OT IV Jer 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Cor 12:31—13:13; Lk 4:21-30

On a fine morning with the rising of the sun the streets of Jerusalem were filled with the echo of a determined footstep. They saw a man walk straight into the presence of the King of Judah. He stopped before the throne and proclaimed boldly, O King of Judah, who sits on the Throne of David, do justice; do not do wrong to the alien; do not shed innocent blood.”

The listeners were taken aback by this proclamation. It came from a man whom they knew, the son of Hilkijah; a timid fellow who protested that he was a mere youth. He never dared before to speak in the public. Where did he get this vigour, strength and courage to walk into the palace of the king and warn him?  This intruder was Prophet Jeremiah, sent   by God to announce his message. He was empowered by God, and God’s power worked in him. His divine appointment wiped away his fear and equipped him with strength to carry out his mission.

The prophets trembled at the trials ahead of them – and with good reason. Israel had a long history of rejecting prophets (2 Chr 36:16; Jer 2:30; Amos 2:12; Matt 23: 37; Luke 13: 34; I Thes 2:15; Heb 11: 32ff.).  At least twice in his lifetime, the prophet Elijah spoke the truth of God to King Ahab of Israel concerning the King’s promotion of idolatry. As a result, Elijah was forced to flee into the wilderness where he suffered great privation (I Kgs 16-29-17: 3 and I Kgs 18: 16-19: 4).

Jeremiah was threatened with death several times, thrown into an empty and muddy cistern, imprisoned, dragged off to exile in Egypt, and, perhaps, most painful of all, was forced to watch the destruction of Jerusalem because its inhabitants would not listen to his message. Such severe ill treatment forced him to say, I will not speak anymore in His name, but his faithfulness to God made him go ahead with his task.

Today’s Gospel story is another example of why the prophets did not jump for joy at their career prospects. In the space of five verses, we see the people of Nazareth turn from amazement to such fury at Jesus’ words they seized Him and dragged him off to the cliff to murder him.

We see that Jesus was well received at His inaugural address in His home town Nazareth. They marveled at the words that came from his lips. Then they wanted him to work miracles only in their home town, not among the Gentiles. But he tells them that he won’t do it. He tells how the prophets Elijah and Elisha ignored their own people and helped foreigners instead. He tells them bluntly that he will help all of humankind, even at the expense of his own people’s perceived needs.

This was all terribly painful for the Jews of the time of Jesus because they believed that they were God’s chosen and that God’s love and favor were manifest only in and among the Jews. Jesus’ words at Nazareth offended the Jews, because he was reminding them that their belief about God’s exclusive favor was baseless. They grew furious. They rejected Him violently, they attempted to throw Him over a cliff.

The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus because He had challenged their belief.  History testifies that whoever has questioned what they commonly believed as truth was never accepted. Socrates, the great Greek philosopher tried to teach the people to think independently and find truth for themselves. It was unacceptable to the authorities and he was condemned to death.

When our beliefs are  challenged; when we are confronted with truth that requires  us to change, to change our attitudes towards people,  to change the way we live, to change our approach to people and to  change  our attitude to work we  should have the courage to do so.

Billy Sunday was the Billy Graham of a previous generation. He was conducting a crusade in a particular city. In one of his sermons he said something critical of the labor conditions for workers in that area. After the service, several prominent businessmen sent a message to him by one of the local pastors. The message was this---Billy, leave labor matters alone. Concentrate on getting people saved. Stay away from political issues. You’re rubbing the fur the wrong way." Billy Sunday sent this message back to them: "If I’m rubbing the fur the wrong way, tell the cats to turn around."

Speaking God’s truth by word or by deed is a risky business in every age. By our Baptism, God   calls us to be prophets like Jesus, sharing his prophetic mission.  The task of a prophet is to speak and to live out God’s truth.   We must never be afraid of this call, for it is Jesus who will supply us with the courage, the words and the deeds we will need to oppose the many evils in our society. 

Thousands of Christians have been killed these past years in Moslem countries and Communist countries. Christians are subjected to the white martyrdom of mental torture in advanced countries, including the U.S., by the agnostic and atheistic media and liberal politicians and judges, as forms of the media constantly ridicule and insult Christians with unprecedented vengeance.

We need to follow Christ, not political correctness, and to speak the truth of Christ without being hypocritical or disrespectful.  We must never remain silent in the face of evil for fear of being thought "politically incorrect."   Jesus was not against conflict if it promoted truth. He taught us to give respect and freedom without condoning or encouraging sinful behavior. That was the example given by Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Archbishop Oscar Romero. Love does not tolerate destructive behavior, but it sometimes causes pain--just as a surgeon must sometimes hurt in order to heal.

As we continue with this Mass let’s ask for the grace and courage to stand up against evil and injustice, thus fulfilling our call as prophets in the world.

OT III Neh 8: 2-4, 5-6, 8-10; Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21

In today's Readings the Church reminds us of one extremely effective way to pour God's grace into our hearts: daily Bible reading. Both today’s first reading, taken from Nehemiah, and Luke’s Gospel, describe the public reading of Sacred Scripture which challenged the hearers to make a "fresh beginning" with a new outlook. 

After defeating Babylon, King Cyrus of Persia decreed that the exiled Jews, who had spent seven decades of exile in Babylon, could return home to Jerusalem.  The king appointed Nehamiah as the governor to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, which lay in ruins following the exile. The spirits of the people also needed rebuilding, so Ezra, the priest, dusts off the neglected scrolls of the law, and calls all the people together, even children who are old enough to understand. From morning till midday, Ezra reads to them the Law. Most had neglected its precepts for years. As they hear it read and explained by Ezra, they begin to weep tears of joy and of sorrow.

They came to realize the many ways in which they had failed to keep God’s Commandments. Hence, with tears of repentance in their eyes and joy in their hearts, the people responded with a great "Amen.

In the gospel we see Jesus goes into the synagogue and reads the scripture for others. The Jews had only one main Temple, located in Jerusalem, for offering sacrifices to God and for celebrating the major feasts.  Throughout the rest of the country, however, there were synagogues, one for every ten families or more, where the community, particularly the men, could offer Sabbath prayers and study the Scriptures.  It was customary for the men to sit in the central part of the synagogue, where the scrolls were kept.  The women and children sat in a separate area on the side of the synagogue.  It was the Jewish custom for the reader to stand while reading, and to sit down while teaching (Mt 13:54; Mk 6:1). The synagogue liturgy was based on seven readings. The first four were from the Law (the Torah or the Pentateuch) followed by explanations given by the rabbi, who was the teacher of the Law. The second set of readings, taken from the prophets, could be read and interpreted by any circumcised male over thirty years of age.  It was in this second capacity that Jesus read and preached on the passage from Isaiah (61: 1-2a).  Naturally, the people of his native place were curious to hear from this carpenter-turned-prophet who had grown up among them, and who, supposedly, had worked miracles throughout Galilee.  Luke reports that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me," Jesus said, “because He has anointed me…” This “power of the Spirit" was absolutely essential in order for Jesus to complete his mission. Jesus’ mission would be to give liberation to everyone who would listen to his “Good News,” accept it and put it into practice.

The Word of God is called "sacramental,” in the sense that when it is spoken, read or heard, God becomes present in our midst. For that to happen to us, we must listen to the Word, accept it into our hearts, and then put it into practice as we live out our lives.

Christianity is not a religion of the book (as is often said) as Islam is, but of a person, the living person of Jesus who comes to us in word and in sacrament and also in the poor, the imprisoned, the hungry and the naked, the broken hearted and the lost. 

The Christian liturgy as made up of word and sacrament but it is really made up of three parts: word, sacrament and the ongoing Christian life of works of mercy which are to flow out of our worship and lead us back to it. Pope Benedict in his encyclical on Charity taught that Christianity can no more give up works of mercy than it can give up the sacraments or the Scriptures. None of the three are optional.

The Bible is a unique book, written by human authors but inspired by God himself. If we take time to read, study, and reflect on it each day, our souls will be filled with "Spirit and life," as today's Psalm reminds us. And in the digital age there is no excuse not to do this. It is so easy to get a hold of a Bible, and it is so easy to find study guides and other resources that can help us understand its message.

The Sanford Hotel in San Francisco reports that it never lost a single Bible in the 15 years it placed them at the bedside as a service to the guests. But, in one month after it started putting dictionaries in the rooms as well, 41 dictionaries disappeared. Now, I don't know whether we can draw a solid conclusion from that, but on the surface, it seems obvious that people apparently place a greater value on human words than they do the Word of God.

The Bible is God's love letter to each and every one of us. It is a flowing fountain of wisdom, comfort, guidance, and strength. As we continue with this Mass, let's renew our faith in the Word of God, and resolve to take at least a little drink from its fountain every single day.

O T II [C]:  Is 62: 1-5; 1 Cor 12: 4-11, John 2: 1-11 (L-16)

This week we are at a wedding where Jesus reveals his Divine power by his first miracle. Pope St. John Paul II gave us a beautiful gift when he introduced the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. The second mystery is the subject of today’s Gospel, the Wedding Feast at Cana where Jesus changed water into wine. The miracle at Cana is the first of seven “signs” in John’s Gospel.

Jesus, his mother and his disciples were guests at the wedding feast.  It is also possible that Mary was in some way related to the bride or groom and may have been serving as an assistant to the wedding director. Someone obviously slipped up on the supply of wine for the seven-day wedding celebration. And they ran short of wine.

At first Jesus seemed to refuse to do anything about the situation. But later he told the servants to fill six large stone jars with water and take some to the headwaiter. When they did so, the water had become wine, better wine than that which had run out.

As with all of the miracles and parables of Jesus, this story is rich in revelation and symbolism. The stone jars were meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews.  Stone jars were not used to store wine. Wine was stored in wine skins. Stone jars were used for keeping water for washing their hands and for other purification purposes.

The six stone water jars, each holding 20-30 gallons equals 120-180 gallons of wine! That's a lot of wine. An abundance of wine was an OT eschatological symbol. The abundance of God's grace is a theme that can flow out of these huge jars.

These jars were empty. The servants had to fill them with water before the miracle occurs. Jesus is not transforming the purification water that was in the jars into the wine; but he is transforming new water that has been placed in the old containers. O'Day suggests: "New wine is created in the 'old' vessels of the Jewish purification rites, symbolizing that the old forms are given new content."

C.S. Lewis said, what Jesus did at Cana (as in many of his miracles) was really no more than a speeded-up version of what he does every year on a thousand hillsides as vines silently turn water into wine. Millions of people enjoy that wine every year without for a moment recognizing the divine origin of it all.

The six stone jars filled with water are representative of the Old or Mosaic Covenant.  St. John even links them explicitly to this covenant by mentioning they were “for Jewish ceremonial washings,” i.e. for the rituals necessary to fulfill the principles of ritual purity spelled out in Leviticus and Numbers.  There are six of them, and six is almost always a symbol of limitation or defect in the Old Testament, a failure to reach seven, the number of covenant and perfection.  Furthermore, the jars are “stone,” reminding us of the covenant written on stone rather than upon the human heart (2 Cor 3:3; cf. Ezek 26:26).  They are filled with “water,” like Moses provided in the desert (Exod 17:6): water keeps you alive, but brings no joy.  Wine brings joy: (Zech 10:7, Ps 104:15). The time for ritual cleansing had passed; the time for celebration had begun.  So the contrast of jars of water with jars of wine is the contrast between Moses and Jesus, between the Old Covenant and the New: “the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

The symbolism here is that, Jesus reveals himself here as the “ultimate Bridegroom.”  The responsibility of the bridegroom at these ancient weddings was to provide the wine.  We can see that in the text, because when the MC tastes the wine, he immediately calls the bridegroom, assuming that he was the one who procured the vintage. 

Jesus is the Bridegroom who is both Son of God and the Son of David simultaneously, fulfilling the subtle nuances of the prophecies of Isaiah and of the other prophets who spoke of the renewal of God’s nuptial love for Israel in the future.

The Bible begins with one wedding, that of Adam and Eve in the garden (Genesis 2:23-24), and ends with another, the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9, 21:9, 22:17). Throughout the Bible, marriage is the symbol of the Covenant relationship between God and His chosen people. God is the Groom and humanity is His beloved bride. We see this beautifully reflected in today’s first reading, where Isaiah uses the metaphor of spousal love to describe God’s love for Israel. God’s fidelity to his people is compared to a husband’s fidelity to his wife. The prophet reminds his people that their God rejoices in them as a Bridegroom rejoices in His Bride and that He will rebuild Israel, if they will be reconciled to Him and repair their strained relationship with Him. By our Baptism, each of us has been betrothed to Christ as a bride to her Groom (II Cor. 11:2).  Baptism is the nuptial bath, the Eucharist is the Wedding Feast, where we receive the Body of our Bridegroom and unite his body with ours. 

Our faith is one of intense intimacy.  God loves us like a bride.  He “rejoices” in us, takes delight in us, each one of us individually. 

Nothing is more personal or intimate than communing with Jesus in his very Body and Blood in the Eucharist. 

But on a practical level, our reception of Jesus in the Eucharist cannot be the only aspect of our “spousal” relationship, anymore than a once-a-week embrace would suffice to make a marriage work.  The reception of Jesus our Bridegroom in the Eucharist should be part of a lifestyle characterized by daily conversation with him through prayer and the reading of His word.  

Meditating on Scripture and mental prayer make up the daily conversation of the believer with his or her Spouse, the Bridegroom Jesus.  Let’s resolve to deepen that Spousal relationship with Our Lord not only on Sunday but every day of the week, by our prayer and meditation.

BAPTISMOF THE LORD [C] (Is 40:1-5, 9-11; Ti 2:11-14, 3:4-7; Lk 3:15-16, 21-22)

The child Jesus whom the magi proclaimed last week as the prince of Jews, has grown to manhood and respectability, and reaches that place in life when He must embark on the Divine commission entrusted to Him by the Father.  The baptism of Jesus is the occasion of the first public revelation of all the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity, and the official revelation of Jesus as the Son of God to the world by God the Father.  The liturgical season of Christmas comes to a conclusion this Sunday with the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. 

Why did Jesus get baptized? What this means has prompted much debate. It may be that Jesus was “fulfilling” all the scriptural prophecies about him which focused on “righteousness.” It may be that he was seen as validating the rite of baptism for all future generations of Christians. 

Many Fathers of the Church explain that Jesus received John’s baptism to identify himself with his people, who, as a result of John's preaching, for the first time in Jewish history became aware of their sins and of their need for repentance. For those onlookers who had been wondering if John the Baptist were the Messiah, all doubt is removed, with the heaven’s voice, declaring Jesus as the Chosen of God.

According to the Navarre Bible commentary, in Christ's baptism we can find a reflection of the way the Sacrament of Baptism affects a person. Christ's baptism was the exemplar of our own. In it the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was revealed, and the faithful, on receiving Baptism, are consecrated by the invocation of and by the power of the Blessed Trinity. Similarly, Heaven’s opening signifies that the power, the effectiveness, of this Sacrament comes from above, from God, and that the baptized have the road to Heaven opened up for them, a road which Original Sin had closed. Jesus' prayer after his baptism teaches us that "after Baptism man needs to pray continually in order to enter Heaven; for though sins are remitted through Baptism, there still remains the inclination to sin which assails us from within, and also the flesh and the devil which assails us from without.”

As we begin Ordinary Time today, we are called to reflect on our own baptism.  Like Jesus, all that we undertake must flow from who we are—God’s beloved. We are called to follow in the footsteps of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  This means that we, too, must humbly submit ourselves to God's wise and loving plan for our lives. He, in turn, anoints us with the Holy Spirit that we may be clothed with His power and grace. 

On the day of our Baptism, as Pope St. John Paul II explains, "We were anointed with the Oil of Catechumens, the sign of Christ's gentle strength, to fight against evil.  Blessed water was poured over us, an effective sign of interior purification through the gift of the Holy Spirit. We were then anointed with Chrism to show that we were thus consecrated in the image of Jesus, the Father's Anointed One. The candle lighted from the Paschal Candle was a symbol of the light of Faith which our parents and godparents must have continually safeguarded and nourished with the life-giving grace of the Spirit 

 Baptism makes us a new creation, renewing or improving upon our natural life with supernatural life. We are recreated in a new mould that is Jesus Christ.

A little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again. Finally she spoke up, "Grandpa, did God make you?"

 "Yes, Sweetheart," he answered, "God made me a long time ago."

"Oh," she paused, "Grandpa, did God make me too?"

"Yes, indeed, honey," he said, "God made you just a little while ago."

Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, "God’s getting better at it, isn’t he?"

 She is right. God renewed the old creation by giving new life to everything in Christ his Son.

Baptism also gives us new orientation. An ancient Chinese proverb advises: “If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” In baptism we are helped to reorient ourselves to God, as before baptism we are by default oriented to sin and away from God.

 In baptism we get our identity exchanged with that of Christ. French writer Henri Barbusse (1874-1935) tells of a conversation overheard in a trench full of wounded men during the First World War. One of the men, who knew he only had minutes to live says to one of the other men, "Listen, Dominic, you've led a very bad life. Everywhere you are wanted by the police. But there are no convictions against me. My name is clear, so, here, take my wallet, take my papers, my identity, take my good name, my life and quickly, hand me your papers that I may carry all your crimes away with me in death."

 The Good News is that through Jesus, God makes a similar offer. When we are baptized, we identify ourselves with Jesus. We publicly declare our intention to strive to be like Jesus and follow God's will for our lives. When we are baptized, our lives are changed. We see things differently than before. We see other people differently than before. We are able to identify with Jesus because He was baptized. Such identification is life changing.

The feast of the Baptism of our Lord serves to remind us of our own Baptisms, compelling us to renew the promises our parents and godparents made on our behalf, when they presented us to the Church, to make of us disciples of Jesus. Most of us dipped the fingers of our right hand into the holy water font and blessed ourselves when we came into Church today.   This blessing is supposed to remind us of our Baptism. And so when I bless myself with Holy Water, I should be thinking of the fact that I am a child of God; that I have been redeemed by the Cross of Christ; that I have been made a member of God’s family and that I have been washed, forgiven, cleansed and purified by the Blood of the Lamb. As this feast help us to remind us of our baptism, may it help us to live the commitments we or our godparents made for us before the Church and God.