehow, in His eternal life.  The sins of the world, OUR SINS, must be taken away, ultimately by the Blood of the Lamb.  Holiness is the very essence of God’s being and that is why Saint Paul told his converts:

            You who have been sanctified in Christ, (are) called to be holy,

That is, God’s concern is both for the truth and integrity of present our being here on earth and for the spiritual beauty and personal fulfilment we find in heaven.

Now, all this may well, and indeed should, lead us His People to recognize that we can only come to know God’s will and follow His grace more closely by imitating more closely the examples of John and Our Lord Jesus Himself by trying to listen, pray, and reverently wait -- perhaps for even a considerable time – upon God’s great goodness before we can, humbly receive God’s blessing and enlightenment, by His Spirit, and through His Church. 

Therefore, we can’t merely seek information from the Scriptures, or admire mere logical arguments in Mother Church’s dogmatic teaching.  The historical, physical, actual, Jesus, was actually seen by John the Baptist -- but that wasn’t enough for him to recognize and believe in Him as  Saviour; for that he needed a special light, an elevating grace, from God.  And we, in our turn today, need a similar special light and grace that we might recognize, appreciate, and respond to God’s Personal love for us -- you and me individually -- in Mother Church’s Scriptures, and that we might partake fully of the divine-life-for-human-living bestowed in total profusion in her Eucharist. for this we need to have the example of our very own spiritual mother, who so sublimely appreciated Him she called ‘the Almighty’:

            The Almighty has done marvels for me, for HOLY IS HIS NAME.

Let me now, to close, draw up some of the characteristics of a Catholic Christian as learnt from today’s Gospel.

A Catholic Christian seeks peace so as to be able to listen:

first of all, to his own being which will tell him that nothing in this world can fully satisfy him;

secondly, to God, in order to find hope, meaning, purpose, and fulfilment for  his life as an individual human-being become a child of God.

A Catholic Christian is, has to be, fundamentally humble, because he knows and fully accepts that he cannot even seek salvation, let alone embrace it in Jesus, without the Gift  of the Spirit and the mercy of our heavenly Father.  No one must ever think that holiness can be got on the cheap by saying a few prayers or giving to some charity occasionally.  Holiness has to become part of our life as lived faithfully, in the community of the faithful, Catholic and Christian, before God, not before men.  And yet, God knows our weakness both spiritual (pride) and physical (lust), and therefore He looks for loving obedience, sincerity of mind and heart, and perseverance through plentiful and lean times.  Failings He is always willing and ready to forgive, but hypocrites and liars, the vengeful, and all despisers of others He hates.  

 

  

The Baptism of the Lord Year A 2023

 

 The Baptism of the Lord (A)

(Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts of the Apostles 10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17)

 

Our readings today began with God saying through the prophet Isaiah:

Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Chosen One in whom My soul delights!

Those words were echoed in our reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew, where the voice of the heavenly Father was heard to proclaim:

            This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.

There can, therefore, be no doubt about the focal point of our celebration today: we must look afresh at, and learn to appreciate more, Jesus our Saviour, God’s chosen Servant in Whom His soul delights, the Father's beloved sent-among-us-Son. 

Notice first of all, that whereas John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to some of his disciples by telling them of the mission Jesus would fulfil (John 1:29):

Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world;

at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, however, the Father does not reveal Jesus to us by saying "this is your Saviour" or any other such words indicating what Jesus was going to do for us; far from that, and infinitely more than that, He proclaims the very Person of Jesus, and, in doing so, reveals His own Personal Self, with the words: 

            This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased!

With that proclamation the Father gives us a glimpse of the very essence of Divine Life and Beatitude in which the Father and Son are eternally One in the Holy Spirit of Love; and, by manifesting His Own sheer delight in His Son made flesh, He thereby invites us also to delight in Jesus to our utmost; not simply because of what He does on our behalf, but because of Who He is, among us: not simply appraisal, but appreciation.

Since -- in the process of canonization -- it has to be shown that candidates had practiced Christian virtues to a heroic degree, it might easily be thought that holiness consists in, is characterized by, the practice of virtues.  Such ‘holiness’, such ‘virtuosity’ so to speak, can be, however, very Pharisaic in character:  the Spirit alone can lead us along the way of, Jesus.  The spiritual life built on ‘virtuosity’, on the other hand, is dis-figured by an over-reliance on human appreciations, cogitations and endeavours, thereby projecting and promoting an impersonal, perhaps even inhumane, picture of the Christian life, so much in contrast with the life of Personal love-for-His-Father  practiced by Jesus in His earthly ministry.

In truth, Christian holiness cannot be characterized by anything other than a delighting in God, above all, and in all.  The avoidance of evil and the practice of virtues should flow freely and unconstrainedly from that transforming and transcending love, as the ‘unconscious’ fruit of a P/personal relationship which fills one’s life.

First of all, therefore, we must want, seek, and pray to appreciate the Person of Jesus shown us, given to us for us, by the Father; and then, in Jesus and by the power of His Spirit, we should try to recognize, appreciate, and respond to, the Father Himself, so that we begin to share in Jesus' own love for the Father.  Only in that way can we fulfil our calling to become disciples of Jesus, and in Him, true children of the Father, by the Spirit. 

In our endeavour to appreciate Jesus, therefore, let us turn back our attention to the prophet Isaiah who told us, in the first reading, about the Servant:

Behold! My Servant Whom I uphold, My Chosen One in Whom My soul delights!  I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

And then let us recall what Peter told us in the second reading:

You know how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

Both passages clearly relate to St. Matthew’s account in today’s Gospel reading of Jesus' experience on the occasion of His baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist:

When Jesus had been baptized, just as He came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him.

Now, John had not wanted to baptize Jesus, as you heard:

John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?"

Jesus, however, insisted; He had come to do His Father's will  -- that is, "all righteousness" -- which meant that His life could not be lived in accordance with merely human standards, nor could it be thought subject to human judgements, not even those of one so holy as John the Baptist:

Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness." 

Isaiah had foretold what mission the Father had in mind for Jesus:

            He will bring forth justice to the Nations.

Few words, indeed, but full of meaning, because the prophet’s "justice" means God's truth and love, God’s own righteousness, to be fulfilled in us and in our lives.

Moreover, the prophet foretold how the Servant would go about His work, and so, indirectly, gave us some idea about what sort of person the Servant would prove to be:

He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. 

He will not, Isaiah says, take advantage of simple people by bombast, nor indulge in any haranguing of emotional crowds; He will proclaim His message of justice and truth calmly, and with full respect for His hearers.

Isaiah went on to show us another engaging aspect of God's Chosen Servant, when he said:

A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.

And so, though anointed with the Spirit and with power, Jesus would be characterized, the prophet said, by gentleness and respect; and this St. Peter confirmed in our second reading when he said:

He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Nevertheless, since Jesus had been given the mission to bring forth true justice on earth, He would inevitably meet with opposition in a sinful world, and this prospect led Isaiah to give another characteristic of the Chosen Servant and Beloved Son:

He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth.

And so, though -- in His gentleness and respect -- neither breaking what was bruised nor extinguishing what might still dimly glow, the Servant’s anointing with the Spirit and with power will not allow Him to be either disheartened or crushed by His painful experience of life in a sinful world.  He will face trials similar to those we now encounter in our daily lives, and indeed others far greater and more testing than any we will ever know, but He will live through them as the Servant obedient in all things to the Lord, as the Son, in all things loving, and witnessing to, His Father.  In that way Jesus will be like us, one with us and able to understand us; and yet, for all that, He will be unique, the only One to faithfully bring forth justice and fulfil all righteousness, the One Who will neither fail nor falter in His mission:

            ‘till He has established justice in the earth.

And that, People of God, means that Jesus will never give up in His endeavours to enable us to recognize and appreciate the Father's goodness and love, and to raise us up -- by His Spirit -- to become more worthy children of such a Father.

Today there are many who try to proclaim the love of Jesus us by telling us how much He empathizes with us in our sufferings because He too has suffered; how His whole longing and aim is to bring us comfort and release, joy, peace and love, now.  And they leave it at that, being unwilling or afraid to speak of any further suffering to be borne or efforts to be made by those who want to belong to God.   And that is a travesty of the full truth: a travesty which, though pleasing to hear, is deadly in its effects, for it is a half-truth that would leave us no longer looking up to heaven but resting here on earth. 

The true Jesus, the Scriptures tell us:

Will not fail nor be discouraged ‘till He has established justice in the earth

that is, true justice in the hearts and minds, the lives and loves of you and me, and all others like us throughout the whole world who will listen to His Good News and gradually learn to fight the good fight here on earth while hoping for, and aspiring to, a new, eternal, home being prepared for us in heaven.

People of God, we are not always ready, perhaps not even always willing, to lift our eyes to heaven, because the devil both abuses our weakness and hides our ignorance so that we do not know our own needs, nor do we want to see our own failings.  But Isaiah tells us clearly in the name of the Lord:

I will appoint You (My Servant) as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.

Though we are all blind and prisoners to a greater or lesser degree, let us not -- through pride – reject, or fearfully turn away from, God's gift of a Saviour, because He intends to free us from our sins and the suffering they involve, and to enlighten our ignorance by drawing us, as the prophet Hosea said:

            With gentle cords, with bands of love. (Hosea 11:4);

or, as Jeremiah (31:3-4) told us in even more striking words:

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have drawn you with lovingkindness.  Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt.

Therefore, People of God, let us resolve this very day to allow God to rebuild our lives as He seeks to draw us in the Spirit -- with bands of love -- to Jesus; in and from Whom we can learn to appreciate, and to love more and more, the Father revealing Himself to us along with Jesus, as the Gospel proclaimed:

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as He came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him.  And a voice from heaven said, "This is My Son, the Beloved, with Whom I am well pleased."