The Time is Now: The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024

                                                                The Time is Now:

The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024 

January 21, 2024

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Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 25; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

 

Both Jonah and Jesus set out to proclaim God’s will for the people, and each man knows that the task is formidable. Jonah preaches an unpopular message, and he is not sure that people will hear his words and take it to heart. Jesus is not preaching repentance; John the Baptist has done that. Jesus preaches that God’s rule is breaking in for those who hear understand it. The rule of God is becoming visible in the present moment. 

 

Jesus establishes the ideal human community that God intends. This new community is the place where God rules; it is where any of them are gathered, and Jesus is showing the people the way God desires them to live. This community will be different from those gathered around the Torah, for it will be visible by the way people live together. The community’s way of life will be the sign that God is indeed active. All who are invited will relate to God as the parent, and like a benevolent monarch who teaches, heals, unites, and encourages people to live in right relations to one another. God and the community will guide the actions of all who devote their lives to God. Every person is invited, no matter what distinction they hold, into this community and each is treated with radical mercy.

 

It is no surprise that Simon and Andrew respond immediately. John and James follow soon after. The time of God’s inbreaking is now, and they are invited to proclaim the same message: The Kingdom of God is available now to anyone who has ears to hear. The proclamation of the God’s rule is timeless and is just as fresh today as it was 2,000 years ago. We are asked to respond. Will I join the community of faith that is gathered around Jesus and live and act like they do? Of course, many of us will say, “yes, of course. After all, I’m in church, aren’t I?” The invitation is deeper, and the community of faith is wider than the church, which has a habit and tradition of excluding all sorts of people in condemnatory judgment without even getting to know the person. The time for our response is now, and if we say yes, then we must be ready to conform our lives to this way of life. We must be prepared for a metanoia, a change of heart.

 

As Grateful Disciples, perhaps we need to examine what we need to leave behind. I’ll name a few that pop up occasionally: A presumption of being right, the custom of speaking declaratively and definitively rather than pausing and listening, judgments upon categories of people that we declare to be sinful, adhering to documents and teachings as the sole arbiter of making decisions, dealing with ideas and policies rather than seeing the person in front of us, a need to exclude those who are not like us; living along ideologies. Rather, the kingdom of God invites us to be patient, slow to anger, striving to understand and expand one’s consciousness, and to be rich in mercy, because mercy means to enter into the chaos of another person’s life and find God in the midst. Once we free ourselves from that which holds us down, holds us back, we can move forward into this community of faith in gratitude.

 

When we enter freely into this reign as Simon, Andrew, James, and John did, we realize just how much we want to contribute to the buildup of the community. We naturally want to share our gifts, our resources, and our hopes, and we want to share how the Spirit of God is leading us. We have the good news. God’s rule is still breaking into our world today. Now. How are we moved to respond?

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (2 Samuel 5) In days past, when Saul was our king, it was you who led the children of Israel out and brought them back. And the LORD said to you, 'You shall shepherd my people Israel and shall be commander of Israel.'" When all the elders of Israel came to David in Hebron, King David made an agreement with them there before the LORD, and they anointed him king of Israel.

 

Tuesday: (2 Samuel 6) David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the City of David amid festivities. As soon as the bearers of the ark of the LORD had advanced six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling.

 

Wednesday: (2 Samuel 7) That night the LORD spoke to Nathan and said: "Go, tell my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD: Should you build me a house to dwell in?
I have not dwelt in a house from the day on which I led the children of Israel out of Egypt to the present.

 

Thursday: (Acts 22) I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral law and was zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way to death, binding both men and women and delivering them to prison.

 

Friday (2 Timothy 1) I am grateful to God, whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did, as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day. I yearn to see you again, recalling your tears, so that I may be filled with joy.

 

Saturday (2 Samuel 12) Then Nathan said to David: "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'The sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.'

 

Gospel: 

 

Monday: (Mark 3) The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said of Jesus, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "By the prince of demons he drives out demons."

 

Tuesday: (Mark 3) "Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you." But he said to them in reply, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"

 

Wednesday (Mark 4) And when he was alone, those present along with the Twelve questioned him about the parables. He answered them, "The mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you.

 

Thursday (Mark 16) Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.

 

Friday (Mark 4) Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once,
for the harvest has come.

 

Saturday (Mark 4) Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.

 

Saints of the Week

 

January 21: Agnes, martyr (d. 305), is one of the early Roman martyrs. Little is known about her but she died around age 12 during a persecution. Because of her names connection with a lamb, her iconography depicts her holding a lamb to remind us of her sacrifice and innocence.

 

January 23: Marianne Cope (1838-1918), was a German-born woman who settled with her family in New York. She entered the Franciscans and worked in the school systems as a teacher and principal and she helped to establish the first two Catholic hospitals. She went to Honolulu, then Molokai, to aid those with leprosy.

 

January 24: Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor (1567-1622), practiced both civil and canon law before entering religious life. He became bishop of Geneva in 1602 and was prominent in the Catholic Reformation. He reorganized his diocese, set up a seminary, overhauled religious education, and found several schools. With Jane Frances de Chantal, he founded the Order of the Visitation of Mary.

 

January 25: The Conversion of Paul, the Apostle, was a pivotal point in the life of the early church. Scripture contains three accounts of his call and the change of behavior and attitudes that followed. Paul's story is worth knowing as it took him 14 years of prayer and study to find meaning in what happened to him on the road to Damascus.

 

January 26: Timothy and Titus, bishops (1st century), were disciples of Paul who later became what we know of as bishops. Timothy watched over the people of Ephesus and Titus looked after Crete. Both men worked with Paul and became a community leader. Timothy was martyred while Titus died of old age. 

 

January 27: Angela Merici (1474-1540), was the founder of the Ursuline nuns. Relatives raised her when her parents died when she was 10. As an adult, she tended to the needs of the poor and with some friends, she taught young girls at their home. These friends joined an association that later became a religious order. Ursula was the patron of medieval universities.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• January 21, 1764. Christophe de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, wrote a pastoral defending the Jesuits against the attacks of Parliament. It was ordered to be burned by the public executioner. 
• January 22, 1561. Pius IV abrogated the decree of Paul II and kept the life term of Father General. 
• January 23, 1789. John Carroll gained the deed of land for the site that was to become Georgetown University. 
• January 24, 1645. Fr. Henry Morse was led as a prisoner from Durham to Newgate, London. On hearing his execution was fixed for February 1, he exclaimed: "Welcome ropes, hurdles, gibbets, knives, butchery of an infamous death! Welcome for the love of Jesus, my Savior." 
• January 25, 1707. Cardinal Tournon, Apostolic Visitor of the missions in China, forbade the use of the words 'Tien' or 'Xant' for God and ordered the discontinuance by the Christians of the Chinese Rites. 
• January 26, 1611. The first Jesuit missionaries sailed from Europe for New France (Canada). 
• January 27, 1870. The Austrian government endeavored to suppress the annual grant of 8,000 florins to the theological faculty of Innsbruck and to drive the Jesuit professors from the university, because of their support of the Papal Syllabus.