Sunday, January 27, 2019

Jan 27 - 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time


+ Our first reading today encourages us to listen to the Law of the Lord not in a negative sense – not as a series of restrictions and binding regulations – but rather as a generous boundary given by the God who orders all things for our welfare, for our benefit and for our good: he knows how everything is supposed to work and interact, he is after all Creator and Designer and Sustainer!



All of the men, women and children who thus heard the Book of the Law were invited then to have a great feast of rich foods and sweet drinks – for “that day was holy to the Lord” – and it was from that time onward to be a day of rejoicing which would be the strength of the people.



In our own day, we come on the Lord’s Day, in a sense, to hear the words of God at Mass in the readings and the homily – which could be also described as his law, his dictates and mandates – but we must take them for what they are – inspired words of encouragement, guidance and love. Only God knows the way to where he is, and so it would behoove us to listen to and follow the words and ways of the One sent to us to show us that way: especially as he is God’s-own-words-here-now-in-human-flesh



In the gospel passage then we see Jesus announcing quite matter-of-factly that he was indeed the Anointed One of God sent to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. TODAY THIS SCRIPTURE PASSAGE IS FULFILLED IN YOUR HEARING! This was an astounding statement for Jesus to make: no one would ever have dared (in a million years) to say such a thing: but Jesus quite frankly reported: IT’S ME!



How fortunate they were to hear this, how fortunate for us too! For we are incorporated into his very Body the Church by the Holy Spirit who vitalizes every part of the Church so that our salvation can be made available to us as we need it! And so: “It’s him, for us too!”



As Jesus has been anointed to proclaim the Gospel and work great deeds, so have others been appointed and anointed in the same way: the bishops and priests carry on his work and the poor have glad tidings brought to them through parish ministries and programs, captives of all kinds of forces both internal and external are freed because of the spiritual power of bishops and priests, the spiritually and intellectually blind are able to see things as God intends by an awakening of faith, and many of the physically and psychologically oppressed are set free, again by programs set in place that have the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through them – which is none other than GRACE! sanctifying and actual.



Jesus came to save the world, not politically, but deeper than that - SPIRITUALLY: it is the least that any of us can do to let ourselves be saved, let us cooperate in our own redemption and help in the renewal and resurrection of all those around us!



Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; let us, as your emissaries, Lord, speak those words to all we meet today!

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