January 24, 2010
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
Then (Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and) Ezra the priest-scribe (and the Levites who were instructing the people) said to all the people: "Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep"- for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. He said further: "Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!" Nehemiah 8:9-10
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." Luke 4:18-21
Piety
How the word of the Lord is heard and lived by us is the measure of our piety. When Ezra read the law to the men and women of his time they prostrated themselves before the Lord who was the source of this word. The words of the Lord are Spirit and life. They refresh our souls and give us the wisdom of God. We are called to love the Lord our God with all of our minds and hearts and souls. Everything we do we need to do for the Lord. It is the growing involvement of all that we are that makes our piety all inclusive. Even as the body is not a single part, but many, each of our actions is part of our piety. So there is no part of our body that does not influence the whole body. And the gifts of the soul are the same. There are many different gifts of the Spirit in all of us, but there is one giver of the gifts. Our piety is not individualistic. It reflects on all our family, friends and coworkers. Our gifts exist for the sake of the Community. If one part of the community suffers, the whole community suffers. The terrible earthquake in Haiti affects all of us. When one part of the body suffers, the whole body works to better the suffering part. Our piety makes us part of each other’s needs and has its fullness in the good of the Community.
Study
We learn a lot about Jesus when we read about his visit to the Synagogue of Nazareth where he had grown up. He opened the scroll of Isaiah to what might have been one of his favorite passages he studied as a child. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” What an incredible thing he says about himself after he had finished reading this scroll. “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus has discovered his Father’s plan for himself. We all need to study what God is asking of us in his son Jesus if we want to be able to recognize who we are meant to be in Christ.
Action
We are called to put on the mind and the heart of Christ in our spirituality. We are called to be other Christs. We do this by living out in ourselves the very discovery Christ made about himself in his studies of Scripture. Each of us have to apply these very words of Isaiah 61 to ourselves if we are to discover what God is asking of us that we might find ourselves in Christ. How I reach the poor has direction in the calamities of Haiti. How we free the captives of poverty by making work for them is just one of the actions we can do by challenging each other to be generous to those who are no longer able to help themselves. How we free The Haitians in this country to stay and work for the sake of their families is just one of the many ways we can reach beyond the limits of our selfishness. We must be our brothers’ keepers if we are want to be Christ to each other.
