Thoughts on Ordinary Time

This Sunday we continue a journey through a brief period of “Ordinary Time” before Lent begins in a few weeks. Having celebrated the mystery of the Incarnation, our focus shifts to Jesus’ adult ministry. The questions now become: “What does it mean for Jesus to be the Savior and Messiah? What does he stand for, as revealed by his actions and his words? And, very importantly, what are we supposed to be as his disciples?

 

As you know, the scripture readings of our Sunday liturgies are on a three-year cycle, and each year highlights one of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). This year belongs to Matthew. During Advent and Christmas, at the beginning of the new liturgical year, we read Matthew’s narrative about the birth of Jesus. Now we read his description of Jesus starting his ministry, recruiting followers, announcing the “good news,” and healing the ills of people, both physical and spiritual. Matthew’s story has moved from a description of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, to the story of Jesus’ temptations in the desert, to the news that John has

been arrested. As we learned in last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus sees this as the sign that he must begin his own ministry, and so he moves from Nazareth to the larger, busier town of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. We were told that Jesus went around the whole of Galilee

with the result that he soon became, in his own characteristic way, a powerful and magnetic figure, a sign of liberation unleashing forgotten and discarded hopes.

 

On each Sunday which remains between now and the beginning of Lent on February 18, we will be listening to Gospel selections from what has become known as the “Sermon on the Mount.” While we may speak of the Sermon on the Mount as if it were one single sermon preached on one single occasion, it is far more than that. It is, in fact, a kind of representative summary of all the sermons that Jesus ever preached. In it we have the essence of the teaching of Jesus to those who desire to be his disciples. Anyone who heard it in its present form (107 verses!) would be exhausted long before the end. Maybe in these coming weeks there are blessings to be found in listening to the gospel selections as if we were hearing them for the very first time, letting ourselves be dazzled, challenged and ultimately saved by the message and the promises it conveys.

Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.