HOLINESS AND GRACE IN THE ORDINARY.

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January 15, 2023.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – A.

Readings: Is 49:3, 5-6; Ps 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10; 1 Cor1:1-3; Jn 1:29-34. 

"Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Jn 1:29

A Kurdish proverb says: “To find your place in life is easier than to occupy it.” And a Tibetan proverb adds: “The highest art is the art of living an ordinary life in an extraordinary manner.”

Every one of us lives for a reason and a purpose. We all have a vocation and the universal call for us all is to be holy. That holiness is not something beyond our reach. It is something we build day after day in the ordinary of our life. Therefore, the Ordinary Time is the per excellence time of holiness and grace.

The Catechism says: "The hidden life at Nazareth allows everyone to enter into fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life..." CCC 533

It was in the ordinary of his life at Nazareth that the Lord Jesus learned the virtues needed for his mission. It was also in that ordinary he made himself close to the poor, that he became way of truth, justice, and life, lover of God and man. Jesus, in that sense, is our equal, an ordinary man who lived in a very extraordinary way the ordinary of his life.

The readings, on this second Sunday in the Ordinary Time A are a lesson on how we should live the ordinary of our lives in order to make it a way to holiness, a way to God's grace, something extraordinary. By definition, we call ordinary something that is without any special or distinctive features, something that is normal and common. It refers to what is usual, the routine. We could thus say, we are now in our routine, which makes our daily experience and existence. In this daily routine of life, we are called to encounter the Lord and feel and see his grace at work in us.

The Prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, speaks of the servant of God called to be a light to the nations. The Lord says, "I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." Here is our mission in the ordinary of our lives, to be people whose lives enlighten others and bring them to God.

The Lord through Isaiah warns his people: "It is too little for you to be my servant..." We could paraphrase saying, it is too little to be a good churchgoer or a Sunday Christian. Our lives after mass and outside the church must reflect the message of the gospel of Christ and lead people back to God. Like the Psalmist, we should all be eager to sing: "Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will." In so doing, our beings will radiate the gospel. Like Paul and Sosthenes, we are urged to be Apostles of peace, love, justice, and instruments of God's grace.

In the Gospel, we hear John the Baptist introduce officially Jesus. It is another revelation of the Lord. The Baptist says: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world..." Jesus goes now public after his baptism. Going public, the Lord will now initiate his mission. A mission to bring the good news to the captives, announce peace, proclaim a year of favor for the oppressed and the poor... This mission, the Lord undertakes in the ordinary of his life. You then, brethren, what is your quotidian made of? What do you do in your ordinary life? Let's not forget this truth, Ordinary Time is the opportunity for us to make extraordinary our daily endeavors and actions. It is the time of holiness, the time of grace...

While the Lord begins his ordinary life, the word of John must reecho in our hearing. He is the Lamb sent by the Father to take away our sins. These words so familiar to us are a revelation of what Jesus is and what his mission is. He came to set man free from the hardest and greatest prison, the prison of sin. At the beginning of this ordinary time, may we welcome the Lord in our lives and give him to fulfill his mission of salvation in us and through us. In so doing, our ordinary existence will become an extraordinary journey with him.


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