IF YOU CONFESS THAT JESUS IS LORD…

I SUNDAY OF LENT - Luke 4:1-13

The passages of the Scripture with which we initiate the Lent Season are full of drama, the drama of human life, which is pervaded by the presence of God’s love. This is in fact one of the greatnesses of the Bible. In it we can find all kinds of human situations. The Bible presents God’s presence and his word embroidered on the fabric of human life, and so the Bible is like a mirror where we can see ourselves, while being challenged by someone who in his deep and eternal love and in his love he affirms us.

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In the Gospel, we will read the temptations of Jesus at the end of his stay in the desert, taken from Luke 4:1-13. When we read them attentively, we can discover that Jesus’ temptations were the temptations of the People of Israel, and are the temptations of the Church and of the world.

By magic or scientific means - whatever - nothing seems impossible, and we can satisfy our craving for bread. All means are good, provided we satisfy our desires and needs. For the world, Jesus refusal based on the conviction that we need God and his word to find meaning for our lives, is a non sense. 

Surely, we need bread and much more than bread to have a life worth of living; however, when that stops us from paying attention to what deep inside us makes us truly human, and when we are ready to do everything that is possible to do, then we are sowing the seeds of self-destruction.

In order to be famous, people are ready to do the most strange things, so that their names and their pictures may appear everywhere.

And we can put everything at our service. Nothing is sacred. There are no barriers, no taboos, no restraints. There are only my own rights, and all the others must respect them.

The proposal presented to Jesus that he should throw himself from the top of the Temple sounds crazy, but in fact it as a proposal for Jesus to force God to come to his rescue, for no other reason than his quest for glory and fame. Instead of being at the service of God, God would be at his service. It would be an attempt to manipulate God and to impose the human will on God, as if the roles would be inverted.

And then there is the temptation of wealth and power, which is so common everywhere. To keep power at all costs and to get rich by all means is the source of many wars and of even more situations of oppression and exploitation.

The three temptations represent the wisdom of the world. They seem to present an easy way that in the end turns out to be a way for disaster.

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In the first reading (Dt 26:4-10), we are presented with a profession of faith - the Creed of the Old Testament, a creed to be recited and proclaimed time and again by every member of the people of God. 

The Christian Creed that we recite every Sunday presents a set of truths stated with very cold and dry words. This Creed of the Old Testament presents only one basic truth - the truth of a relationship of love  - the love of God for his people, a love that led him to take action in order to set them free. God listened to the cry of the slaves and brought them out of slavery to create a nation of free people.

The God of the Bible is a God who intervenes in history, who made himself present among us in Jesus Christ. His love is so great that he is not afraid of being touched and contaminated by the filth of our sins.

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Finally Paul tells us that in order to be saved we must proclaim our faith in Jesus Christ.

If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. - Ro 10:9.

As we start this time of Lent, let us come close to Jesus Christ and receive from him the strength to overcome the great temptations of our live. 

Whenever we cry out from within our darkness, our impotence and our sinfulness, he will come to our rescue. Remember: “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Ro 10:13).

HERE I AM, SEND ME.

V SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Isaiah 6:1-2,3-8

Last week, we were presented with the call of Jeremiah to be a prophet. This week, we can hear Isaiah speaking of his own experience, when God revealed himself in all grandeur. Faced with the holiness of God, Isaiah became aware of his sinfulness, which made him unworthy of being God’s messenger. 

In a vision, Isaiah saw a solemn act of worship in God’s own court, with Him seated in his royal throne of glory. In this heavenly liturgy, the choir of angels sang:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.

His glory fills the whole earth.” (Is 6:3)

These words have been resounding for many centuries, sang in the liturgies of the Temple and of the synagogues and repeated in every Mass in the Catholic Church. When we sing these words, we sing them together with the heavenly choirs and in union with the generations of believers that preceded us. That’s why I never like to hear our parish choirs changing the words or substituting them by others. In our Sunday liturgies, we are not doing our own things; we must be in unison with the universe and with all who recognise God’s holiness and sing his praises.

Like Isaiah, when we become aware of God’s presence, we discover not only our littleness but mostly our sinfulness. How can we be in God’s presence?

“What a wretched state I am in! I am lost,

for I am a man of unclean lips

and I live among a people of unclean lips,

and my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of Hosts.” (Is 6:5)

We are sinners, and on our own, we can never deserve to approach the Lord or even less to be engaged in his work and to be part of his plans. However, the Holy One, can take away our sins and fill us with holiness. That’s what he did to Isaiah, so that he came out transformed by his encounter with God. When God looked for a messenger, Isaiah presented himself, saying:

“Here I am, send me.”

God is still looking for people to be his messengers and to carry out his work here on earth. And he asks:

Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?

Will we answer like Isaiah: “Here I am, send me”?

THE CALL TO BE A PROPHET

IV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Jeremiah 1:4-5,17-19

In this Sunday’s liturgy, we are presented with the calling of Jeremiah to be a prophet. He was still a young lad, when he heard the call of the Lord, and  like all the prophets he gave an excuse, a very plausible one: I am only a boy, I do not know how to speak.

However, when God calls, there are no excuses, because he will be the source of strength and knowledge. He will put his words in our mouths and we ourselves will be surprised of what we say and how we say it.

It is not easy to be a prophet. You have to stand up and speak out, proclaiming, denouncing and challenging. The prophet is always someone who sees into the future with hope and analyses the present in function of that vision, given to him by the Lord. He is never a conformist or a man of the status quo, satisfied with himself or with the society in which he lives. He calls for change, denouncing the shortcomings and the failures of the people with whom he lives. He looks at everything with the eyes of God and sees everything in reference to God. For him, God’s word is the standard by which he measures everything. He does not care about the politically correct, but about faithfulness to God’s word. That’s why a prophet enters into conflict with the leaders of the people, be they religious or political.

We can see all that in Jeremiah. While still a boy, God called him, and he was full of enthusiasm, because he felt God’s love burning in his heart. However, he went through a lot of difficulties, with the powerful turning against him and denouncing him as traitor to the nation. He was persecuted, thrown into prison and threatened with death. And Jeremiah complained to God, thinking even of giving up and turn his back on God’s call, but he had experienced the love of God in so deep a way that he couldn’t do it. And the reassuring word of God came to him:

They will fight against you

but shall not overcome you,

for I am with you to deliver you –

it is the Lord who speaks.

As we look at Jeremiah, it is good to remember Paul and the sufferings he went through because of the proclamation of the Gospel. He also had experienced the deep love of God, and in that love he felt the strength to go on and to be faithful to the end.

Filled with that deep experience of God’s love, he could write about love:

 If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, 

but speak without love, 

I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. 

If I have the gift of prophecy, 

understanding all the mysteries there are, 

and knowing everything, 

and if I have faith in all its fullness, 

to move mountains, 

but without love, 

then I am nothing at all. 

If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, 

and if I even let them take my body to burn it, 

but am without love, 

it will do me no good whatever.

Love is always patient and kind; 

it is never jealous;
love is never boastful or conceited; 

it is never rude or selfish; 

it does not take offence, 

and is not resentful. 

Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins 

but delights in the truth; 

it is always ready to excuse, 

to trust, to hope, 

and to endure whatever comes.

Love does not come to an end. 

1 Co 13: 1-8

THIS IS THE YEAR OF GOD’S FAVOUR

III SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Lk 4:14-21

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth (Nazara), as he used to do, and was called upon to read the biblical passage of the day - from Isaiah 61:1-2. 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”.

Jesus took this passage as a proclamation of his own programme, claiming that he came to carry it out. 

In a way, we may say that the whole programme is summarised in the last sentence: “to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour” - that is the year of the Jubilee.

Pope Francis has proclaimed for the Catholic Church this year as a year of Jubilee, and it is the Jubilee of God’s mercy. According to Leviticus 25, every fifty years, there should be a year totally dedicated to the Lord, in which people put their reliance on the Lord, being totally dependent on him.

The year of the jubilee was initiated with a solemn proclamation done by the sounding of the trumpets.

The law of the jubilee can be found in Leviticus, chapter 25. In it, we hear the following words repeated like a refrain: 

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God. (Lev 25:38).

And then, following from that statement, the main thrust of the jubilee is set forward:

You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants - Lev 25:10

God has set us free, so we must live as free people. We must manifest in our private and public lives the freedom that God has bestowed on us. And this freedom has to be present in the political, economic and social spheres of life.  The year of jubilee was a year to experience in a very special way God’s love and mercy for his people, that is for each one of us. That’s why slavery and servitude cannot have a place in our midst. The oppressed must go free and the captives must be released. The blind must recover their sight and the poor must hear the good news that finally they are going to find respite from their hardships and sufferings.

The law of the jubilee, in Leviticus 25, shows clearly that the laws must protect the poor. In fact, God is on the side of the poor, because he is a God full of compassion, who hears the cries and the groaning of those who are crushed down by oppression and suffering.

In proclaiming the year of jubilee as a year of mercy, Pope Francis wants all of us become aware of God’s love and compassion and open our hearts to experience it. Only when we experience God’s mercy, will we be able to show mercy to others.

The refrain of the jubilee - I am the Lord - Yahweh - your God, who has set you free is repeated time and again in the words that Jesus has left us: 

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Lk 6:36).

GOD REJOICES IN HIS PEOPLE

II SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Jn 2:1-11

The Gospel of John, being the last to be written, instead of repeating the same basic narratives of the other gospels, uses a different approach, giving us a deeper insight into the person of Jesus Christ and into his role and his salvific work.

In the Synoptics (the gospels of Matthew, Marc and Luke), the ministry of Jesus starts with his baptism, which is at the same time a vocation, an investiture and a manifestation (revelation): He is the Son, the beloved, who comes to proclaim the Good News of salvation and to carry it out. In John’s gospel, there is nothing about his baptism by the Baptist. Instead, we are presented with the testimony of John, who indicates Jesus as the Lamb of God to his disciples. Then Jesus gathered about himself a small group of disciples, with whom he went to the wedding at Cana. 

It was there, that he “revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” (Jn 2:11)

Reading the passage about the wedding of Cana (Jn 2:1-11), we can easily notice that Jesus went in as a guest, and came out as the Messiah, in whom the disciples believed. The first community of faith - the Church, which is the body of Christ - was established. In the wedding, Jesus took the central stage, presenting himself as the true groom, who comes to establish a new covenant of everlasting love. Indeed, Jesus is going to bring to fulfilment God’s promise, proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah:

“no longer are you to be named ‘Forsaken’,

nor your land ‘Abandoned’,

but you shall be called ‘My Delight’

and your land ‘The Wedded’;

for the Lord takes delight in you

and your land will have its wedding.

Like a young man marrying a virgin,

so will the one who built you wed you,

and as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride,

so will your God rejoice in you.” (Is 62:4-5)

God cherishes, sustains, protects and defends his people, because they are his beloved spouse, to whom he has committed himself in a covenant of love. And God rejoices in his people. Jesus came to show God’s rejoicing in his people, a joy that fills our hearts, a contagious joy, which cannot be hidden, because in his mercy and faithful love, he has bestowed on us all his blessings.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus begins his ministry in a wedding. Interestingly, the book of Revelation presents the completion and fulfilment of our salvation as the wedding of the Lamb to his wife, the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:9).

At Cana, Jesus changed the water into wine, showing that he has come to change the water of our tears into the wine of joy that comes from God’s love poured into our hearts. God’s people will never more be called “Forsaken”, or “Abandoned”, because God himself will call them “My Delight”.

BAPTISED IN THE SPIRIT

FEAST OF JESUS’ BAPTISM - Titus 2:11-14,3:4-7

The encounter with John the Baptist is always an occasion for a good surprise. He was a very uncommon man, who challenged everybody not only by his words and deeds but also by his own presence. Everybody saw on him someone very special and great, in such a way that “a feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ.” (Lk 3:15) However John never allowed himself to be carried away by the feelings and the whims of the populace. He never pretended to be what he was not, and he was not ready to accept and much less to encourage false impressions about him. Being outspoken, he went straight to the point: there is “someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals”. Such was his greatness compared with John’s littleness. And to put it clear, John compared his baptism with the baptism bestowed on us by Jesus:

“I baptise you with water”, but “he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Lk 3:16).

Maybe these words are an answer to the question about the difference between Jesus and John and their baptisms. We know that there was a group of John’s followers in Ephesus. Apollos, for instance, “knew only the baptism of John”, until he was taught more accurately about the Way by Priscilla and Aquila (Act 18:25-26). When Paul passed in Ephesus, he discovered a group of disciples, who were followers of John, and they did not know the Holy Spirit. They had only been baptised with the baptism of John, a baptism in water as a sign of repentance.

We were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus, with his baptism, which is a baptism in the Spirit, and the Spirit is the one transforms us, creating us anew.

Jesus baptises us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Fire and water are symbols of the Spirit. Indeed the Holy Spirit is the living water, given to us by Jesus so that we may have eternal life. Receiving the Spirit, we are enkindled by his fire - the fire of love, which is God’s love that burns continuously without ever being extinguished.

The words pronounced by the Father at Jesus’ baptism were repeated over us at our own baptism: 

“You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.” (Lk 3:22).

In the baptism, we were adopted as God’s children, making of us one with his beloved Son.

In the baptism, the water is no more than an symbol and an instrument of the Holy Spirit, and his power is not diminished or enhanced by the amount of water used in the baptism. He is the one who grafts us in Jesus Christ, making us one body with Him.

In his letter to Titus, Paul explains what happens in the Baptism.

“But when the kindness and love of God our saviour for mankind were revealed, it was not because he was concerned with any righteous actions we might have done ourselves; it was for no reason except his own compassion that he saved us, by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and by renewing us with the Holy Spirit which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our saviour.” (Tit 3:4-7).

Our salvation is a result of God’s compassion and love. It is not obtained by our own righteousness, because we have never deserved it and much less can we claim a right to it. And in the baptism, God’s compassion and love are revealed to us and act upon us, so that being cleansed we are reborn as God’s children, endowed with the Spirit, which was poured over us, and which carves in the image of Jesus, the beloved Son.

MAY JESUS BE THE STAR THAT GUIDES US TO LIFE AND SALVATION

FEAST OF EPIPHANY: Mt 2:1-12

I still remember, the impact that this feast had in all of us during my childhood. We called it  “The Kings”, and we would go from house to house singing the traditional songs for the occasion, and receiving whatever people would give us. It was a time for rejoicing and sharing. In fact, it was the proclamation of the good news taken to all around us that the Lord Jesus had come not only for us, but for all. 

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul states it very clearly that the mystery of salvation offered to all was unknown in past generations, and this mystery 

“means that pagans now share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to them, in Jesus Christ, through the gospel.” (Ep 3:6).

When we read the Old Testament, we easily get the idea of exclusivism; it is as if the Scriptures promote and aprove a narrow nationalistic ideology, which looks down on all those who do not belong to the chosen people. The prophets tried to break out of that exclusivism and spoke of a universal plan of salvation. Isaiah was bold enough to say that God cares as much of Egypt and Babylon as he cares about Israel.

“On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the center of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them.” “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.” (Is 19:19-20, 25).

The feast of Epiphany celebrates this great mystery of salvation: In Jesus Christ, all peoples are called to salvation. And all those who look for the light and search for life, will find the one who brings to all who are ready to accept him.

Like the magi, may we never get tired of looking for the Saviour. In the end we will be guided to him, so that we offer to him the gifts of our lives.