Showing Love
Jan. 9: Thursday after Epiphany
I’m sure you've heard about the fires around Los Angeles on the news. Fires are not unusual this time of year, but this many fires in less than a day is very shocking. My family is healthy and safe, thankfully. Other than the smell of smoke, the fires aren't affecting our home. We do know people in Amelia’s and Kirrily’s school who have last their homes, but thankfully evacuated in time.
Please pray for those affected—people who’ve lost their homes, property, and in the most tragic cases, their lives, as well as fire fighters and emergency technicians who are doing their best to protect those people.
Reading I
1 John 4:19–5:4
Beloved, we love God because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the Father loves also the one begotten by him. In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
We should love God, but as mortal, Earthly, time-bound human beings of flesh and blood, how can we do that? God became a man in part to show us how.
God loves us; when we love each other, we act out and continue His love. God doesn't need anything, so there's no other way to show our love for Him than by showing our love for other humans just as limited as we are.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 72:1-2, 14 and 15bc, 17
R. (see 11) Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
From fraud and violence he shall redeem them,
and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
May they be prayed for continually;
day by day shall they bless him.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
May his name be blessed forever;
as long as the sun his name shall remain.
In him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed;
all the nations shall proclaim his happiness.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Governments, whether headed by royalty or elected officials, have a responsibility to protect their people. That doesn’t just mean from physical violence (although that is important). They’re also meant to keep society running smoothly, by curbing fraud and abuse.
It’s not an easy task, which is why we must pray for them “continually.”
Alleluia
Lk 4:18
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor
and to proclaim liberty to captives.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
This is another reason God sent His only Son.
Gospel
Lk 4:14-22
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
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.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
There’s a general principle in storytelling that most scenes should represent a reversal of fortune from the previous scene. If things are going well, they should take a turn for the worse; if badly, the situation should improve.
Luke applied this idea to some incidents in Jesus’ life, including in today’s Gospel Remember, Luke never actually met Jesus; he researched primary sources and interviewed first-hand witnesses. Luke found the incident in today’s reading described in Mark, but it occurred later in Jesus’ ministry.
Luke moved it earlier, because the next thing that happens is, as I said, a reversal of fortune. First, the people of Nazareth are amazed at Jesus’ wisdom, but as He continues His preaching, they turn on Him. That'll be when He says the well-known line, “no prophet is accepted in his own native place.”1
Luke sets these pairs of incidents up as a microcosm of Jesus’ whole ministry. At first, the people love Him for His miracles, but then they reject Him because of His message of repentance and charity. This pattern continues to the absolute lowest point of the Gospel story, the Crucifixion.
And that gets the greatest reversal of all—the Resurrection!
But this isn’t just a story of things that happened two thousand years ago. We often find ourselves going through this back-and-forth in our own lives, accepting and then rejecting Christ. Faith in Him, hope in His promise of eternal life, and love for God and our fellow man are the ultimate conclusion we should be aiming for, even as we stumble along the way.