Word to the Wise
Monday, September 2, 2019 - Monday in the 22th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Thess 4:13-18 and Luke 4:16-30]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. [Isaiah, quoted by Jesus in the Gospel According to Luke]
The words quoted above were deliberately chosen by Jesus when he returned to his hometown after beginning his public ministry. He was already known to them not only because he grew up in Nazareth but because the word had spread from Capernaum about his powers to heal. The passage from Isaiah were proclaimed by him as a kind of "labor manifesto" for him and he astounded the people in the synagogue by saying, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." The initial reaction is positive but then there is a kind of "Wait a minute......who do you think you are?" reaction that quickly becomes hostile. No kid from Nazareth could be the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy! One might remember the line from Nathanael in the Gospel According to John, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" [John 1:46] Well....as a matter of fact, "Yes!"
Jesus' "labor manifesto" is ours, too. On the last evening of a parish mission, I read that passage from Isaiah and challenge the parishioners to fulfill the mission given to them by their baptism. Jesus' mission is our mission. Jesus' labor is our labor. In the Gospel According to Luke, Jesus chooses twelve disciples to help him, but then chooses a further seventy-two. Now he has chosen a billion or more! Here at Texas Tech and on other university campuses in the USA, there are recent college graduates who give up two years of their lives to evangelize among students. I am also aware, from my itinerant ministry, that there are Catholic evangelists who give parish missions or join efforts to serve home missions in the USA and elsewhere. Every year, married men are ordained to the Permanent Diaconate. I have given retreats for these men and their spouses around the country. However, the harvest is huge and we are all called to participate by our baptism. All religious faith is "local." Every effort is graced. The great English statesman, Edmund Burke, once wrote, "No greater mistake could be made by him who did nothing because he could only do a little." There's a lot of work to be done in Nazareth! AMEN