RE: 01.19.12~Readings for Sunday, January 22nd-2012

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“WHICH WAY HOME,”-award winning film will be shown in the St.MaxParish Center
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JANUARY 22, 2012
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 68
READING 1 JON 3:1-5, 10
The word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying:
"Set out for the great city of Nineveh,
and announce to it the message that I will tell you."
So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,
according to the LORD'S bidding.
Now Nineveh was an enormously large city;
it took three days to go through it.
Jonah began his journey through the city,
and had gone but a single day's walk announcing,
"Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, "
when the people of Nineveh believed God;
they proclaimed a fast
and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he did not carry it out.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM PS 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
R. (4a) Teach me your ways, O Lord.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my savior.

R. Teach me your ways, O Lord.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
and your love are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
because of your goodness, O LORD.
R. Teach me your ways, O Lord.
Good and upright is the LORD;
thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice
and teaches the humble his way.
R. Teach me your ways, O Lord.
READING 2 1 COR 7:29-31
I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out.
From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those weeping as not weeping,
those rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those buying as not owning,
those using the world as not using it fully.
For the world in its present form is passing away.
GOSPEL MK 1:14-20
After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
"This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel."

As he passed by the Sea of Galilee,
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea;
they were fishermen.
Jesus said to them,
"Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Then they abandoned their nets and followed him.
He walked along a little farther
and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They too were in a boat mending their nets.
Then he called them.
So they left their father Zebedee in the boat
along with the hired men and followed him.


SUNDAY READINGS - 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
FIRST READING: Jonah 3: 1-5; 10. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he cried, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it.
EXPLANATION: The book of Jonah is not an historical account of the life and preaching of a prophet called Jonah who lived in the eighth century B.C. (see 2 Kgs. 14:25). but rather a fictional, didactic composition written after the return from the Babylonian exile, some time in the fifth century. The book is a sermon in the form of a story. The theme of the sermon is that Yahweh is the God of all nations, not of the Jews only, and that the Jews who have knowledge of him should spread that knowledge among the Gentiles. The returned exiles (the Jews back from Babylon) refused to do this. Instead their ambition and hope was that all Gentiles would be severely punished, if not annihilated, by Yahweh.
According to the story, a man called Jonah was told by God to go to a pagan city and preach repentance to the sinful people there. He refused and tried to escape. God punished him but spared him (the storm at sea and the fish which swallowed him), and eventually made him go.
word...Jonah: The command had already been given in 1: 1, here it is repeated.
message...you: The message was already given in 1: 1. The wickedness of Nineveh was known to Yahweh, he would punish them if they did not repent.
Nineveh: This was the capital city of Assyria, the arch-enemy of Israel in the eighth century. Jonah would naturally prefer to see them punished by Yahweh rather than that they should be converted and spared. This city was no longer standing when the book was written; it was razed to the ground in 612 B.C.
a great city...journey: There is some slight exaggeration here. It is said to have been three miles in width. But the larger the city the more wondrous its conversion.
forty days: If the people of Nineveh do not repent Yahweh will destroy them and their city after forty days.
people...God: They accepted as true what the God of this Jewish prophet had said. They believed that he had dominion over them also, and that they should cease to offend him. This they did.
put on sackcloth: They immediately began to do penance "in sackcloth and fasting," mortifying their flesh.
God repented: There was no change in God, but because the sinners of Nineveh had changed God accepted them back in his favor once more.
he did not...them: Because of their conversion neither they nor their city would be destroyed.
APPLICATION: The lesson of this story should have been very clear to the writer's Jewish contemporaries. They could see from it that God did not approve of their narrow-minded religious and nationalistic outlook. Even if they were God's Chosen People, he was not their God to the exclusion of all other races. He owned them but they did not own him, and this was exactly what they were trying to do. Yet, had they known the history of God's dealings with them, they should have understood that God had chosen them in order that the blessings of the incarnation would come through them to all nations. Abraham, their Father, was called to be a blessing for his descendants and for the whole world (Gen. 12: 3). Too often many of them forgot this.
These verses from Jonah have not been chosen for today's reading so that we should condemn the narrow-mindedness of the Jews of past ages. They have been chosen to remind us of our duty to look on all men as adopted sons of God and our brothers, toward whom we have a grave obligation to help on the road to heaven. God has destined all men for heaven. He sent his divine Son as man to make heaven available for all. He expected his Chosen People of old to share their special knowledge of him with their pagan neighbors. So too does he expect every Christian worthy of the name to do all in his power to spread the greater knowledge of Christ the Savior among all peoples, so that they too can share in the blessings he brought and avail of the happy future which is in store for them.
Have we been doing this? Have we really been interested in our fellowman? How often have we given them a thought or prayed for their conversion? How often have we donated a dime or a dollar to help the missionaries who, at home and abroad, have dedicated their lives to the conversion of pagans and sinners? There are Christians who excuse themselves from this obligation because they say: "we have more than enough to do to work out our own salvation." Their statement is more true than they realize. They will never succeed in reaching their own eternal salvation if they refuse to help their fellowman. No one who does not love God can get to heaven. The proof of real love of God is love of our neighbor, St. John tells us. So, to know if we are on the right road to heaven let us examine our consciences as regards our love of neighbor. Have we been practicing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, especially the spiritual works? It is they that are in question in today's reading.
Pope Pius XI used to say: "The Christian who is not an Apostle is on the way to becoming an apostate." The reason is that the very essence of Christianity is love, and love like heat diffuses itself automatically. The Christian who is not spreading the love of God has not got that love within him. His heart is full of self. There is no room in it for God. Down through the ages we have more than enough proof of this, but more so perhaps in recent times. We have men and women today who at one time gave themselves wholeheartedly to the service of God and their neighbor. But through over concentration on themselves, on their rights and freedoms, they have forgotten their neighbor, and to all intents and purposes therefore, they are forgetting God and their own eternal welfare.
While we beg of God to keep us on the right road to heaven, let us realize that if we want to stay on that road we must help all our brothers that we meet on the way. We must help our next-door neighbors by example and word. Those who are far off too, we must help financially, and by our prayers and penances. There is abundant room for all in God's heaven. Because of the good influence he had, directly or indirectly, on their lives on earth, each one's own personal happiness will be intensified and increased by seeing and knowing the happiness these others are enjoying in heaven.
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SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31. Brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.
EXPLANATION: Christ clearly revealed to his disciples that he would return to this earth in his glory to judge the living and the dead (see Mt. 24; 1 Th. 4: 13-17; 5: 2-11; 1 Cor. 15, etc.). However, he did not reveal to them when this would be, so some of the first Christians (including, perhaps, St. Paul himself) thought and hoped it would be during their own lifetime. In these three verses of his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul does not say, for he does not know, whether the end of the world is near or far off; all he does is to admonish his converts to do what our Lord himself advised his follower---always to be ready for the judgement (Mt. 24: 43-44; 25: 13: "so stay awake because you do not know either the day or the hour").
appointed...short: The appointed time for Paul is the messianic era. It has already begun, is of a limited duration and is of its nature short.
who have wives: The moment of judgement, that moment on which each one's eternity depends, is unknown. It behoves all to be always ready to answer the call when it comes. To be able to do this, we must be detached from persons and things in this world. He mentions wives, joys and sorrows, the goods and affairs of this world. He does not forbid them the lawful use of matrimony or of the goods and joys, as well as the sorrows of this life, but they must use and possess them in a way in which they can be ever ready to leave them when Christ calls them to judgement.
form of this world: The Christian era, just begun, is moving toward its culmination: the end of time and the beginning of eternity.
APPLICATION: St. Paul is speaking to each one of us here today and is giving us the very same sound, spiritual advice which he gave to his converts in Corinth. Unlike them, we are not expecting the general judgement in our lifetime; but what is worse, most of us are giving little thought to the particular judgement, to the fact that each one of us will soon be called to meet Christ in a judgement that will decide our eternal future. It is a strange, human phenomenon that while we plan and provide for future probabilities, some of which will never happen, few of us plan and provide for the one certain, future fact in our lives, which is that we are certain to die some day.
Men train for occupations and professions. Men build houses for themselves and their families. Men take out insurances against illness and unemployment. Men put money into businesses or investments which are likely to give them a sound income later. And all the while they are speculating, perhaps wisely, on future probabilities, but failing to face and prepare for the one certain future happening: their departure from this world.
Someone may say: must we take no interest then in temporal affairs? Of course, we must! It is 'by taking an interest in, and honestly and fully carrying out, our temporal duties that we are making ourselves ready at all times to meet our Judge. Each one's daily task faithfully carried out is a devout prayer to God, it is an honor given by man to his Creator; it is the Christian's way of saying "thank you" to Christ our Savior.
Preparing for heaven does not mean removing oneself from association with the world. Some devout Christians did this in the early Church. It means using the world as the stairs on which we can climb to heaven. Men can have wives, and women can have husbands, they can have homes and property, investments and insurances, provided all these things are accepted as God's gifts and used for their own and their neighbor's sanctification. It is the abuse of these gifts that can make us all unfit and not ready to meet our Judge. A healthy bank account---the fruit of honest labor---will be no hindrance to entering heaven, whereas the rags and poverty of the idler are no open sesame for the heavenly portals. Let us remember this always: the time in which we can earn the everlasting life after death is very short even for the youngest amongst us. But be it thirty days or sixty years, whatever length of time it is, each one of us can make sure that we shall be found ready when our last moment comes. We can indeed assure ourselves of this, if we begin today to live a Christian life, loving God and neighbor. This is indeed the word of the Lord coming to us through the great Apostle St. Paul.
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GOSPEL: Mark 1: 14-20. After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."
And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.
EXPLANATION: St. Mark's gospel, which he calls "the Good News about Jesus Christ the Son of God," abruptly enters into the public life of Christ. He takes it for granted that his readers know all the facts of his human origin (they were already described by Luke and Matthew) and the fact of his divinity. In thirteen short verses he mentions the Baptist (without describing his origin or his call, except the fact that he fulfilled a prophecy of Isaiah), the baptism of Jesus and his temptation in the wilderness. Then he comes directly to the public ministry of Christ in Galilee.
after John...arrested: The precursor had finished his work. The One for whom he was preparing had come. The Baptist had publicly denounced Herod Antipas for taking, in unlawful wedlock, Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip who was still living. Herod had John cast into prison where he was later beheaded because of the hatred Herodias (not Herod) bore toward him.
The time is fulfilled: From all eternity God had decided the when and the where of the messianic era. This now kingdom of God which would embrace all men on earth, if they accepted it, would make them worthy of sharing eternal happiness with him. Christ tells his audience in Galilee that the time has now come. During his public life he unfolds this mystery and his own part in it.
repent...gospel: The first essential for becoming members of the messianic kingdom on earth is conversions change of life from one of sin to one of sanctity, a true return to God. Secondly, those who would enter the kingdom must believe in the message Christ is bringing to them: it is the message of salvation which tells them how they can earn the eternal life in heaven which Christ's coming on earth will win for them.
Simon...John: In last Sunday's gospel, taken from St. John (1: 35-42), we saw that certainly Peter and Andrew and most probably John and James, left the Baptist and followed Jesus after the baptism in the Jordan. That some (if not all) of the Apostles were with him ever after his baptism by John, was the firm belief of the first Christian community, as expressed in Acts 1: 22. By inserting this account of the call of the first four Apostles at the very beginning of Christ's public ministry, St. Mark is following this tradition. As he does not tell us of what happened at the Jordan or of the wedding feast in Cana as John does, he inserts the call of the first Apostles at the earliest opportunity.
They were fishermen: The four Apostles mentioned here earned their livelihood by fishing in the sea of Galilee. Jesus promised to make them fishers of men; they would bring their fellowman to the shores of heaven.
left...father: Peter and Andrew left their nets, their means of livelihood; John and James left their father as well. All four left everything to follow Jesus. This was, and is, what true discipleship of Jesus means for those to whom he gives a special call.
APPLICATION: "Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God." Jesus came to announce to all men the good news of God's eternal plan for them. He spent his public life convincing the Jews of Palestine of the truth of this message, and he died on the cross because be claimed to be what he was---God's divine Son, who had come in human nature to raise all men to the standing and status of adopted sons of God. That very death, cruel and unjust though it was, was part of the divine plan. He conquered death and was raised from the grave to prove that we too, if we accept his divine gospel and live by it, will be raised from the dead and reign with Christ in the kingdom of his Father forever. Christ preached this doctrine in Palestine. It is the doctrine for which he gave his human life and which he gave to his Apostles to hand down to all future generations. This is the self-same doctrine preached by Christ's Church to all men today. It is the good news of God's mercy and love toward us weak, mortal creatures. To some it seems too good to be true; it would indeed be so if God were a limited, finite being like us, but he is Being itself. He is without limit, his goodness and love are limitless as is his nature. What God can see in creatures has ever been a puzzle to thinking man. One of the psalm-writers said centuries ago: "what is man that you should spare a thought for him, the son of man that you should care for him?" (Ps. 8: 4). Many a saint too, has repeated this remark ever since.
We cannot hope to fathom the mind of God, nor do we need to. He has gone to such a length as the humiliation of his divine Son in the incarnation in order to give us a new standing in relation to himself and a new mode of eternal living after death. We are still God's creatures, "the work of his hands," but through accepting Christ and his gospel---his message of divine truth---we are no longer mere mortals. We shall die, but death is the beginning of the true life which God has arranged for us. It is no wonder that St. Paul could cry out: "O death where is your victory, O death, where is your sting?"
We Christians should be the happiest people on earth. We know why we are here, we know where we are going and we know how to get there. There are trials and troubles which beset us on our journey; there are rough parts of the road and weaknesses in our human nature which often lead us off the right road, but we are not left to our own human resources. We have help from above to strengthen and comfort us on our journey. We have divine aids in the Church which Christ set us and we have the guarantee of our Good Shepherd that he will keep us in his fold or bring us back should we foolishly wander from it (Jn. 10: 14; Lk. 15: 4-7).
We Christians can indeed be the happiest people on earth, if we live according to the divine good news revealed to us through Christ. "Repent and believe in the gospel," Christ told the people of Galilee. The same call goes out from our loving Savior to each of us today: repent---change your outlook on life---see it, as God sees it to be for us, a short journey toward heaven. If we really believe in the gospel of Christ, the revelation of God's plan for our eternal happiness, our earthly troubles will look small, our trials and temptations will appear to us as they really are---a means of earning the eternal victory. Christ, the innocent victim for our salvation, has gone before us, carrying his heavy cross, can we refuse to carry the relatively lighter cross which he places on our shoulders as our means of making atonement for our own failings and for those of our fellowman? God forbid that we should! If we have failed in the past, let us repent today and show our belief in the truth of the Christian gospel, by living as true Christians who are on their way to heaven.-b087
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