Homily for the week of January 16, 2011

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2011

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6

Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10

1 Corinthians 1:1-3

John 1:29-34

One of the world’s great circus is the one started over 100 years ago by the Ringling Brothers in Baraboo, Wisconsin. A few years later they joined the Barnum and Bailey Circus. During a tour of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, a man noticed that the big elephants were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. The elephants could, at any time, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not. The trainer explained “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They think the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

In many ways we are like the elephant. Unless we take control of ourselves, our life is very much conditioned on how we have been raised as kids. It is difficult for us to feel free to do something other than what we have observed as little children. If we are brought up in a family where violence, abuse, bad language, poor example, lack of religion is an every day event, we may well become an adult whose life is the same. If we are brought up in a family where respect for self and others, where daily prayer and participating in Church every week is expected, we will accept this as part of our life. Little children can often be pawns in the life of their parents. They very often feel that they are to blame for the hatred and anger they see between their mom and dad.

Because of this it is easy for children to think that they live in two worlds -- in the spiritual and secular world. These two worlds are completely different, but we can easily cross from one to the other. As Catholics we should live our life in the spiritual world while being in the secular world. Our spiritual life lives itself out in the physical world. God expects us to manage that world. It is the world of our shopping, our work, our school, our vacations, but we must manage it according to our religious faith.

For example some parents may think that their child’s Baptism, First Confession or First Communion are once in a lifetime events like items on a list of things to do, like vaccinations. And because of this, some children never come back to church after they have received these sacraments because they hardly ever went to church with their parents before they received the sacraments. Religion and prayer at church have been completely detached from their day to day life.

A few minutes ago we were invited to respond: Here I am Lord, I come to do your will. Today’s psalm responses gives us words to respond to God’s called offered in Jesus. We are told today that John the Baptist and other disciples were near Jesus when he was baptized. In one way or the other they repeated: Here I am Lord, I come to do your will. Here I am may sound like an ordinary response of those who believe in God. But even those close to Jesus had a hard time saying it as Paul tells us in our second reading.

One of the prayers that most of us know by heart is the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer. Each time we say that prayer we say thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That leads us to ask the question we probably seldom ask, namely, what does our baptism mean to us, to the way we live our Christian life today? Most of us do not think much about the relationship between baptism and adult Catholic life. If anything, our baptismal certificate simply gave us the privilege of being able to receive First Holy Communion, Confirmation and even to be married as a Catholic.

But the more relevant question is this: what does it mean to be a baptized Catholic today? It means that we are qualified by our baptism to spread the faith among those with whom we are connected by social and professional ties and this obligation is all the more urgent since so many persons can only come to hear the gospel and recognize Christ through each of you. In other words, baptism cannot simply be thought of as a personal, private sacrament that assures us of "getting to heaven," or to have the right to the other sacraments. If our baptism means anything to us, then we need to be ready to share with others what it means to us.

By earthly standards, God's call may seem unpleasant and difficult. Jesus' surrendering of himself to God brought about death on a cross, something that we are not eager to face, but as long as we believe God is with us during our difficult times, we will have strength to endure whatever we meet.

We must remember that Baptism is not a private sacrament. Our religion was meant to be shared with others. We say to God that we are willing to do this when each day we often say to him: Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.

You have obviously noticed as you entered the Church that we are no longer in the Christmas season. According to the Church we are in Ordinary Time - a time of about 30 Sundays when I will be wearing green and I will be reading the story of Jesus as given by St. Matthew. The readings bring us back into reflection on the beginnings of our journey of discipleship. The liturgical cycle is not a circle that keeps us going around and around, repeatedly going over the same ground. Rather, each year, we approach the texts with freshness because our world is not the same as in the previous year and we ourselves have changed. Much as a couple, when celebrating their anniversary, retell the story of how they first met and fell in love, so the Gospel invites us to reflect on the beginnings of how we came to know Jesus.