IV Sunday of the Year

LOVE MAKES IT A HOME

Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 or 13:4-13; Luke 4:21-30

Readings for the IV Sunday of the Year

“Love is made up of three unconditional properties in equal measure: acceptance; understanding; and appreciation. Remove any one of the three and the triangle falls apart. Which, by the way, is something highly inadvisable. Think about it – do you really want to live in a world of only two dimensions? So, for the love of a triangle, please keep love whole” (Vera Nazarian, “The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration”).

Often in relationships and families, “the triangle falls apart”! We fail to understand, appreciate, and accept the other as he/she is.

Jesus experienced this when he returned home to Nazareth. 

Jesus left Nazareth after 30 quiet years as a carpenter. After his baptism, life changed: he received a prophetic anointing and began ministering to people. Then he returned home and, in the synagogue on the Sabbath, pointed to himself as the fulfilment of the text from Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me…”

And the people’s reaction? Their first reaction is appreciation and astonishment, but then they remember his identity. They do not allow his wisdom to interfere with their memories of him. He may be the anointed one, may preach and teach, may perform miracles, but for them he is still the carpenter.

Perhaps his people had a vested interest in focusing on the past: it’s better having a carpenter than a prophet; it’s easier getting broken chairs fixed than being challenged to fix broken lives. They refuse to accept him, refuse to accept that he has changed.

Home is the place where I am accepted in love for who I am, and am encouraged to become the person I could be. 

Are our homes such places? Are our homes places where parents allow their children to grow and become what they could and want to become; where children accept their parents as they are with their “old fashioned, outdated” ideas? Or are they places where we allow memories to block our relationships?

St Paul gives a description of what love is in his hymn to the Corinthians. Love has a tough program… it accepts all. Easy to say; exceedingly difficult to do! And so, we pray that our houses be homes where we experience understanding, appreciation, and acceptance.

III Sunday of the Year

THE MESSIANIC MISSION:
BRINGING GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR

Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Readings for the III Sunday of the Year

A Franciscan was assigned to be guide to Mother Teresa on her visit to Australia. Thrilled at the prospect of being close to this great woman, he dreamed of how much he would learn from her. Although he was constantly near her, he never managed to say one word to mother Teresa.

Tour over, she was to fly to New Guinea. In desperation, the friar told her: “If I pay my own fare, can I sit next to you on the plane so I can talk to you and learn from you?” Mother Teresa asked: “You have enough money to pay airfare to New Guinea?”

“Yes,” he replied eagerly. She said: “Then give that money to the poor. You’ll learn more from that than anything I can tell you.”

 

Mother Teresa understood that Jesus’ ministry was to the poor. This is the thrust of today’s gospel.

The Gospel describes the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry with his inaugural sermon in his hometown. He entered the synagogue, stood up to read, unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and found the passage about the “anointed one”. He was searching for this passage! He read two verses (Isaiah 61:1-2) and delivered probably the shortest homily in history: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”! 

With this loaded one-liner, Jesus announces his mission. He is the “anointed one” whom God has sent to bring good news to the poor. The second verse makes explicit this content of this good news: to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Right through his gospel, Luke will present Jesus bringing the good news to the poor. Several events/parables found only in Luke’s gospel—restoring to life the son of the widow of Naim, forgiving the “sinful woman” in Simon the Pharisee’s house, healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath, the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, the cure of the lepers, the encounter with Zacchaeus—are instances of this mission.

 

Jesus’ mission is our mission as individuals and as a community. Through baptism and confirmation, the spirit of the Lord is upon us. We, too, are called and sent to proclaim the good news to the poor… using the many gifts that God has given us as individuals and as a church as St Paul describes in the second reading.

How will I proclaim the good news to the (materially, spiritually, emotionally…) poor and broken-hearted today? In what way can I free the captives? When will I be able to say: “this scripture is fulfilled”?

II Sunday of the Year

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11

Readings for the II Sunday of the Year

“The Future is Now” was a 1955 short film that went inside government research laboratories to showcase products that would be used in the proximate future: computerized assembly lines, nuclear- and solar-powered batteries, industrial uses for television, video telephones, gadgets for instant home movies, irradiated food, fully automated kitchens… Products used in the future?! Well, the future is now (and has been for decades already)!

 

That title could well apply to the readings of the day!

The first reading was written after the exiles’ return from Babylon. The hopes with which they had returned home were dashed by the massive task before them: the physical rebuilding of Jerusalem and the spiritual renewal of the people. 

But Isaiah looks beyond the present to the end-time, when Israel will be “a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord.” He announces that day as a wedding with God as the bridegroom and Israel as the bride.

In the gospel, by making the turning of water into wine at Cana the first of Jesus’ signs, John announces that the future has arrived. Three indicators!

Jesus worked the sign in the context of a wedding. In the bible, weddings symbolise the era of salvation (Isaiah 54:4-8, 62:4-5; Matthew 8:11, 22:1-14; Luke 22:16-18). 

Jesus gave an abundance (120 gallons!) of choice wine. The Old Testament describes the end-time as an era when there is an abundance of wine (Amos 9:13-14; Hosea 14:7; Jeremiah 31:12). Thus, the sign signifies that the era of salvation has arrived; the future is now!

Jesus changed the water meant for purification rites into wine. He transformed jugs, unwieldy symbols of the old way, into wineskins, harbingers of the new. The time for ritual cleansing has passed, the time for celebration has begun; the future is now!

 

But wait! If the future is now, if the era of celebration and rejoicing is here, why is there so much suffering and sadness? Why is there so much despair?

Perhaps, we do not allow the Lord to enter our lives. The Wedding of Cana portrays the outcome of the combination of human and divine activity. Human beings can fill water jars; only God turns water into wine. Human beings do the ordinary and commonplace activity; God brings it to life. God transforms whatever and whomever he touches. 

We need to bring God into our lives. We need to “do whatever he tells” us. Then, for us, too, the future will be now!

The Baptism of the Lord

EXPERIENCING UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

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

Readings for the Baptism of the Lord

Martin Copenhaver, in Whispered in Your Ear, writes: I don’t remember the first time I walked, but it was probably something like this: I stood with my mother; my father was three steps away. I set out, wobbling and stumbling, but made it from one set of arms to the other… on my own. Then perhaps my father lifted me high in the air with great joy as if I were the first in human history to walk! After numerous hugs and exclamations, I must have felt like the most loved, greatest boy in all the world.

After some time, I could walk with more assurance and grace… but I didn’t receive much praise. In fact, I can’t remember the last time someone praised me for walking across a room. So I had to do other things… to get back to that feeling: of being valued, of being picked up with delight, of being affirmed and loved. 

So it goes through life. We don’t have many experiences of unconditional love, and so we try to create conditions which will make people love us. We forget an all-important fact: if people love us for our achievements, it is not love! 

On the feast of the Baptism of the Lord we celebrate the unconditional love of the Father of his beloved Son.  The readings of today affirm this. 

The Gospel ends with the words: “You are my Beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Since it comes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, this affirmation is not because of his achievements. The Father says: “I love you.” Period! Total, unconditional love! 

The first reading is the first servant song in Isaiah. God calls, forms and commissions his servant for a specific mission. The emphasis is not on the mission but on God’s love for his chosen.

The Father, who loved and affirmed his Son totally and unconditionally at his baptism, does the same for us, his beloved children at our baptism. God values you and me, not because of our achievements but because we are his beloved. All that you and I must do is to listen to him affirm us!

But human as we are, we need to hear this declaration of love often (Jesus needed to hear that affirmation again at the Transfiguration). So, you and I need to love and affirm one another. This is a concrete way of living out our baptism – by sharing and communicating our experience of God’s love for us.

Am I aware that I am a beloved son/daughter of God? Have I experienced his love for me in a concrete and tangible way? And do I share that experience with others so that they, too, may experience the Father’s love for them?

The Epiphany of the Lord

A SURPRISING ENCOUNTER

Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Readings for the Epiphany of the Lord

A religious sister, travelling from Chennai to Guwahati, got off at Kolkata. Exhausted after the long journey, she fainted. When she revived, she found herself lying on a bench. Her luggage was by her side. So was a porter, wiping her forehead with a damp cloth. He brought her a cup of tea and some biscuits, and waited till she had recovered. She thanked him and gave him some money; he brushed it aside, saying: “Sister, it is nothing. You would’ve done the same for me.” She had tears in her eyes because she knew that wasn’t true; and because she had encountered God in an unexpected place and person. A surprising encounter!

Today we celebrate a surprising encounter between Christ and the magi. This encounter involved two moments: God’s initiative and human response. 

The magi’s coming to Bethlehem was a response to God’s initiative. It is not we who search for God, but God who searches for us and manifests himself to us; he draws us to an encounter with him. God makes use of the most surprising ways to draw us to him! He drew the magi to himself by a star. It was something they understood, something that was part of their culture and religion, and therefore, part of their lives. This is what he does… uses parts of our lives to draw us to him. 

Today’s Gospel presents three responses: Herod’s fear and hostility; the total indifference of the chief priests and the scribes; the adoring worship of the magi.

We can get so used to this story that we underestimate the faith of the magi. We take for granted that they saw what they were looking for. What did they see: A palace? Visible signs of power? They saw just “a child with his mother.” And they adored; no questions asked. The result: they were filled with great joy. Matthew is emphatic: “They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.”

God uses surprising, unlooked-for ways to draw us to himself: a star, a motley group of fishermen, the seemingly insignificant bread and wine…  

How does he come to me today? Am I open to his surprising ways? Or am I so sure of the way God comes that I fail to recognize him when he comes in unexpected ways? 

We need to discern the stars in our lives. Then like the magi, we can “rejoice exceedingly with great joy.”