Jesus' Mission Statement

In today's Gospel, Luke 4: 14-221, Jesus goes to the synagogue in his home town. He opens the scroll and reads the following passage from Isaiah:

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.

This is Jesus' mission statement! What is yours?

       For what has God anointed you at your baptism?
       For what have you been sent here on earth to do?

If, today, Jesus' mission is your mission, and mine:

• To whom did you, did I, bring glad tidings?
• To whom did you, did I,  proclaim liberty?  In other words, who is freer today because of their interaction with us?
• Who, today, sees more clearly who Jesus is, what their mission is, or how much they are loved because of us?
• Who has been set free of oppression today because of our intervention or engagement with them? Or have we, instead, been an oppressor?

May Jesus truly live through us more and more each day and may His mission be accomplished through us!

Jesus: A Refuge in the Storms of Life

In today's Gospel, Mark 6: 45-52, Jesus asked his disciples to get into a boat and "precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd" of 5000 plus people they had just fed with five loaves of bread and two fish.  The disciples are far our on the sea when a treacherous storm arises. Jesus, on shore, "saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea." The disciples are terrified not only of the storm but because they thought that a  ghost was approaching them. "But at once he spoke with them, 'Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!'   He got into the boat with them, and the wind died down."

Wow! Jesus is miles from the disciples but knows that they are in trouble and need his help, so he goes out to sea and approaches their wind-tossed boat.  First, he calms their fears, assuring them that it is he coming toward them on the turbulent waters. But does more than that. He gets into the boat with them.

You and I are those disciples journeying on the "turbulent waters" of our lives. Jesus knows when we are in trouble and approaches us. He is always near ready to help!  He is one with us in our troubles and in our sufferings. He does not stand on the outside of our lives, out of our "boats". No, He gets in the "boat" and suffers with us. It is Jesus who calms our fears, fills us with peace and gives us the strength we need to deal with "the storm," just as He helped his disciples in the middle of the dark night and stormy sea that was threatening their lives.

Do we recognize Jesus? Or is He, to us, some kind of ghost, someone we are afraid of and what to avoid?

Rooted in God Who Is Love

Today's first reading, 1 John 4: 7-10, presents us with the following invitation and information:  "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.  In this way the love of God was revealed to us:  God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins" and to show us God's overwhelming love for humankind.

You and I were created by God, who is the source of our very beings. God is love and, therefore, we, too, are love, created by Love and for Love. St. Luke, in Acts 17: 28, reminds us that we live and move and have our being in God. Therefore we live and move and have our being in Love!  When we fail to love, are we not failing both ourselves and our God. When we are unloving, uncaring and rejecting of ourselves and others and thus engaged in sinful behavior,  is it not true that we do not truly know ourselves!  St. Paul says in Rom 7: 25 that "[w]hen I act against my will (my will is to love as God loves], then, it is not my true self doing it (my true self is a loving self), but sin which lives in me."

God lives at the core of my being.  From that core self do I not will to desire what God desires and to  love as God loves?

Believing in Jesus and Loving as Jesus Loved

In today's first reading, 1 John 3: 22-4:6, St. John reminds us that the first commandment is as follows: "[W]e should believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us."  Jesus is the Son of God, who assumed human nature, remaining fully God and becoming fully human. Jesus was sent to show us God's unconditional love for us, a love revealed to us by Jesus' life, death and resurrection.  We are called to believe in the truth that the Blessed Trinity---three divine persons but one God--agreed to send the second person to become a human being like us in all things but sin.

All who came to Him, Jesus healed. He took the side of sinners, ate with them, forgave them and invited them to repent and sin no more! Even on the cross when the good thief turned to Jesus and asked to be remembered in paradise, Jesus said to him: "Indeed, I promise you...today you will be with me in paradise"  (Luke 23:43). It was from his cross that the good thief rebuked the other thief who had joined those mocking Jesus: "Have you no fear of God at all?  ...You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case e deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong." (Luke 23: 40-42).  

To believe in Jesus is to love as Jesus loved, rising above our suffering and pain. Loving as Jesus taught us to love means to reach out to others in need: forgiving, embracing and showing others the love of God within us, a love that holds nothing back!

Behold the Mighty One, the Lord, our King!

In the Entrance Antiphon of today's liturgy, we pray:  "Behold the Lord, the Mighty One, has come; and kingship is in his grasp, and power and dominion." 

In the news every day we are bombarded by claims of leaders throughout the world of their alleged power, dominion and efforts to be "king" of the world, one vying against another for power and control!  Or we are showered by other's claims of the "greatness" of the person they perceive as "almighty" and as the one who will save us from the mire into which we have fallen and continue to fall!

There is one king, Christ, the Lord, "the Mighty One".  Kingship, power and dominion rest in His hands and His alone.  We wait for God's glorious intervention, as the immorality, the corruption, the deception, the criminality dominating the world, I believe,  is beyond our power to transform. We need and await God's intervention, as we strive personally to live hold lives. The Scriptures tells us that our God comes with power to save us. There is no one here on earth, in any country, capable of saving us from evil powers that are rampant throughout the world!

Today we celebrate the feast of Epiphany--God reveals Himself as King of all the earth and all who live on it.  Isaiah, in today's first reading, beckons us to "[r]ise up in splendor...Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.  See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples [who choose evil, live corrupt lives, are slaves to Satan's lies, and who are chasing God substitutes]; but upon you the Lord shines, and over you appears his glory.....[Like the Magi who brought gifts to the newborn king] you shall be radiant at what you see [when you seek God above all else and place your trust in Him, the Mighty One], and your heart shall throb and overflow, for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you [as you seek the Lord and sing His praises]!"

May you and I, like the Magi, seek and find Jesus, following the light of His guidance today and every day!  Our  lives will then overflow with praise and gratitude, as did the lives of the Magi!

"Come and see"

In today's Gospel, John 1: 43-51, we are told that Jesus decided to go to Galilee, where he found Philip and says to him: "Follow me." Philip, in turn, finds Nathaniel and says to him:  "We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth."  "From Nazareth?" Philip responds. "'Can anything good come from Nazareth?'...'Come and see.'"  Jesus sees Nathaniel coming toward him and says of him: "Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him....'How do you know me?'...'Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.'"

Jesus comes to our countries, villages, cities, reservations, homes in search of us, as well. He finds us under "our fig trees," or does He? Are we too busy about many thing to stop and think, stop and reflect, stop and ponder, stop and be quiet?  If we pause, become silent, take time to seek Jesus, we open our heart to hear His voice. He says to us, as He said to Philip:  "Follow Me. Come to know me! Come, develop a personal relationship with Me. Good does come from growing close to Me. And good does come from the place where you were born. Other may not think so, but I do!"

Like Nathaniel, may our eyes be open to Jesus, the Son of God, in our midst, dwelling, in fact, in the very core of our being. We won't realize that, however, if we shun alone time, if we don't take time to sit under "our fig trees," if we do not seek the Lord regularly, consistently in personal quiet prayer  time! We might use that quiet time simply uttering the name of Jesus or gazing upon the face of the Lord, on contemplating a phrase from the psalms or a favorite Scripture passage.

The Lord: Our Allotted Portion and Our Cup

In tomorrow's Entrance Antiphon, we pray: "O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.  For me the measuring lines have fallen on pleasant sites; fair to me indeed is my inheritance."

That inheritance is not something you and I deserve. The inheritance of life forever with God in heaven is an inheritance for which an immense ransom was paid: the human birth, life, sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  The Incarnate God poured out his blood, became the sacrificial lamb, for you and me! The "Lord [is our] allotted portion and [our] cup" at the price of Jesus' life and death on the cross.   It is a free gift of God's unconditional love for you and me!

Like Jesus, you and I pass "from death to life" in loving our brothers and sisters (compare tomorrow's first reading, 1 John 3: 11-21).  John reminds us that "[w]hoever does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his brother [or sister] is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him [her]. The way we came to know love was that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers [sisters]. If someone who has worldly means sees a brother [sister] in need and refuses him [her] compassion, how can the love of God remain in him [her]? Children," John says to us, "let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth."

John puts it on the line for us! And God Himself has written this law of love on everyone's heart. We have no excuses for walking by someone in need and not helping if we have the means to help, whether that be financial means, material means or spiritual/psychological means to make a difference in that person's life by acts of love, by caring, by acting compassionately.

How do you and I measure up to what God is asking of us?