Fullerton T

4th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Who do we trust and follow? Whose words and examples direct our minds to Jesus the word of God the authority of the Father? Moses was the prophet for his time and for the needs of his people. Who are the Moses-like prophets for this time for us and our needs?

In this Sundays  Gospel we hear about the authority of the Lord to cast out demons and devils. The reading is taken from the Gospel of Mark. As Jesus begins to teach in Capernaum. The people are spellbound because he spoke with authority, not like the scribes. A man comes to Jesus who is in the hand of an evil power and Jesus makes the devil come out of the man. The bystanders are amazed because Jesus has such authority.  What do we mean when we speak about the authority of the Lord? What do we mean when we talk about authority in general? What ways do we exercise authority in relation to those around us? What ways do we exercise the authority of the Lord as Christians? 

The word authority comes from the Latin word auctoritas. The basic meaning of this Latin word is creator, the word author also comes from this word. In general, authority is intimately connected with its source that source is the person who gives another the authority to do something so the authority that Jesus has comes from his Father.  The prophets of today include the bishop of Rome who wrote of the pain in the world and what we should do about it. He insists his fellow bishops and priests and religious are to have the “smell of the sheep on them.” In his encyclical, Laudatio Si, he speaks of the poor and the marginalized. He insists God, the creator of everything, weeps over the devastation of the earth by the self-interest of the powerful and the wealthy.  Every good farmer understands the soil must be cared for. But more to the point; God’s love for everyone is declared to us in the scriptures. God speaks with us there. The message is clear: If we are God’s we are to care about and for each other and that includes the refugees, the abused, the poor, the ill, and the mentally challenged. It means Everyone everywhere !

Jesus, speaks for God through his divine nature. His entire public life was about compassion and mercy. He despised arrogance, fought hypocrisy, and he believed the heart was stronger than the law. He brought God’s mercy and compassion to the earth and in the process brought us forgiveness from our self-interest, our scapegoating, our manipulation of frayed emotions, and our insecurity in the face of diversity of language, race, nationality origin, or whatever . May we all be the prophets that we are called to be in our time ! We are truly prophets when we stand for the truth, for the marginalized, for the alien, for the victim of war, for the victims of capitalism that serves only the capitalist. Are we going to ignore the calling of Jesus to be prophets in our own place or will we step up and be the prophets of god for our own time here and now.

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday is the 3^rd Sunday of ordinary time and in the Gospel we hear the call to get up and get going. That is to get up and leave family friends and go out to the world to proclaim the good news of Jesus. Of course in today’s world the church and faith in general mean a lot less in people’s eyes and many tell you that the faith they had in God has got up and gone and for a great number that was a long time ago!! So many have placed their trust in the worldly things whilst leaving the lasting things that is things of god behind.  The  second reading for this Sunday tells us that though we live in the world and are of the world we need to remember that all of us  who have to deal with and live in the world should not become engrossed in it as the worldly life has often taken  people down the wrong road and that road  leads one  away from a god and his ways. 

In our Gospel for this Sunday we learn the names of the first four disciples, the brothers Simon and Andrew, and the brothers James and John. Christ saw something in Simon James Andrew and John that led Him to entrust them with carrying out His mission at the beginning building His Church when he called them to be fishers of Men.

Each person had their unique role to play in that process at the beginning, just as each of us have a unique role to do now.   The fishermen abandon both their work, and their family ties. Something momentous is happening in their lives and they see the Call of Jesus as just that, a momentous event that they cannot ignore. It was amid the preoccupations of each day that the Lord called his disciples, and he calls them by name. It is also true for each of us that amid the preoccupations of our time and place within the world that many people are called by the Lord to be fishers of men. So are we prepared to take up the call of Jesus to be fishers of men where we are? Being fishers of men does not necessarily mean that we leave our families and our lives behind though many take up this part of the challenge as priests or religious serving gods people in that particular way.  the challenge for us As followers of Jesus is to be an example of faith in all we do and say and as a result of this we will be fishers of men because people out there will see how we live our lives and will want to follow us to see where we have come from and where we are going and when we get there all of us will find the lasting things of great value that are the things of faith in God and his Church.

SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Well after the anticipation of Advent and all the fuss of Christmas and the the new year here we are back at ordinary time. As we look forward to the year ahead it will be no time until the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday which is on 14^th February and believe it or not April the 1^st is Easter Sunday. Here we are thinking about Lent and Easter just after we have finished Advent and Christmas such is the pace of life as we go forward. Here in Ireland we have a particular reason to look forward as we will be hosting the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin in August hopefully with the participation of Pope Francis.

In this Sunday’s Gospel the apostles asked Jesus “Where do you live”? his reply was “Come and see”.  Invitations as we know come in all shapes and sizes. Some come in the mail or in e-mail. Others come on the street corner. Others come in unexpected ways. Some are personal, almost intimate. Others are general and impersonal. No matter what the invitation means, an invitation tells us that you are invited please come. We see Jesus inviting the apostles to come and see and by association through faith  all of us  are invited and welcome to  come and see what’s going on in our Faith Communities. When we accept the invitation of Jesus we have to ask ourselves why do we come and what do we seek? The early disciples of Jesus must have asked themselves those same questions. Living in a culture that distrusted novelty, they would go and see something new and that was the public appearance of the Messiah. We in our turn live in a culture that distrusts faith and people of faith and I often wonder what Jesus would think if he was here today in our often times faithless world. The people in this gospel story like you and me are people looking and searching for God. Like the disciples we are seekers who want to stay or at least try and stay with Jesus. John’s disciples were seekers and it is late in the day for them as the gospel tells us. All of us remember special moments by recalling the date and the time they happen. John tells us, “It was about four in the afternoon,” when the disciples received their invitation from Jesus. They need rest from their search and Jesus is offering it to them. The “four in the afternoon” possibly refers to the beginning of the Sabbath the next day.

The invitation to come and see is an invitation to deepen our friendship with God and find rest in his presence. It is an invitation to enrich our belief in the faith that we profess each time we celebrate the sacraments of the Church wherever we are in the world.  We, are being invited to follow Jesus at this time in our lives, to spend time with him and to discover who he is for us here and now, not dwelling on the  past or looking to the future the past is gone and the future may never be ours. The big question for us is will we accept the invitation that Jesus gives us in our time to come and see the one who has the message of eternal life?

The baptism of the Lord

This Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptist.  Many of us have been to a baptism but none of us remember the time we were baptised unless we were an adult who was baptized at the Easter Vigil or at another time. The beginning of the messianic work of Jesus is marked by the moment of his baptism in the Jordan. We remember that John the Baptist foretold Jesus  coming and he is acclaimed on earth by John and Jesus links himself to John by being baptized by him. Jesus is acclaimed from heaven by the voice of the Father and the presence of the Spirit.  Most of us rarely, if ever, think about our baptism. Through our baptism we died with Christ and have been reborn into a whole new life (Romans 6). We, the baptized, are made a part of the body of Christ. We are called to imitate Jesus, whom Paul says, “went about doing good.” We don’t need a detailed rule book in order to know how we should act in each situation of our lives, for in baptism, we have the companionship of the Spirit of Jesus who is our wisdom, and help to do good, That same Spirit will enable us to do what is right in every situation we may find ourselves in.

The baptism of Jesus is a moment of special grace in our story of salvation. Not only did the Son of God join us in our human condition but the Father and the Spirit were seen and heard to be present with him by the banks of the Jordan, at the start of the renewal of our human race. The gospel for this Sunday uses the simple phrase that “the heavens were opened,” but it is a powerful statement. Later on, when Jesus completed his life-journey on Calvary, we read how “the veil of the Temple was rent in two.” Now at last we were free to enter the Holy of Holies. This gospel is the beginning of a journey, which, through our own baptism, each of us is asked to travel. It is a journey full of purpose and the purpose is to try and live our lives as people of God enlivened by the Holy Spirit. Sons and daughters of the living god who bring his love into the world and to the people who are ar5oound us where we are.

THE FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY

The three kings

On the 6^th January we celebrate the three wise men and their visit to Jesus, as we know they brought him gifts of Gold Frankincense and myrrh and these were very great and valuable gifts.  As we reflect on the Magi and their gifts we should also remember for all the Gold and Silver that is in the Church of the here and now we should remember the humble start of it all: Jesus was born in a stable as there was no room in the inn. Jesus gave us the Eucharist at the Last supper in the upper room not in any great Cathedral and certainly not wearing elaborate vestments!! He simply told his apostles as he tells us do this in  his memory and he said this after washing the apostles feet and in the time of Jesus the Master DID NOT wash the feet of anyone. Jesus died on a simple wooden Cross with two thieves one on each side of him no Gold frankincense or Myrrh there just the words of the thief when he said  Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. In the gospel reading for this feast the Magi or the Wise men represent the “mystery” made manifest in the lives of  human beings.

Jesus was not born in a mighty city, nor was he an heir to a powerful ruler. Instead, he was born  in Bethlehem, it was a backwater in the eyes of those of Herod’s court and the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Through the “least,” and the poor, Christ comes to us in our own time. That’s a lesson the church needs to continually learn and proclaim. We, like the Magi, will find Christ among the “least.” and this is the humble message that lies at the heart of our faith It is the message that Pope Francis is proclaiming in the world. Today, the call of the Savior is extended to each of us. What do we hear? Will we be humble enough to believe in the word of God, and daring enough to work toward its fulfillment? Will we believe? With God’s grace, we  that is all of us together can do all these things for nothing is impossible for those who have faith.