Our Sunday Reflections

CLICK HERE for the Audio recording of the Readings of
January 19th, 2020.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

CLICK HERE for the Readings of January 19th, 2020.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Welcome the Light into your Life by celebrating and receiving the Eucharist!

Sunday, January 19th, 2020.  Second Sunday of Ordinary Time.
 

“He said to me, You are my servant, in you, Israel, I show my glory.” 
Isaiah 49: 3 

In November, this past year, the city of Worcester, yet again lost a firefighter (Lt Jason, Jr Menard R.I.P); a few days after the funeral Mass, Bishop McManus spoke to a group of teens about who a ‘genuine hero’ is. He said referring the lost firefighter, he was an example of a ‘genuine’ hero, why?  “When his world was ending, he was saving (serving) others”, Bishop said.  He knew his world was ending and in that moment he put others first.  Whenever we listen to or see such stories in television or in the news, it leaves us almost gasping; how would someone do that?  There is a deep cord that it touches in us, we are shocked and in awe at the same time. People who have visited the cemetery in Normandy, France where many young men perished, speak of such a feeling at the sight of all the white crosses.  At marathons, when a winning athlete genuinely forfeits his or her first place, the moment they pass another struggling, ‘letting others’ first when everything in and around you says no.

Many in today’s world ask, what is my claim to fame?  How can I make it to the top?  How might I really establish myself?  More than often, the world around us tells us, ‘put yourself first!’.  Think in terms of You!  What do You want?  Not others, never others. 

The readings today and the whole project of the Christian life urges the opposite: put others first, serve others first.  Your claim to fame is service and this is first and foremost to God (seek to do his will).

The most repeated word in the readings is ‘servant’. This word is so ‘unpalatable’ for contemporary culture.  Who of us even faintly thinks of ourselves as ‘servant’?  Since when?  Being last, being stepped on, obeying another? listening to another? serving another?  Yes, only if I get something out of it! Yet this is what God asks of Israel. Obey God, Listen to Him, for only he can make something out of you. He will deliver you.  To serve God, raises us up and it doesn’t demean us at all. To do God’s will first, ‘anchors’ us.

John the Baptist, the greatest ever prophet, before Jesus literally shrinks.  He openly says that Jesus ranks ahead of him.  He exists to make Him known.  ‘He’ and not John.

To shrink is not us. To let others rank ahead, to take last or second place or to let the interest of others first is not us.  Yet, the Christian way of life challenges us to do so. To 'see' others, to serve others, to serve God first. 

Being a Christian is going to bring us to a clash of opposites in our everyday life. We must choose the ‘servant way of life’. 

Married couples need this attitude of living today- it is not about me!!  How best will you explain to your child what it means to be a Father or Mother and what it implies? Do you know what it really means to be a ‘good leader’? Our society is torn apart every day because of the Gospel of ‘me’- adoring the self.  Just look around! 

What a coincidence that tomorrow America remembers Martin Luther King Jr.  Another true, great American, genuine hero.  I visited Memphis Tennessee recently and went to the Lorraine Motel where he was murdered.  I listened to the chilling words he spoke that night at a gathering before he died: ‘I have seen the mountain top, I do not know whether I will get there…’ He didn’t. (There is always a price for doing God’s will or putting others first).  
I noticed that all who left the motel after the tour of the premises, were just silent and I mean people from all walks of life.  Man! What a life lived!  How powerful and fearless he was. How right on!

What would make him proud of America, 50 years or more after his death?  What would make him sad and angry and make his voice rumble again? 

A blessed week in the Lord!
Fr. Anthony


View the below video for another Sunday Reflection on the readings.