ü This week is Vocation Awareness Week. The first Reading from the First Book of Samuel and the Gospel according to John present to us two stories of vocation.
ü Sometimes it is difficult to understand the call. In the process of discovering our call we need the help of somebody else. (Eli in the case of Samuel, and John the Baptist in the case of the two first disciples.)
ü The call entails answering the invitation “come and see.”
ü The second Reading reminds us that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
FIRST READING FROM THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL
Ø The central theme of the First book of Samuel is the birth of the monarchy under the guidance of Samuel, judge and prophet.
Ø Samuel continues the judges’ tradition, but he receives also a new call to be the mediator of the Word of God, to be a prophet.
Ø The monarchy was for the Israelites an ambivalent experience.
Ø The author makes of these two books a work of art.
Ø In spite of this we find in them repetitions, incoherencies…
Ø However, as we have said in the IV Sunday of Advent, there is also a theological thought which runs through both books. It is the theology of the Deuteronomy, which we also found in the books of Joshuah and Judges.
Ø All the history books inspired in the theology of the Deuteronomy are called Deutenomistic History.
Ø These books are not only history books but theological interpretation of the events of history.
Ø Yahweh-God orders Samuel to give a King to Israel as the people has asked. We know that Samuel did not want that Israel had a king. (1 Sm 8,6; 8,7.22; 1 Sm 9,16-17; 1 Sm 16,1.12.)
Ø When Israel reflects on its history it discovers the infidelity of the people to the Covenant made with Yahweh, since the time they entered the promissed land. The people had not listened to God who spoke to them through the prophets.
READING FOR SUNDAY 1Samuel 3,3-10.19
« This story shows to us the contrast between the religious decadence of the sons of Eli, the priest, and the new rebirth represented by the young Samuel.
« Samuel is called to be the servant of the Word, to listen and to speak. He is called to be a prophet.
« When the Lord calls Samuel for the first time, Samuel did not know the Lord. He had never received any revelation from God.
« He needs the help of Eli who tells him to say “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”
RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Ps 40: 2,4,7-8,8-9,10
This psalm has two parts: o A thanksgiving hymn on verses 2-11
o A personal supplication on verses 12-18
The responsorial psalm of the II Sunday in Ordinary time is taken from the thanksgiving part of the psalm HERE AM I, LORD; I COME TO DO YOUR WILL
I have waited, waited for the Lord,
and he stooped toward me and heard my cry
And he put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God.
HERE AM I, LORD; I COME TO DO YOUR WILL
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Holocausts or sin-offering you sought not;
Then said I,”Behold I come”
HERE AM I, LORD; I COME TO DO YOUR WILL
In the written scroll it is prescribed for me
To do your will, O my God, is my delight
And your law is written in my heart!
HERE AM I, LORD; I COME TO DO YOUR WILL
I announced your justice in the vast assembly
I did not restrain my lips a you O Lord know.
HERE AM I, LORD; I COME TO DO YOUR WILL
GOSPEL. JOHN 1:35-42
Ø On the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time in the three liturgical cycles A,B,C we read from the Gospel of John.
Ø At Christmas we also read from the Gospel of John from the first part of this same chapter.
Ø At Christmas John, the evangelist, presented to us Jesus as the Word, the Living Word of the Father. The Word who has put his tent among us.
Ø Today it is John the Baptist who points out to us Jesus as the lamb of God.
Ø The Gospel we will read on Sunday is a story of an Epiphany of the Lord. Epiphany means “manifestation of the Lord.”
o Christmas is also an epiphany, a manifestation. God making himself visible among us in the newborn baby.
o The baptism of the Lord is another manifestation, in which the Father sends his Spirit on the adult Jesus, and says to us that Jesus is his beloved Son, and he invites us to listen to Jesus.
Ø When the two disciples of John heard John calling Jesus “the lamb of God”, they followed him
o Jesus asks them and invites them “come and see.”
o And the two disciples went and saw. Afterwards they did the same thing as John the Baptist: they told about Jesus to their friends and relatives.
Ø Andrew one of the two disciples speaks to his brother Simon and takes him to Jesus
o And in this meeting Simon receives a new name, he will be called Peter which means “rock.”
o The change of name in the Bible is always a sign of a call, a vocation.
SECOND READING 1 Co 6:13-15; 17,20
§ The Corinthians were mislead in their understanding of Christian freedom. They thought that freedom had no boundaries o limitations. Paul makes them reflect on their behavior. The limits of my freedom is God himself. Paul says in chapter 3 of the First Letter to the Corinthians: “All belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.
§ Our body
o Is not for immorality
o It is for the Lord
o And God who raised up Christ from the dead, will also raise us up.
§ Paul tells them: do you not see that your bodies are members of Christ? Let us remember the theology of the body of Christ, the Christian community, the Church. The Church is the body of Christ, and each one of us is part of this body.
§ Paul continues to say that whoever unites himself to a prostitute becomes like her, and whoever unites himself or herself to the Lord becomes spirit as the Lord. This means that we live the life of the Spirit.
o This reflection of Paul reminds us of Gn : 2,24
o Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. At our baptism we have received the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, and guides us to the fullness of the knowledge , and the life of God.
o The consequence of this truth is that we do not belong to ourselves anymore, we have been ransomed at a very high cost. Our service and worship of God has to be truthful and real, given with our whole being, which includes our bodies also
o The reading ends with the invitation: GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODIES.
God was preparing me with so many troubles to receive the great, the indescribable joy which had to flood my soul with the arrival of the Bull from Rome on July 16, 1855, as rapidly as I was expecting and I had told the Archbishop every time he presented me so many difficulties. The fights and quarrels, tears and sighs that the foundation of this first house is costing me. Only God, who is pleased with the sighs of a heart distressed for his love, knows them. (María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 202)
I came down from the pulpit filled with the greatest fervor, and at the end of the service we left the church to go to my lodgings. I was accompanied by four priests, my attendant, Ignacio, and a sacristan who carried a lantern to light our way, since it was 8:30 in the evening and it had already grown dark. We had left the church and were walking down the broad and spacious main street. On both sides of the avenue there were large crowds, and all were greeting me. A man stepped forward, as if to kiss my ring, when suddenly his arm flew back and he brought the razor he was holding down upon me with all his might. I had my head down and was touching a handkerchief to my mouth with my right hand, and so, instead of slitting my throat as he had intended, he slashed my face across the left cheek, from the ear to the chin. The razor also caught and wounded my right arm in passing because I was holding it up to my mouth, as I said. (Wounded in Holguin-Cuba. Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 575)
No comments:
Post a Comment