In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that history has changed with his Incarnation and birth. The things hoped for and prophesied were starting to come true. Today Jesus is addressing the people of his home town. We can overlook how incredible it is that God has a home town at all outside of Heaven. However, he doesn’t try profiting from the home advantage: when he comments on the passage\u00a0from Isaiah he’d just read, he tells them God’s promises are coming true, and that’s why he’s there: to usher in a new relationship and union with God and an\u00a0end to\u00a0evil.<\/p>\n
The list of wonders he recalls today don’t just stand on their own. It is Christ who brings us joy, whether we’re spiritually or materially poor. It is Christ who frees us from the evils in which we incarcerate ourselves through our sins.\u00a0It is Christ\u00a0who helps us to see when things are dark and uncertain. Lastly, it is he who frees us from the dominion of evil. He doesn’t just do the miracle and go home; he remains a part of our lives and, therefore, nothing can remain\u00a0the same.<\/p>\n
The Christmas season is still with us for a few days. Ask Our Lord to help you to see, to fill you with joy, and to free you from whatever separates you from him. Make this a year acceptable to the Lord.<\/p>\n
Readings:\u00a01 John 4:19\u20135:4;\u00a0Psalm 72:1\u20132, 14, 15bc, 17;\u00a0Luke 4:14\u201322.<\/em> See also\u00a014th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a022nd Week in Ordinary Time, Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that history has changed with his Incarnation and birth. The things hoped for and prophesied were starting to come true. Today Jesus is addressing the people of his home town. We can overlook how incredible it is that God has a home town at all outside of Heaven. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[144,132,10],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-after-epiphany","tag-christmas","tag-thursday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-gi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1011,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}