Sunday readings in January/February 2012

Sunday 1 January
Mary, Mother of God
Numbers 6.22-27; Psalm 66
Galations 4.4-7; Luke 2.16-21

The calendar year opens with a feast to honour the Virgin Mary. This is the oldest feast of Mary in the Western Church, and deliberately concludes the Octave of the celebration of Christmas. The church celebrates various feasts of Our Lady across the year, but this has a particular significance as it recalls the Council of Ephesus of 481 which designated Mary with the sublime title of Theotokos – God-bearer. The title Mother of God is not only the most solemn, but also makes the important point that Mary’s role in the Church is always (and only) in her relation to the Christ, the Word made Flesh. That is why in many traditions – the Orthodox for example – Mary is never portrayed alone, but always with Jesus. Apart from the mother and child image, the picture of Mary at the foot of the cross, or the Pietà (holding the dead body of the Lord) all point to this reality. Mary has a unique and unsurpassed role in the church, but precisely because of her intimate relationship to Christ. The readings today pick up the blessing of which we are all beneficiaries: the ceremonial blessing formula given to Moses for use among God’s people from the Book of Numbers; the blessing that makes us children of God in Paul’s letter to the Galatians; and the blessing which is the birth of the Christ child that Mary ponders in her heart in the Gospel. We begin the New Year conscious that, like Mary, as Christians, we are blessed people.

Sunday 8 January
Epiphany
Isaiah 60.1-6; Psalm 71
Ephesians 3.2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2.1-12

An epiphany is a manifestation, a revealing of something hidden. Today’s feast points to the fact that the birth of this child is a momentous event in the history of salvation, and Matthew uses signs and images to show this. Matthew’s exotic take on the infancy might clash slightly with the domestic picture of Luke, but what Matthew offers is a wider – global perspective – indeed the introduction of the star that guides the magi actually makes the Incarnation a cosmic event – which, of course it is. The figures of the wise men of the east also recall figures like the pagan prophet Balaam from the book of Numbers who had a prophetic role in identifying the workings of God (again with the star theme; Num. 24.17) and so gives us the broader picture to work with. Matthew’s Gospel then, sets the Incarnation in a context that reveals it as not just a revelation to God’s faithful people as Luke does – epitomized by the presentation of elderly Old Testament type characters (Elizabeth and Zechariah, Simeon and Anna) – but as something that reaches out to pagans and encompasses the natural world. It is also interesting to note that Matthew does something similar with
his account of the Passion. It is Pilate’s
pagan wife who recognises who Jesus is, and his death on the cross is accompanied by another sign from nature – an earthquake. Matthew has no hesitation in proclaiming precisely the Lord as the ‘Omega point’ to use the phrase of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

The Gospel of Mark

During Ordinary time we are offered the bulk of the gospel of Mark during the Liturgy of the Word at the Sunday Eucharist. There are some significant characteristics of Mark’s gospel worthy of recognition. It is the briefest of the gospels and has few long passages – Jesus is always in action – the phrase ‘at once’ or ‘immediately’ crops up time and again. There is a real lack of understanding of who Jesus is in the gospel. The crowds are simply ‘amazed’ or ‘astonished’, the disciples never really understand and are frequently berated by Jesus for their lack of perception. It is only the evil spirits who know who Jesus is until the centurion confesses it at the crucifixion. It seems likely that Mark’s gospel was written for a community that experienced hardship and the stark nature of the gospel offers no romantic glow but a severe sense of reality, that is why Mark’s gospel is often the gospel that addresses most effectively the struggles and difficulties of life for the faithful.

Sunday 15 January
Second Sunday in Ordinary time
1 Samuel 3.3-10,19; Psalm 39
1Corinthians 6.13-15,17-20
John 1.35-42

Each year we have one gospel from John at the beginning of Ordinary time, before we proceed through the designated gospel of the year. One of the great themes of John’s gospel is the importance of encountering Jesus directly and opting for or against him. When the first disciples come to Jesus and address him, he does not try to convince them of any programme or policy, he simply invites them to ‘Come and See’ – it is by spending time in Jesus’ company that people are persuaded to follow him in discipleship. Christianity is not a philosophy or set of affirmations or a moral code, but a personal relationship with Jesus. As the gospel goes on, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the crowd, the man born blind, Martha and Mary and the disciples, and finally Pilate all encounter Jesus, and have to opt for him or not. The first disciples in today’s gospel ‘spent the rest of the day with him’. The reason why Christianity so emphasizes the importance of prayer in all forms is not because it gives answers, or achieves success or solves difficulties, but because it enables the one who prays to spend time with Jesus. And once Andrew has come to know Jesus, his first reaction is to go and take others to him. Evangelization is not primarily offering a way of living; it is introducing others to the person of Jesus.

Sunday 22 January
Third Sunday in Ordinary time
Jonah 3.1-5,10; Psalm 24
1Corinthians 7.29-31
Mark 1.14-20

Today we are offered three fairly short pithy – and uncomfortably uncompromising – readings which should really test hearers. Jonah is always a serious challenge as he is the prophet who is sent not just to his own people, but to foreigners – indeed to hated enemies; and they immediately hear God’s word and respond. The book of Jonah is a writing that is meant to confront the Israel of its time which the prophet insisted had failed to hear God’s word and live it out – to that extent it is aimed at any who acknowledge God’s word but fail to respond fully – might that include most people at Mass today? – a sobering thought. A picture of what it might be like if God’s word was truly heard and taken to heart is given to us in the gospel: ‘at once they left their nets and followed him.’ Given that for most of the rest of Mark’s gospel the disciples will be portrayed as people who fail time and time again to understand, their generosity of heart is all the more powerful here and is all the more striking. Like the people of Nineveh, it is a response that is both total and immediate. The short reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians may seem strange, and if it were simply about an expectation that the world would end soon, palpably wrong. However, the import of Paul’s words is again a call to be single minded and generous in putting God’s call first – by not being ‘engrossed’ in other things At a time when some people may have made (and abandoned) New Year’s Resolutions, the lectionary today puts on the spot everyone who hears these readings, for it makes a call for a generous response to the one who is always calling.

Sunday 29 January
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary time
Dueteronomy 18.15-20; Psalm 94
1Corinthinas 7.32-35
Mark 1.21-28

One of the big questions in Mark’s gospel is ‘Who is Jesus?’ – as in today’s readings, apart from unclean spirits, people – including the disciples – tend to be simply ‘astonished’ or amazed and talk about it, but have no real understanding. Mark’s readers of course, do know, because in the very first verse of the gospel they have been told:’The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ The rest of the gospel will be a witness to the fact that not until the end of the passion will anyone who encounters Jesus understand that. For Mark it is the cross that finally reveals to people who Jesus is. The first reading from Deuteronomy is given to us by the compliers of the lectionary as a confirmation from the faith tradition of Israel that God would ‘raise up a prophet like’ Moses. In responding ‘Amen’ at Mass we acknowledge him present with us. Like the people for whom Mark wrote his gospel, we are in no doubt about who Jesus is: ‘the Holy One of God’, the challenge is always to live in accordance with that.
Paul offers a challenging point for reflection, his guidance may seem strange to contemporary culture, but his focus is precisely that the Corinthians are called to ‘give your undivided attention to the Lord.’ In acknowledging who Jesus is, the believer is called to live day by day under his ‘authority’.

Sunday 5 February
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary time
Job 7.1-4, 6-7; Psalm 146
1Corinthians 9.16-19,22-23
Mark 1.29-39

The lectionary only gives us two readings from the marvellous book of Job on a Sunday – both of them this year. This reading – Job’s complaint, is not simply based on his personal misfortune, but bewails the human lot as a whole. No doubt many who hear this today will identify with it – the many who feel overwhelmed by life, sometimes or all of the time. Job’s graphic picture of the yearning and yet apparent futility of human life can seem quite chilling, almost nihilistic. The juxtaposition with the gospel – which does not seem directly to relate to it, as is usually the case of the first reading – actually offers the Christian response to Job’s lament on the futility of human life. Mark gives a picture of frenetic activity on the part of Jesus, but it is an activity precisely aimed at relieving all that oppresses human beings. Three times in this gospel passage Jesus is referred to as casting out devils. No doubt many interpretations can be made of precisely what Mark may have meant by that, but there can be no question that it can be seen as liberating people from the evils that overwhelm them. In today’s readings we are offered both a picture of human life as a meaningless burden, and a clear remedy. The Christian message is that it is the person of Jesus who gives both meaning to human life and the means to live truly humanly. It is also worth noting that Mark very deliberately portrays Jesus as seeking out a time and place for prayer in the midst of his activity – something that ought not to be overlooked by any disciple.

Sunday 12 February
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary time
Leviticus 13.1-2,44-46; Psalm 31
1Corinthians 10.31-11.1
Mark 1.40-45

Leprosy is a fearful disease that not only attacks the health of the person, but also attacks their presence in the community because of its contagious nature. Traditionally those with leprosy are banished away from society to live outside away from others, and are forbidden normal human relationships. It is a disease that corrupts the body and for which there was no cure in Jesus’ time. The fact that lepers feature regularly in the gospels underlines Jesus’ concern for the marginalized and outcasts. There is a real poignancy in the plea of the leper to Jesus ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. It is almost as if the man has given up in despair of other people, he has such little expectation of others.

In some Christian writers leprosy becomes a metaphor for sin, because sin too has the tendency to corrupt the person, to isolate them and lead to despair. The fact that Jesus deliberately deals with lepers and indeed, in today’s gospel actually touches the man, and makes lepers clean is a powerful image of the basic Christian truth that it is Jesus who ‘takes away the sins of the world’. It is worth remembering that the Eucharist is the fundamental sacrament of reconciliation with God, it is the Eucharist which should heal and restore to community sinners who gather to receive the one whose blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Indeed those who approach the altar in the manner of the leper in the gospel can expect to hear the words: ‘Of course I want to, be cured.’

Sunday 19 February
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary time
Isaiah 43.18-19,21-22,24-25
Psalm 40; 2Corinthians 1.18-22
Mark 2.1-12

One of the realities of a conscience is that we recognise a gap between the way we live and the way we want to live our lives. The gap between where we are and where we want to be is actually considerable, and an uncomfortable part of it is that we feel we have to bridge that gap. And that can produce immense frustration.
But if we reflect on today’s first reading we note Isaiah indicate that that’s not the way it is – because God is going to bridge the gap.

Isaiah is talking to the people of the exile and for them there is a real gap – a real physical distance between them and their homeland. And they cannot cross that gap – the physical gap of the desert that separates Babylon from Jerusalem
But Isaiah says while that is impossible for the exiles, that is no problem for God, the desert will become a watered plain, with a highway – the God who led his people across the Red Sea, can lead his people across a desert!
And we can recognise that Isaiah is talking of more than a physical gap separating the people from their homeland, because Isaiah talks of sin, and that is also the reality of the gap, the people have abandoned their God, their sin is huge and has made a vast gap between themselves and God, and it’s a gap that the people cannot bridge, but it is no problem to God – God can wipe it away in an instant.

And that is paralleled in the gospel – we have a paralytic – by definition a man who cannot help himself. He is desperate to move from where he is to where he wants to be, but he cannot – there is that vast abyss again – and he can do nothing
about it.

The man can do nothing for himself, so God does it in Jesus, and, like Isaiah’s exiles, the man is also separated from God by sin, and again he is incapable doing anything about that, but God does that too in Jesus.
That’s why the Gospel is GOOD News – it is news that the gap – the gap we cannot cross, we cannot bridge, the gap that separates us from all we are called to, all we are capable of – that gap is bridged by God.

The season of Lent

It is interesting to note that, unusually in the lectionary, there is a theme among the first readings for this season of Lent in year B. It is a theme which plays with the idea of the Covenant between God and the people. The Old Testament readings over the next few weeks, offer various aspects of the Covenant that God has with people:

God takes the initiative, God makes various promises, and is committed to the Covenant, God often gives a sign of the Covenant, the people are called to be faithful, but often fail to be faithful, and God time and again renews the Covenant.
For Christians travelling through Lent to Easter, this Old Testament context makes all the more powerful the language of Covenant and sacrifice, life and death, sin and redemption that pervades the liturgy of the Sacred Triduum. A reflection on the first readings Sunday by Sunday can be an enriching Lenten exercise for catechumens and for all the faithful.

Sunday 26 February
First Sunday of Lent
Genesis 9.8-15; Psalm 24
1Peter 3.18-22; Mark 1.12-16

The first Sunday of Lent always begins with an account of Jesus’ temptation in the desert – it sets the tone for the penitential nature of the season and emphasizes the Lord’s solidarity with the Christian seeking to resist sin.
In one sense the first reading and the gospel today are about places on the edge, and people in uncomfortable and very vulnerable places.

Noah has survived in an ark when around him everyone and everything is destroyed; he has been utterly vulnerable and totally dependent on God’s word. When he has survived he is given a sign that God will remain faithful to the Covenant God has made with him.
And in the Gospel – Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit, and he is with the wild beasts and he is tempted – a frightening place to be – very much on the edge.

Perhaps at times most people can find themselves on the edge, in marginal situations feeling very vulnerable and insecure, where huge forces can seem to loom, when there is no nice neat safe comfortable answer. All that Noah and Jesus have is a promise. God speaks to Noah, and at the baptism of Jesus which comes immediately before the temptation God says ‘This is my beloved son.’ For Christians, life can seem to be on the edge, life that seems so fragile. That is when we can indeed speak of faith – trust and hope in the word spoken by God, who gives us the sign (and the reality) of the Covenant in Jesus.