January 27, 2019 3rd
Sunday in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Ne 8:2–4a, 5–6, 8–10 2nd Reading: 1 Cor 12:12–14, 27 (or 1 Cor 12:12–30) Gospel: Lk 1:1–4, 4:14–21
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
People in the Synagogue should have given Jesus’ life a look if it conformed to a Messiah’s identity as described in that Scripture passage Jesus was reading in public. But Jesus’ life was too ordinary for them to be the showcase of God’s power. But isn’t greatness supposed to be solidly founded upon little things?
The test of true greatness, in fact, is the capacity to withstand the rigors of the ordinary grind.
The ordinary is not diametrically opposed to the ways of God. His big projects come in small insignificant packages. In fact, his biggest project for humanity was packaged in a humble child lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. Nothing could be more humble than a Messiah coming to the world not as a superman but as a helpless infant. Yet if we look closely at the humble circumstances of his incarnation, the symbolisms give away the hidden message of grace. The manger used as food container for animals prefigured Jesus’ being food for his people at the Eucharist. The presence of Mary at the manger immortalized her role as witness to every grace we receive. The silence of Joseph is a reminder that salvific moments come in the silence of meditation, not in the boisterous noise of rationalistic argumentation.
With an attitude of openness to God’s designs let us be attentive to the ordinariness of the daily grind, for as succinctly written by Julia Carney, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.” – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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