Ordinary Time Cycle A

Presentation of the Lord...Replaces Fourth Sunday Ordinary Time in 2013

February 2, 2014

Review the Readings

Listen to the Readings

 

This feast is so important that when it occurs on a Sunday it replaces the Sunday mass.  

Background on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

 

The Readings

This prophet tells the people, who are in the midst of many, many struggles and difficulties, that the Lord God will send a messenger to prepare the way for the one who will come bringing them hope and salvation.

 

When we are in struggles and difficulties, we too need to watch for the messenger, who will prepare the way of the Lord?
In order to find the Lord, we need to be able to look deeply at our own spiritual selves; we need to be able to see our own doubts and fears, our failures and our sins.  Who is the messenger, a person or event, that will help us to meet the Lord.

 

 

 

 

The Gospel reading from Luke tells the story of how Christ is shown as the light of the world and that he has come for all people.

 

Simeon and Anna point out how Jesus is the one, the Christ, the Light of the World, whom all have been waiting.

 

The prayer of Simeon is recited every night as a part of the official night prayer of the Church

 

Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

 

 

In the second reading Paul writes, assuring those he is addressing, that Jesus has come for all of us .
He has become like us and is a brother and a sister to each of us.

 

 

 

Jesus became human and went through great human struggles and suffering and so is certainly able to relate to the sufferings that you and I go through.

 

Have you not noticed that after the darkness, which can be so difficult, there is light; there is some enlightenment giving us a much deeper understand and learning of ourselves?

 

 

 Perhaps we will continue to discover more about ourselves and our faith.  Perhaps it will help us to see what we need to ask the Lord for in our own spiritual journey. 

 

 

Second Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle A

January 19, 2014

Review the Readings 

Listen to the Readings

In the first reading, the people Isaiah was addressing were in exile in Babylon. They had lost everything. They were at an all time low.  

Have you experienced a very low period in your life?

 

Isaiah gave them and us the hope that God will not abandon his people; that He will send someone to help them and all people.  

We hear in the reading what is call the second oracle of the Suffering Servant.  One will come that will bring salvation for the whole world. Once again those in exile of Babylon were given hope.  

This is also for us.

God will not abandon us.

In the second reading, written somewhere around 50AD, Paul went to preach in Corinth, which was a Roman colony and was morally corrupt.  His letter fulfills what we hear in the first reading of Isaiah. Even to the pagans in corrupt Corinth, God will send messengers to bring the news of forgiveness and salvation.

 

Paul was that messenger, as too was the Corinthian Christian community.  

These words also apply to us. We are called to make the compassion and forgiveness of God present to others. We are commissioned to carry on what Paul was sent to do. We, of the current age, are to make God present in the world today

In the gospel,  St.John the Baptist recognized that Jesus was the one sent from God.

 

 

 

He is the Son of God

 

God has kept his promise not to abandon his people.

 

Each of us, through our baptism, are called to make God's mercy and forgiveness present in the world today.

We are to make Christ present for others.

Once again today, we can renew what we were commissioned to do at our baptism.  

God is made present for others in our mercy, compassion, forgiveness, love of the enemy, etc. just as Jesus did.