Ordinary Time

1st Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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In today’s Gospel the crowds see something different in this young rabbi from Nazareth just starting his teaching. Why do his words have a weight to them that they didn’t find in their scribes? They bear the weight of truth. Something resonates in us when we hear the truth, and for the crowds in today’s Gospel they know Our Lord’s teaching rings true: it speaks to something in their hearts, be it a call to conversion or a confirmation of the upright life they’re trying to lead. We need the truth, and Our Lord is the truth in Person.

Society today focuses a lot on opinion, but often doesn’t go very deep. In today’s First Reading the priest Eli misjudges Hannah pouring our her heart to the Lord for drunkenness, and judges her accordingly. Eli soon found he was wrong, but if he hadn’t spoken up he would have never found out or joined his prayers to Hannah’s. Today many people don’t want to speak out at all for fear of being labelled as judgmental, but also, at times, out of a mistaken idea that two apparently irreconcilable beliefs can be true: everyone’s got their “truth” and nobody should question it. This attitude loses sight of the fact that there is a truth to everything, and we’re all seeking to understand it and embrace it in our lives. The Gospel brought to us by Our Lord brings that truth to us. It helps us cut through opinions that may veil untruths.

The Gospel today has been preached for millennia, but it’s the truth that sets us free. Let’s listen to Our Lord with renewed attention today through his Word, confident that it is the truth, and not be shy about helping others learn the truth as well.

Readings: 1 Samuel 1:9–20; 1 Samuel 2:1, 4–8d; Mark 1:21–28. See also 22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday.

1st Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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In today’s Gospel we see that just as Our Lord continues to preach the message he entrusted to John the Baptist, so he begins to call the apostles who would learn it and transmit it to future generations. The readings remind today today that we all have a calling, and if we follow it we can achieve true fulfillment in life by working with Our Lord to help others receive the Gospel and be saved. Hannah in the First Reading is sad because she feels her calling to motherhood, but seems unable to achieve it. She loves her husband, but she knows a call to marriage is also a call to motherhood. Mothers are the first teachers of faith and love to their children.

When we sense a calling it strikes a chord in us, but as a vocation, not just for priests and consecrated persons, but for everyone, we know it not only appeals to our likes, but challenges us as well. If we feel challenged it is a sign that it comes from beyond us even though it seems it might suit us if we embrace it. John the Baptist knew prophets were also destined for martyrdom, but he didn’t shy away from his calling. Our Lord invites us to follow him in some way, and we are free to decline, but we’ll always see it as a missed opportunity if we do. Our Lord works with us to plan our lives and we should always be open to his input.

Ask Our Lord today to help you see the life you should lead. You won’t regret it.

Readings: 1 Samuel 1:1–8; Psalm 116:12–19; Mark 1:14–20.

The Baptism of the Lord, Cycle C (1st Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Today we celebrate the end of the Christmas season, and that may make you ask yourself why we would celebrate it, especially when Christmas “ended” two weeks ago. In today’s readings God himself celebrates what is taking place in the Gospel: the Baptism of his Son in the river Jordan by St. John the Baptist. In today’s First Reading God speaks of Jesus as his servant who is about to begin something wonderful: his public life. He’s going to bring justice to the world, be a light for the nations, open the eyes of the blind, and free prisoners, and God is keeping his promise through Jesus’ mission on earth. In short, God is sending out the Savior today to get to work. During Christmas we celebrated the birth of the Savior. On today’s feast, the Baptism of the Lord, we’re celebrating him finishing his silent years in Nazareth and going out to preach salvation to the world.

In today’s Second Reading Peter rejoices that salvation is not just for the people of Israel, but for everyone who respects God and acts uprightly. When Jesus is baptized in the Jordan he institutes a new kind of baptism. John talks about that baptism in the Gospel today as different from his: it is a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Peter in the Second Reading is speaking to Cornelius, who was the first non-Jew to be baptized in Church history. The Jews thought originally that the Savior would only come for the Jews, but then the Holy Spirit revealed to Peter and the Church through Cornelius’ situation that the Savior was coming for every nation that “fears God” (respects God) and “acts uprightly” (acts in a good way).

The Holy Spirit always works gradually. Cornelius had heard about Jesus and his promise of salvation, and had been praying for a sign. Peter was praying too, and they didn’t know each other at all. An angel came to Cornelius and told him to send men to find and bring Peter. Cornelius was a Roman centurion, and since he wasn’t a Jew, Peter wouldn’t have visited him unless the Holy Spirit had said it was okay in a dream, because Jews didn’t enter the homes of non-Jews. As Peter rejoices that the Savior has come for everyone, he recalls Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan as the beginning of doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil. So we celebrate today with God, with Peter, with Cornelius, and with everyone who has become Christian since. We celebrate that Jesus began to go out and do good, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and free those who are imprisoned by sin.

As we begin a new year, and the Christmas season concludes, Jesus’ private and public life show us it is time for us to get to work as well. In the Christmas season we’ve spent more time at home, resting, being with family and friends, receiving so many gifts, and getting ready to live the New Year better. It’s not a time for gloom and doom as we return to work, to school, to the daily grind: it’s time to show Our Lord we appreciate all he’s given us over the last year, and all he’s given us during the Christmas season. It’s time for us to get to work and get the word out about salvation. Cornelius heard about salvation from someone, long before he met St. Peter, and there are lots of Cornelius’ out there who are looking for what our faith has to offer. They are hungry for God.

Let’s thank Our Lord for the Christmas Season and the New Year that has just begun, keep moving forward on those New Year’s resolutions as a way to show gratitude to Our Lord for all the blessings he has poured out on us, pray for those who are suffering from hunger and war, and pray for all those Cornelius’ out there to find and love God, to do good, and to find salvation.

Readings: Isaiah 42:1–4, 6–7; Psalm 104:1b–4, 24–25, 27–30; Acts 10:34–38; Luke 3:15–16, 21–22.

34th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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The end (of the liturgical year) is upon us, and in today’s Gospel Our Lord encourages us to keep the big picture in mind. It is salutary to ask ourselves once in a while if what we are doing or worrying about right now would matter if the world were to end today. That question is salutary not only for party animals concentrating on a prolonged escape from life and its responsibilities by leaping from thrill to thrill, but also people who bury themselves in their work and their immediate pressing concerns, hoping that down in that foxhole nothing that explodes in life will affect them. Experience shows that reality can get up close and personal at times, and blow up in our faces no matter how much we ignore it or put it far down on our to-do list.

In these last few weeks we’ve considered Our Lord’s invitation to persevere in trials, to hope in the face of evil, to be realistic in acknowledging that challenges will come, to be vigilant, and to have courage in facing and overcoming challenges. It will be a long haul, not easy, and full of lights and shadows, but it’ll be worth it.

Welcome to life on earth. Keep the big picture in mind and you’ll know that good will triumph and that you’re not alone: your fellow believers will support you, and Our Lord himself.

Readings: Daniel 7:15–27; Daniel 3:82–87; Luke 21:34–36.

34th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord invites the disciples to read the signs of the seasons, not just the signs of the times, to know that the Kingdom of God is near. In describing the signs of summer drawing near he is directing our attention to spring: a period after a long season of cold and apparent death followed by new life starting to bloom. In this contrast between spring and summer Our Lord is teaching us about one of the characteristics of the end times, described by some theologians as “now and not yet.”

The Kingdom of God is established “now”: it was near, and those who believed in Jesus and his preaching became the first signs in the world of that Kingdom, and he entrusted his disciples with the mission of continuing to announce that it was near. All disciples of Jesus are signs and members of the Kingdom of God. The springtime of new life starting to bloom has come with our baptism and Christian life. Saint John Paul II expressed the desire that the third millennium be a “new springtime” for Christianity. The time of the Church, until Our Lord’s return in glory, is that springtime.

At the same time, the Kingdom of God is “not yet” complete. It cannot be until every person throughout history has had an opportunity to welcome it or reject it, and that won’t happen until the end of time. The Kingdom of God is “not yet” a complete conquest and exile of all the evil influences in the world; that will come at the end of time with the Last Judgment. The Kingdom is “now” and “not yet”: let’s live our faith as a spring with an eager anticipation of the beautiful summer to come for those who welcome it.

Readings: Daniel 7:2–14; Daniel 3:75–81; Luke 21:29–33.