3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
This Sunday we celebrate the 3rd Sunday of ordinary time as we end the week of prayer for Christian unity. we also begin our annual week long celebration of our catholic schools. During Catholic schools week which this year has as its theme Catholic Schools living life to the full there will be a range of events in the parishes where we live. In the Gospel Reading for this Sunday Luke wants to make very clear to his readers what drives Jesus the Prophet from Galilee and what is the goal of his action. We as Christians need to know in what direction God’s Spirit pushes Jesus, since following him means that we are walking in the same direction as he did. We remember that the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his Baptism in the Jordan. With the Spirit poured upon him, Jesus would proclaim freedom for the captives, the blind, and those in need. When Jesus proclaimed the Good News, he proclaimed the Spirit. Since Spirit meant breath, Jesus breathed God’s word in his words and deeds. The power of his proclamation changed people, situations, and environments because he breathed out the power of God. When Jesus spoke, hearts turned to God and health of mind body and spirit were restored.
There is an immediate life-implication of this Sundays passage that is easy to overlook for us in our I want I get world. it is this: The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Jesus and comes upon the Church in order to bring good news to the people. The presence of the Spirit means joy. In the 21st century we’re OK with entertainment and pleasure, but we are often suspicious of Spiritual joy because it might be a pie in the sky illusion. How can we talk about or even allow ourselves to experience joy, when there is so much false hope, so much suffering, so much serious work to be done in the world around us especially as a result of the pandemic? The paradox of Christian faith is the cross of Jesus. The cross symbolizes the pain and sorrow that Jesus and we know so well . At the same time, the cross of Jesus is the ultimate revelation of the love and mercy of God shown to us through his son. “For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12: 2). The joy that lay before him was not only that God would wipe away his every tear, but that through his self-giving love, his joy might be in us and our joy might be complete. What Jesus began that day was to be continued his Spirit-anointed community, right through to today in the church that means all of us here and now today right where we are.
In the midst of recurrent waves of uncertainty in our lives, we are called to be joyful and rejoice in the Lord as our strength. That does not mean that we ignore the challenges that weigh heavily upon us and there are many of those. Instead, our rejoicing helps us to recall the faithfulness of God throughout the ages and throughout our own lives. Tapping into that joy helps us remember “God’s got this!” whatever the “this” is, over and over again, now and forever, no matter what happens in our world he is out strength and our joy and we are empowered by that same Spirit to pass the joy of Jesus on to those we meet as we go about our daily lives .
Fullerton T 