February 5
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“The just man is a light in darkness to the upright.”
Readings
Reflection
Last Sunday, Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with the familiar guide or recipe for our lives, the Beatitudes! They remind us that our lives as disciples entail a reality that is lived—words and actions that reflect outwardly what must be internalized and nourished within us, namely, our relationship with the Lord who has called each of us by name. This relationship with God must be grounded in the first beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is essential for us to have developed within us this disposition of being poor in spirit so that we learn to rely completely on God who desires to give everything to us in return and to live in us. When we grow in our ability to trust in the goodness of God and in his ability to provide, we start to imitate the very life and generosity of God, which leads us to Jesus’ words today that immediately follow the Beatitudes: “...your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”
It is especially the “good deeds” of the Church, lived out in our lives that are to “shine” before others and become a witness to a loving God. What exactly these deeds are might be a very long list, but in the context of our readings today consider what Isaiah puts forth before us today as a particular kind of “fasting” that the Lord delights in (cf. Isaiah 58:6ff): Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked, don’t turn your back on your own, call on the Lord for help, remove oppression, false accusation and malicious speech from your midst, and let the glory of the Lord shine through you in the darkness…
These just constitute the basics, and based on what St. Paul tells us in the second reading today, there doesn’t need to be anything fancy about the way these good deeds are put into practice. The witness of Paul’s life (by his own measure) is not extraordinary. He is not showy; he is not a gifted speaker, nor is there anything particularly compelling about him other than that Jesus transformed his life. After his encounter with the Lord, Paul spent every day of his life trying to share the light of the person of Jesus, the life and freedom he offers, and why he matters to every living soul.
While the standards of the world may look at us trying to live the Beatitudes or trying to live in the light of the Gospel as out of touch, unexciting, or wasting our time, the reality is that every time we gather around this altar, the crucified and risen Christ is really present to us under the form of bread and wine for all who wish to receive him and be transformed by him. This unfathomable good that Jesus accomplished for us, and by which we continue to be transformed, should lead us to always give glory to our heavenly Father, too.
Peace,
Fr. Brendan Foley
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