Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica III per Annum B
21 January 2024

 In the selection from St. John’s Gospel last Sunday we heard about two of John the Baptist’s disciples, Andrew and an unnamed disciple, and later Simon Peter, who encounter Jesus and begin following him.  You might wonder whether today’s Gospel selection is the same scene, just St. Marks’ version and, if so, you might wonder why would we hear again about the calling of some of those same disciples?  Is it the same calling or not?  And how might we understand the immediate and sudden way in which the selection today tells us those disciples dropped everything to follow the Lord?

Last week’s account and this Sunday’s account are actually two different chronological events.  We know this because last week John the Baptist himself was in the passage, pointing his own disciples to the Lord.  “Behold, the Lamb of God”, he said to his two disciples.  Today we hear of a different moment from St. Mark, for he places it in a different chronological moment.  He writes that the calling we hear about today took place “after John had been arrested.”

We know that John the Baptist himself was a rather serious and dedicated man of God, living in the desert, preaching, leading a disciplined and penitential life, and calling God’s people to repent.  If these same disciples we hear about today were first John’s own disciples, it is reasonable to conclude that they too were rather dedicated, well-formed, and righteous men of God.  While the Scriptures do not give us all the details, we might conclude that after John the Baptist’s ministry ended due to his arrest and eventual death, perhaps those disciples returned to their former homes and way of life and work.  This puts them in Galilee, where they are fishermen in the episode we hear today, and where Jesus now comes to call them himself.  So, if you get the idea from today’s passage that Jesus simply shows up unknown and says “follow me”, and they drop everything to do so… you need not think that.  It is clear these disciples had encountered the Lord before, they had spoken to him, and they had stayed with him some (as John’s selection last week told us).

Jesus’ message that the time of fulfillment and the kingdom of God is at hand resonates with these serious disciples of John the Baptist.  His claim to make them “fishers of men” resonates too.  All of this helps us understand their readiness to immediately follow the Lord.  The term “fishers of men” has a ring to it of a prophecy from Jeremiah 16.  In that text, the prophet speaks of a time when people will no longer speak of how God brought his people out of Egypt in the exodus, but rather how he brought them back from exile, sort of a new exodus, to their promised land.  Jeremiah says that God will send many fishers to gather his people and to bring them back.  This prophecy can serve to signal that some new activity of God, some new movement of His people, would be celebrated.  Something like a new exodus.  It can serve to signal some type of new exodus, a new gathering of God’s people.  When you consider that John the Baptist himself was preparing the way for something new, and pointing to Jesus, and that John was conducting his ministry most powerfully at the Jordan River, where the first exodus ended, we might then understand the immediate attraction and response of John’s own disciples when Jesus shows up, says the kingdom is at hand, and calls them to be fishers of men.  They had been expecting something new, a new exodus, and in Jesus they see it is happening.  And they want to respond immediately.

Do you ever compare yourself to today’s Gospel selection, and that seemingly immediate response of the disciples, and wonder whether you would be willing to follow the Lord so definitely, so conclusively?  I suggest we note that these disciples encountered Jesus initially, and then some time later there was progression and maturation such that they were ready to follow him and commit to him.  In other words, notice that our life as disciples, too, is not about just a one-time encounter.  Our life too is supposed to progress and mature.  The first encounter matters, but so does the next encounter, and the next… all the moments of progression and life with the Lord.  What this can tell us is that any tendency to view life as a disciple as about just one moment, is dismissing the importance of progression and may be a flawed approach.  To put this in a catholic context, if we were to think that my life with the Lord is just about my baptism or just about other isolated moments where I come to get a sacrament (as critically important as those are) and not about progression and maturation in gospel living, then we are mistaken.  If we were to think that I turn on “Jesus time” by coming to Mass once a week and that does it, we are missing all the things that should be happening daily to mark our maturation as disciples.  No, the story of our life as disciples is not the mistaken view of today’s passage that Jesus showed up unannounced and unknown, said “follow me”, and they dropped everything and did so.  Rather, there was first desire on their part to be godly.  There was initial conversion with John the Baptist.  There was relationship with other disciples by which they were pointed to Jesus and had an initial encounter with him.  There was maturation and progression in faith such that they responded so conclusively in the passage we hear today.  And, as we know, there is a whole lot more to the story because those same disciples had to learn from the Master, and there were many more mistakes and repentance that would mark the journey that leads us to now view those apostles as such revered saints.

If you evaluate yourself against the response of the disciples in today’s passage, thinking their response to be this kind of out of nowhere response and think your response may be lacking, then perhaps we can look back to last Sunday’s passage from John for a few pointers.  Do you want to respond more fully to the Lord?  Then let’s take some cues from what happened in the initial encounter with the Lord that we heard about last Sunday.  Like John’s disciples heard, at every Mass we have pointed out to us the presence of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God.”  After hearing that, are you willing to imagine the Lord asking you (like last week’s Gospel), “What are you looking for?”  Are you willing to dwell on that and respond to the Lord?  What are you looking for in life?  What is important to you?  What are your goals?  What do your daily activities reveal are your true priorities?  And do those match up with your stated priorities?  Are your priorities the Lord and being his disciple?  Where do you feel lacking or empty or not satisfied in life?  Do the things you seek after provide lasting peace?

Next pointer, what was the follow up question from the disciples last week?  “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  Our encounter with the Lord is not just one time.  Are you willing to stay with the Lord to come and see?  We worship the Lord here at Mass.  This provides us some crucial moments to stay with the Lord.  We worship him present when the Holy Eucharist is elevated at the altar for those few moments.  Worthy reception of the sacrament is the fullest participation in the Holy Mass.  But what about more than that?  The disciples from last week’s passage went and stayed that day with the Lord.  What are you willing to do to extend your time with the Lord?  What are you willing to do to take time to reveal yourself and your life to the Lord?  What are you willing to do to take time to encounter him and get to know him, not just at Mass, but in your daily living, at home, and among other disciples?  Going to stay with the Lord can happen quite literally in our adoration chapel where we are in the presence of the Lamb of God, his presence in sacramental form.  What a place to pray!  What a place to ask yourself “What am I looking for?”  Going to stay with the Lord can and should happen, too, in our homes, at work and school, in the car, when we travel, in our thoughts, in our efforts at personal prayer time.  Going to stay with the Lord happens too in fellowship with other believers.  We are not islands unto ourselves.  There we come to vocalize our faith, to share it, to be inspired by the faith of others, and to have help in being accountable with other followers of the Lord.

All of this helps aid progression and maturation in the faith.  It follows the pattern we saw from last Sunday’s Gospel selection to this Sunday’s.  I suggest that the fruit of reviewing those questions from last Sunday’s passage, helps set the stage for the unfolding of this Sunday’s passage in our own lives.  Our encounter with the Lord is nourished and matures such that the stage can be set for what we see in today’s passage.  We are prepared for deeper life with the Lord such that when he calls us to follow him in various ways into the new exodus, we are prepared to conclusively commit ourselves to follow him and to leave behind the “nets”, the things that tangle us and so often get placed ahead of life with the Lord.  The Lord’s call is ever new for us too: “The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

The Epiphany of the Lord

Epiphania D.N.I.C.
7 January 2024

             Things aren’t always as they seem.

            The Israelites at the time period of the first reading could have said that.  They’ve been in exile.  Their land and their holy city are in ruins.  They have lost their power.  Yet God’s word through the Prophet Isaiah is of splendor, glory, riches, and wealth.  The words from the first reading said: “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! … the glory of the Lord shines upon you … you shall be radiant at what you see … the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you, the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.”  But their land was in disarray and in ruins.

            Things aren’t always as they seem.

            The Magi – pagan foreigners from the East – came to find a newborn king.  They brought costly gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh into the humble, ordinariness of the home of Joseph and Mary.  Could a mighty king, whose birth even the cosmos celebrates with the Bethlehem star, possibly be in human form, in such a normal, simple setting?

            Things aren’t always as they seem.

            Certainly, part of the lesson of the Christmas season is that through the normal, ordinary events and things of life we are called to see the extraordinary.  Said another way, the ordinary becomes the vehicle to reveal the extraordinary.  Through the natural and human we are to see the divine.  Through natural, sacramental signs – water, bread, wine, oil, words of absolution – we are to see, hear, taste, and touch the power and the presence of Christ.

            I wonder how many times we miss God and His grace because we pass by the ordinary moments of life and faith?  How much grace do we miss because we’re too busy to stop and make time for God’s presence in our midst?

            Shepherds could see the glory of God even through the stench and the sounds of a stable.  Magi could do homage to a king in a humble home and in the form of a weak, tiny baby.  Do we train our eyes to see beyond the way things seem?

            Things aren’t always as they seem.

            Ask yourself what changes you can make in this New Year to notice God’s presence in the ordinary opportunities of daily life.  Engage in that kind of self-reflection not so much to make “New Year’s resolutions”, but to do what we authentically do as Catholics, that is, to do what good catholics do: to repent and to plan for a season of change not far away on Ash Wednesday.  Whatever your age or your state in life, whether you are a child, a teenager, young or older adult, whether you are single or married, ask yourself what changes you can make to train your eyes to see God’s presence in ordinary, humble circumstances.  What change can you make to give time to daily prayer, scripture reading, and time to simply listen to God?  What in your daily schedule can change to give more time and room to God?  Could you alter your schedule some to be able to attend daily Mass at least a bit more frequently?  What in your life needs to change to give more serious attention to repentance and to coming to confession with greater frequency?  Ask yourself what you could change to be able to attend adoration in our chapel or to make your own personal visits to the church to pray before the Lord’s Real Presence in the tabernacle.  That’s perhaps the best example of all of things not being what they seem: our senses see ordinary bread, but it is the real presence of God.  What in your life could change so that you can notice Christ’s presence in those around you in need?  What can you change to offer yourself in service to others in need, to show those in need the compassion, love, and healing of Christ?

            Whether you are young or old and whatever your state in life, what can you change to train your eyes to see God’s presence in ordinary, normal, and humble circumstances of life?  Shepherds could see the glory of God in a stable.  The Magi could see a little baby and give Him homage, prostrating themselves before God-made-man.  What do your eyes need to see beyond the ordinary things of life?  After all, things aren’t always as they seem!

Nativity of the Lord

Nativitas D.N.I.C.
25 December 2023

  At Christmas and throughout the season, we celebrate the feast of the drawing near of God, of God’s coming closer to us.  Even though the most natural and immediate form of human communication is being with another, in his or her presence, sharing time with, and speaking with another, many decades of technological advancements have made the more remote, less personal, type of communication possible.  And not only is that less personal communication possible but, in some cases, dare we admit, more desirable?  Sort of revealing, the lesser angels of our nature.  That we are happy to keep people at a distance.  In addition, to these developments in communication, things have been turned upside down in recent years.  Fear of a global illness caused social distancing and greater space between us, impacting the natural draw and exchange in human relationships.                

But we celebrate the feast of the drawing near of God, of God’s coming closer to us.  In my mind, the meaning of that coming closer is an invitation to put a focus on that most natural way human beings communicate: being personally with another, in the presence of another, sharing time with and speaking directly with another, or just being with another in uncomplicated silence.  Perhaps we moderns, for all of our advantages, can actually suffer a disadvantage precisely due to our advantages.  We can communicate in so many ways and even when such great distances keep us physically apart.  We don’t have to pretend that such possibility isn’t a blessing.  But it can also mislead us.  Because we can communicate so freely and readily, even across great distances, we might be inclined to diminish the meaning of personal communication.  That, in turn, might cause us to miss some of what is at stake in this feast of the great drawing near of God in the flesh.

Though we have many ways to stay connected, there is something different and more natural and fluid about that most immediate communication when personally present with another.  I can recall my excitement years ago as a boy, awaiting the birth of my brother.  For several months I could see that he was near but I couldn’t see him.  I could see the signs in mom’s tummy that someone was there, but there was just enough distance that I couldn’t see him.  There was not much of a barrier between us, just a few inches of flesh, right, but it was enough to prevent that type of more normal personal interaction.  His birth changed all of that.  He had come nearer and that permitted interaction and communication that was entirely new.

Christmas is all about that coming near of God to us in the flesh.  As I think about how physical and personal nearness changes everything, and as I place that in the context of the spiritual life of faith, I see a connection for us to the practice of prayer.  The birth of God in our midst permits an interaction and a communication that is entirely new.  And here is where we moderns perhaps can fall prey to a risk, given all of our impressive means of communication across vast distances.  We miss the natural and immediate value and the necessity of personal time spent with another, such that we might tend to downplay it, preferring the spectacle of communicating across distances.  You can easily see this just about everywhere when you see folks together, in each other’s presence, but everyone’s face is bent down to a phone.  At a restaurant, I sometimes wonder about how we have lost an art of human living, when you see a couple together and each face is lit up by a screen for long periods, such that they rarely interact directly.

  Friends, God has come near to us.  He is Emmanuel, a name which means “God-with-us”.  He has drawn near and by His power as God that personal interaction, and relationship, and communication is possible if we practice it.  And, furthermore, that personal interaction, and relationship, and communication is necessary so that we come close to God in the gift of freedom He has given us.  If we celebrate Christmas, then we should not lose the lesson of developing that intimate, daily, regular encounter with the God who has drawn near to us.  I dare say, a Catholic could do all the group, corporate things we do as a Church, those things we have an obligation to do, but without a personal prayer life, such a person wouldn’t be getting very far in life with God.  In fulfillment of the Lord’s command at the Last Supper, “Do this in memory of me”, and in fulfillment of the divine law in the Ten Commandments to honor God on his day, we have the opportunity and the obligation to be at Mass every Sunday and every holy day.  Yet, I suggest that the catholic could fulfill those obligations yet not reap the full reward of grace if we are not seeking to advance in a daily life of prayer for which we take personal responsibility.  No, we can’t do without the group gathering at Holy Mass; but, even attending Mass, would remain shallow without the personal effort at prayer.  Many a catholic could show up at those times when a new sacrament is offered, only to disappear until the next one is offered.  While God is not cheap in His gift of grace in those sacramental moments, how stilted and undeveloped would those moments be if not for the personal effort to pray and to live that faith beyond just the moments when one “gets” something at Church?

Why would I say this?  Because the meaning of what we celebrate at Christmas is that God, in taking on our flesh and being born in time, has come near to us.  And He has come near so that we can remain near to Him.  There is simply nothing that really adequately replaces the value of being physically and personally with another and to share life.  By His power as God, although the Lord Jesus has fulfilled his physical mission on earth, he can and does remain personally present to us when we work at following the life of regular personal prayer.  Such personal prayer is like preparing the soil of our lives so that all the things we do as a group, all those normal obligations we fulfill corporately as Catholics, has a good place to be planted and to come to bear much fruit.  Prayer prepares the soil.  The Gospel passage (from St. Luke [for the Midnight Mass]) of the events surrounding the birth of Christ places it in a real historical time and place: naming figures like Caesar Augustus and Quirinius the Governor of Syria.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any relationship with them.  They are too far away across the bounds of history.  The closest I can get is to read about them on Wikipedia.  But God coming near in Jesus Christ is different!  Jesus is the good news of great joy proclaimed by the angel.  He is for all the people.  He is the Savior born for us.  He is the sign of a God who has come close so as to be wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in the manger.  Our coming to adore Him is not just what we do here together, as critically important and irreplaceable as that is.  Our adoring of Him involves our equally drawing near to Him in our personal daily prayer wherever we are, in our coming to encounter Him in our adoration chapel, in our striving to be like Him in the moral life, and in our faithful practice of the sacramental life by which He deposits the grace of His life within us.  We must work at personal prayer.  We must be on guard such that modern communication methods don’t result in training us to keep a distance from God, our faces buried in screens and busy with so many things.  May our prayer place us in that posture of physical and personal encounter with God such that we proclaim His glory in the highest, and such that his favor may come to rest on us!