Jan 27

Post date: Jan 28, 2019 7:32:30 PM

January 27, 2019 Homily by Fr. Karl Schray

St. Luke tells us why he wrote this Gospel. Our Gospel passage

now skips 4 chapters that cover Jesus’ Infancy narrative, His baptism, and

temptations. Now Jesus comes to Nazareth,

where he lived the first 30 years of his life.

Jesus stood up in the synagogue to read this passage from Isaiah.

Through Jesus, God is bringing salvation to God’s people, especially

the poor, captives (most likely those who couldn’t pay off their debts),

the blind and the downtrodden. As Jewish preachers always did,

He sat down and said to his intent listeners:

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus, and it is upon us too.

Jesus was God’s anointed, and in baptizing us he anointed us and

gave us a share in His Spirit.

Readers and proclaimers of the Word-- each and every one of us!!!

May Scripture reveal the love of God through our lives and words.

St. Paul tells us in the Second Reading today that the body of Christ,

to which we belong, is a living organism.

The implication is that as members of this body, we are not just related

to a theme or an idea; we are related to a person—Christ Jesus.

This point is underlined for us in the Document of the Second Vatican

Council. “The fruitfulness of the apostolate of lay-people

(and clergy too, of course) depends on their living union with Christ.”

Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches. We branches need

Jesus, the vine. But surprisingly He makes himself need us the branches.

Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears much fruit ; but cut off from me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

We know from our own experience that relationship gives us

tremendous energy and motivation. If we are working for somebody

we love and to whom we are very close, nothing is too much trouble;

no sacrifice too great. We are not the only ones who are doing things;

Christ is doing things in us.

The second point St. Paul is making is that,

as well as a relationship with Christ,

there is a need for relationship with one another.

All of us, with our different gifts, have an essential contribution to make

to the life of the Church and the building of God’s Kingdom.

We need one another; we belong to one another;

without one another we cannot fully function.

The different parts of the body are meant to complement one another.

‘The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’

Just as a priest cannot say to a lay person, ‘I have no need of you.’

Vatican II also emphasized that lay people are full members of the Church;

that between clergy and laity there is a diversity of function

but equality of membership. Lay people share in the common priesthood of

Christ as ‘a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

St. Paul is encouraging an attitude of openness, interdependence, and

partnership. We should work together,

care together, suffer together, rejoice together.

This means saying to one another, with openness and appreciation,

‘I have need of you.’