Homily - Cycle B 01/17/2021
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011721.cfm
Today we celebrate the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, but our Time is anything but “Ordinary”, our readings focus on Discipleship & its’ commitment! The Responsorial asks us - are we ready to answer the Lord’s call – [to say] “Here I Am Lord!” We are called to build a relationship with Jesus through prayer.
A life of prayer will enable us to be the best person we can be! In our Gospel John points out that Jesus takes the first step, the divine initiative is a gift freely given by God!
I wonder how Jesus would CALL His disciples today. Would He send an email, a tweet, a text, a Facebook invitation, a phone call, a handwritten letter? He would do what He did with Andrew, Peter, and with you and I a personal call. He called each of us personally at our Baptism. Where He initiated us into the divine life.
In Reconciliation He repairs us.
In Confirmation He strengthens us.
In the Eucharist He nourishes us.
in Holy Orders He anoints us to service in His Church.
in Matrimony He anoints us to service to our spouse & our family.
And in the Sacrament of the Sick he will ready us to face a trial here or prepare us for the land of the living.
Today Jesus asks us, “What are you looking for?” Our nation and our world seem to be in chaos, some people wonder is God missing! No God is not missing, God will walk with us through the tumult of our day, but we must open our hearts and trust the Lord.
God wants us to be the best person we can be, and we can do that in 2021 by focusing on listening to God. One way we can do that is to establish pillars of prayer: 1. In the Morning - offer our day to God and 2. In the Evening - thank God for our day. Starting and Ending your day in prayer will slowly change our life into a life of prayer.
Maybe this story about Josephine can help us be better disciples. She and her family moved to California when Josephine was in 3rd grade. Every day the bus picked her up, along with the other children in the morning, and (then) dropped her off at the end of the day. When she got off each afternoon her brother greeted her by their fence.
He was a year or two older than Josephine, he didn’t go to school because he was “challenged”. Some of the kids on the bus laughed and made fun of him. To their surprise of Josephine wasn’t embarrassed but hugged her brother, they would walk hand and hand into their home. Although a little girl Josephine learned the lesson of Jesus’ love and compassion. She answered her call to discipleship early in life.
By the end of the school year many of the children on her bus stopped making fun of her brother – showed kindness. Some children who rode that bus grew up to be compassionate and loving adults, in part, because of Josephine’s example. We are CALLED in various ways: Peter, Samuel, Josephine and you and me.
St. Teresa of Jesus [Avila] prayed:
“Let nothing trouble you/
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes/
God never changes
Patience/
Obtains all
Whoever has God/
Wants for nothing
God alone is enough.”
God alone is enough! We need to become better listeners!
May God Be Praised!
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