Monday, January 19, 2015

2nd Sunday Ordinary- Listen, come, see, stay, love!

“Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” Jesus answers: “Come and see.” Priests usually start their homilies with a scripture passage like this.

A few days ago, Pope Francis in his Mass to the Philippine bishops, priests, and religious wanted to start his homily by quoting the gospel of John 21:15 where Jesus asks Peter: “Do you love me… tend my sheep.” So the Pope begins with: “Do you love me?”  And the priests and nuns shout: “Yes!” The Pope was shocked, he laughs and answers: “Uh Ok, thank you very much. But I was referring to the words of Jesus” – They did not get it initially that he was referring to the passage. 
Those words: “Do you love me?” spoken by Jesus is an invitation he extends to all of us in the liturgy of today and because he asks it in a different way, sometimes we just do not get it.

In the first reading, the Lord calls the boy by name: "Samuel, Samuel." And Samuel mistakes the voice for the priest Eli. Samuel just did not get it thrice. He only gets it the fourth time when Eli tells him when you hear the voice again say: Speak Lord, your servant is listening. 
It is only when Samuel listened well, that he was able to follow God’s personal invitation. The same is true with us. Listen to his invitation and you can hear your name if you are silently waiting. Otherwise you just won’t get it.

In the gospels, the disciples of John the Baptist, among them Andrew and John, were preparing for the coming of the Messiah. And then Jesus walked by and they didn’t even recognize him, until John the Baptist pointed out: “Behold, here is the Lamb of God.” So the two disciples follow Jesus curiously but they still did not get it. And so Jesus asks them: What are you looking for?  Let me ask you this same question today in this Mass. Why are you here? Do you have an answer?  

Back to the gospel, Jesus was inviting them, and yet they did not get it. Instead they ask: Teacher, where are you staying? What a question! You do not answer a question with another question, right? And so Jesus continues his invitation: “Come and see.”   

Many times Jesus asks this of us. And we answer him with: “No thanks, I’m fine this way. Let me just continue praying my rosary, going to my mass and don’t bother me with getting involved in the parish.” Pope Francis tells us in his Joy of the Gospel: “Some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without a cross. The Gospel tells us constantly - run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical appearance which challenges us, with their pain, and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close interactions."(EN.88)  “Come and see” is a call for us to do things differently from what we are used to. It is an invitation for us to get out of our comfort zones.

So what happens next in our gospel story: “They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him.” And as they stayed with him, they became closer to him, and they began to love him. The “invitation principle” is simple: the more you listen, the more you will come; the more you come, the more you will see; the more you see, the more you will stay; the more you stay, the more you will love Him. 

Our Christian calling is as a personal invitation to come to Christ, to see the truth as revealed in Jesus, and to stay forever faithful to him throughout life. And this is possible, this we can do only if we can answer “Yes” to the invitation of Jesus today: “Do you love me?”

(Then mass goers shouted “Yes” so I replied: Thank you very much!)


References:

Pope Francis. (2013). Evangelii Gaudium. No. 88.

GMA News. (January 16, 2015). ‘Do you love me?’ Pope Francis takes on a lighter note during his first Mass in PHL.

Sanchez, P. (2000 ). “Here I am.” Sanchez Archives.  Celebration Publications. Kansas, USA. http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/sanchez/locked/cycleb/ordinarytimeb/sunday0297b.htm