Remain attentive to God’s voice

Homily for January 15, 2017 (2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; Psalm 40; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

Many years ago, when I was part of the staff of a Catholic school here in Chicago, I served as a chaperone for an 8th grade field trip downstate to Springfield where we visited Lincoln’s Tomb and other sites.  On our way home we stopped for dinner at a buffet restaurant, a place where the young teens could eat what they wanted and as much as they wanted.

The quality of the food was average at best, but the way in which it was served was remarkable.  Instead of a stationary buffet table it had what seemed to be a converted airline baggage carousel with pans of food moving before stationary diners who scooped and placed their food on their plates as the pans moved in front of them.  It was comical and disturbing at the same time.  It reminded me of a cattle trough—an experience of feeding but not really dining.

We live in a culture in which real dining is becoming less and less of an experience.  In the midst of our packed schedules and numerous activities, supper for many families is increasingly something prepared and left on the stove to be picked up at one’s convenience or picked up at a fast food drive thru and eaten in the car to or from the latest practice, game or meeting.  Even when families sit down in restaurants they sometimes pay more attention to their smart phones or tablets than to each other and eat their meals almost as an afterthought.

Our church year, by contrast, is a form of ritual and spiritual dining.  It has different courses:  feasts, memorials and solemnities and seasons like Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.  Each have their own flavor or emphasis.  The main course, if you will, is Ordinary Time, which we begin after we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord.  Ordinary Time takes up more than 60% of our church year and it centers on our Sunday celebrations of the Eucharist.  It’s what we do today.

Today and the next six or seven weeks before Ash Wednesday are not a mere bridge between the seasons of Christmas and Lent but rather the solid ground of the Paschal Mystery and the history of salvation that unfold before us in God’s word and in our sharing of the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are reminded of who we are and are called to become as followers of Jesus:

In Psalm 40 we are reminded of our fundamental purpose to do God’s will.
In one of Isaiah’s Servant Songs we are encouraged to trust in the strength of the God who formed us from the womb for his glory and to serve his people.
In the introduction of his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul asks us to remember that we have been “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy.”

The testimony of John the Baptist in our gospel passage comforts us with the knowledge that often our true vocations don’t come to us all at once but unfold before us if we remain attentive to God’s voice and the signs that God gives us.

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world….”  In the Mass the priest repeats these words of John as we prepare to receive the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.  Because of what it means and how it calls us to live, it is never an ordinary time. +