SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A - 2023

Ø  We have taken a leap in time from the child Jesus to the adult Jesus.  Again, we are in Ordinary Time, which as a liturgy teacher I had said, is nothing ordinary.

Ø  It is the time of the daily life of every human being, of the ordinary things, the extraordinary is the least in our life.  

Ø  The first Sundays of the ordinary time have the same meaning as the Epiphany, they tell us about events that are true epiphanies, manifestations, revelations, of Jesus

Ø  I copy here two antiphons that we recited in the prayer of Lauds and Vespers of the Solemnity of Epiphany:

o   Today the Bridegroom claims his bride, the Church, since Christ has washed her sins away in Jordan’s waters; the Magi hasten with their gifts to the royal wedding; and the wedding guests rejoice, for Christ has changed water into wine, alleluia.(Lauds)

o   Three mysteries mark this holy day; today the star leads the Magi to the Infant Christ; today water is changed into wine for the wedding feast; today Christ wills to be baptized by John in the river Jordan to bring us salvation. (vespers)

Ø  Today and in the next Sundays we will celebrate what these antiphons have announced: the manifestation of the Lord, his epiphany in our world.

FIRST READING:  Is 49:3, 5-6

·         God speaks to Israel and says that he (Israel) is his servant.    

ü  And Israel adds, Israel here is not a people but an individual person, that God has fashioned him from his mother’s womb.    

ü  And God gave him a mission, to make the tribes of Israel return to their God.   

·         The Lord adds:

ü  It is too little for you to be my servant to restore the Tribes of Jacob

ü  God wants him to be the light of the nations  (the nations are the pagan peoples) 

ü  that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. 

·         What a beautiful statement from God, that he had always told Israel; He intends that everyone  know him.

·         Let us rejoice, those of us who are worried about our relatives far from religious practice, the Lord wants them to know Him and He will manifest himself to them in his time, but for this, He needs their cooperation.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Sal  39: 2 y 4ab. 7-8a. 8b-9. 10

R. (8a and 9a) 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.
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or offering you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Holocausts or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, "Behold I come."
R. Here I am, 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 within my heart!"
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will. 

Let us meditate in the sentence we will repeat after each stanza.   

HERE I AM LORD, I COME TO DO YOUR WILL

o   These words of the Servant remind us of the words of Mary when the angel proposed to her the plan that God had upon her, that will change her own plan.   

o   She said “Be it done unto me according to your Word”, that is, I am ready to accept God’s  will and I will do it.    

o   And what do I do when I feel that God wants something from me, something unforeseen that will make changes in my life.  

GOSPEL John 1:29-34 

v  This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. 

v  From the many images of Jesus, Lamb of God, I like the one we read in the books of Numbers 29:11 and Leviticus 16:7-10.    

Where we find the rules for the celebration of Yom Kipur, Day of attonement

      In that day the liturgical assembly convenes to offer prayers and sacrifices for the sins of the people.  

      Two goats are chosen, one to be offered as a holocaust. On the other by a symbolic sign, they will cast out all the sins of the people. Then they will take the goat outside the camp and send it into the wilderness where he will surely die. 

      These two goats are images of Jesus, one is offered as a holocaust, Jesus died on the cross as a holocaust he offered of himself to the Father for our sake; the second the one that carries the sins of the people and dies in the desert is another image of Christ on the cross, since he carries all our sins and nails to the cross the document of our condemnation and thus gains  our salvation for  us.    

v  Another point of interest in this gospel is the second testimony given by John. He says that he has seen the Spirit under the appearance of a Dove descend from heaven and remain upon Him. He had been told that the one on whom the Spirit descended, this is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.    

SEGUNDA LECTURA 1 Cor 1:1-3

      We begin the reading of the first letter of Paul to the Christian community in Corinth as Paul says in his greeting   

      By his greeting we also know that he has a companion, one of his collaborators, Sosthenes.  

      He says that his greeting is for all who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and he wishes them grace and peace.   

o   Grace means the life of God that the Father gives to us gratuitously, and that has been won by Christ for us.  

o   Peace that we all wish, but to have it we must cooperate trying to be persons of peace and of reconciliation.    

      Paul calls the Father, God our Father, and he calls Jesus Lord, as did the first communities, that were full of enthusiasm because of the resurrection. They had not been witnesses of the resurrection, but the apostles had been.  

      Let  us begin this new year 2023 with enthusiasm and let  us be bearers and  doers of peace wherever we  might be.    

CLARETIAN CORNER

Antonia París y Florentina Sangler, Novices of the Convent of the Teaching Sisters of Our Lady,  present here, in the City of Tarragona; with the greatest respect for Your Excellency make present that having reflected slowly, during these days of the Holy Spiritual Exercises, on their vocation and, having judge in the presence of God that they do not have to profess in this House, because they feel themselves called to another Institute; for this and in order to fulfill the desires of their vocation they resort to the benignity  of Your Excellency, so that you deign grant your  license and authorization, that we need, in order to exist from the cloister.   Grace, they trust they will obtain from the benign heart of Your Excellency this afternoon.   

Tarragona,  27 of January 1851. (This document seems to be the most ancient letter of María Antonia Paris, that  has been kept in the archives)    

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PARIS, MARIA ANTONIA. Epistolario. Presentación, introducciones a las cartas y notas por el P. Juan     Manuel Lozano, cmf. 1993.

EQUIPO BIBLICO VERBO.  Un tesoro escondido. Encuentro con el evangelio dominical desde la Lectio Divina. 2022.

Book of the Liturgy of the Hours and “ la Biblia de nuestro pueblo”2015.