First Reading – Isaiah
49:3, 5-6 ©
Responsorial Psalm –
Psalm 39(40):2, 4, 7-10 ©
Second Reading – 1
Corinthians 1:1-3 ©
Gospel Acclamation – Luke
19:38, 2:14
Alternative Acclamation
John 1:14, 12
The Gospel According to John
1:29 - 34 ©
(NJB)
The Second Sunday of
Ordinary Time (Year A)
Be
wary of the voice of God.
Be
wary!
Be
wary when you hear God speak to you, especially in secret and in private. What
you perceive as the voice of God is almost always the voice of your own
desires.
Be
mindful.
God
made us all to be God’s servants, God made us all from light, and to light we
shall return.
Listen!
God
has provided for our wellness.
Be
careful that you do not substitute your will for the will of God, for the will of
God who created the universe.
Consider
the wisdom of the psalmist who declares that God is the God of mercy, and of
listening.
Bend
your ear to God; listen with the ear of your heart.
Stretch
out your feelings and you will find your way through the troubles of life on
Earth, through its filth and misery, as the psalmist says:
Seek
salvation, seek wellness, seek freedom from your own sins and do not dwell on
the sins of others.
When
you are beset with difficulties do not cast blame on others, rather look to yourself,
to your own transgressions and seek relief from them by following the way of God, whose command it is to
love.
Listen,
and be mindful.
We
have all been appointed by God to be apostles, to share the gospel, the good
news of God’s love for us, and the promise that God has prepared the way for our salvation, for the
salvation of humanity, for the salvation of all people in all times and all
places.
We
are all people of the way; we are all
saints in the making.
Remember
this!
Jesus
is not a lord, he is not our king, he was our brother; Jesus is our friend.
Let
us dwell on this for a moment longer; God is not king, or a lord. The creator
of the universe does not wear a crown. We do not seek glory as we struggle on the way toward salvation. As we follow
Jesus we seek out the lowest of the low, not the highest heaven, we seek to
serve those in the deepest dark, returning them to the light of love.
Listen!
Do
not repeat the errors of John
Proclaim
the truth, we are all born into the family of God; we are God’s children. We
are not made the children of God by any power, not by a power that comes from
within us, neither by a power that is external to us. We coming into being as
children of God, in the Word, by the Word and through the Word.
Our
status as children of God is as unconditional as God’s love for us.
Remember
this always.
Consider
the Gospel for today:
The
Gospel of John was written more than one hundred and twenty years after the
death of Jesus. None of its authors knew Jesus, or John, and not any of them
knew anyone who knew them.
Like
all of the other Gospels, John was not written by a single person. It was
written by a community of people, and more than any of the other Gospels, it
was written as propaganda.
The
Gospel of John was written with the intention of arguing for that community’s
beliefs about who Jesus was, what the weaning of his life was, and what his
death meant to
Christians
of their day, it was written to communicate those beliefs to the world.
By
the time Johannine Gospel is written, the early church no longer had any
concern about ameliorating John the Baptist’s followers, as they did when they
earlier gospel’s were drafted. The ethnic Jews in John’s community had either
become Christians, or they were considered by the community to be enemies of
the nascent Church.
John’s
Gospel is overwhelming concerned with depicting Jesus as the cosmic savior. In
the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word
of God, who comes to take away the sins of the World.
Jesus
is God.
When
John the Baptist encounters Jesus, he provides witness for this.
The
Baptist does not Baptize Jesus, as he does in the other Gospels, even though he,
himself is busy at the work of baptizing.
When
he sees Jesus approach, he announces to his followers that Jesus has come, a
man greater than himself, one who existed before him (even though he was born
in time after him), one on whom the Spirit of God rests, one who will complete
the baptism of every believer, because he will baptize them with Holy Spirit
and not mere water.
The Gospel of John was
the crowning achievement of the early Christian propaganda. Through this
vehicle the Church transformed the man, Joshua son of Joseph, into the being through
whom the entire universe came into existence.
And
this is fine, but it must be understood for what it is, as the expressions of
faith and hope, not the recitation of history and fact; it is metaphor,
allegory and myth.
First Reading – Isaiah 49:3,
5-6 ©
I Will Make You the Light
of the Nations so that My Salvation May Reach to the Ends of the Earth
The
Lord said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I shall be glorified’; I
was honoured in the eyes of the Lord, my God was my strength.
And
now the Lord has spoken, he who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to
bring Jacob back to him, to gather Israel to him:
‘It
is not enough for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and
bring back the survivors of Israel; I will make you the light of the nations so
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.’
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
39(40):2, 4, 7-10 ©
Here I am, Lord! I come
to do your will.
I
waited, I waited for the Lord
and he stooped down to me;
he heard my cry.
He
put a new song into my mouth,
praise of our God.
Here I am, Lord! I come
to do your will.
You
do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You
do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I.
Here I am, Lord! I come
to do your will.
In
the scroll of the book it stands written
that I should do your will.
My
God, I delight in your law
in the depth of my heart.
Here I am, Lord! I come
to do your will.
Your
justice I have proclaimed
in the great assembly.
My
lips I have not sealed;
you know it, O Lord.
Here I am, Lord! I come
to do your will.
Second Reading – 1 Corinthians
1:1-3 ©
May God the Father and Our
Lord Jesus Christ Send You Grace and Peace
I,
Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle, together with brother Sosthenes, send
greetings to the church of God in Corinth, to the holy people of Jesus Christ,
who are called to take their place among all the saints everywhere who pray to
our Lord Jesus Christ; for he is their Lord no less than ours. May God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ send you grace and peace.
Gospel Acclamation – Luke
19:38, 2:14
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessings
on the King who comes,
in
the name of the Lord!
Peace
in heaven
and
glory in the highest heavens!
Alleluia!
Alternative Acclamation John
1:14, 12
Alleluia, alleluia!
The
Word was made flesh and lived among us:
to
all who did accept him
he
gave power to become children of God.
Alleluia!
The Gospel According to John
1:29 - 34 ©
'Look: there is the Lamb
of God'
Seeing
Jesus coming towards him, John said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world. This is the one I spoke of when I said: A man is
coming after me who ranks before me because he existed before me. I did not
know him myself, and yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came baptising
with water.’ John also declared, ‘I saw the Spirit coming down on him from
heaven like a dove and resting on him. I did not know him myself, but he who
sent me to baptise with water had said to me, “The man on whom you see the
Spirit come down and rest is the one who is going to baptise with the Holy
Spirit.” Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of
God.’
The Second Sunday of Ordinary
Time (Year A)
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