Tag: Messiah

“He will save his people from their sins.” | Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

From the responsorial psalm: “The promises of the LORD I will sing forever; through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness, For you have said, “My kindness is established forever”; in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness. The son of David will live for ever.”

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (1:16, 18-21, 24a, today’s readings)

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew follows his genealogy of Jesus with the story of the birth of Jesus. As he learns that Mary is pregnant, Joseph, a righteous man, decides to divorce Mary quietly. But an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream to reassure him that the child conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit. Just as Elizabeth and Zechariah learn from an angel that their son will be named John, an angel of the Lord tells Joseph that the child is to be named Jesus. In his righteousness and obedience, Joseph is able to respond to God in a way that is similar to Mary’s fiat. Putting aside his own plan, Joseph says yes to God’s plan for him and for the salvation of humanity. Joseph’s example invites us to reflect on how we can say yes to God in our daily lives, trusting his will with faith and courage.

God, thank you for the opportunity a new day brings to say yes to you. I have in Joseph a faultless example of one who hears your will and obeys, opening up a great expanse of possibilities I can’t perceive here and now in the midst of uncertainty. Help the little faith and foresight I have, given to you in trust, and let it be a means of giving all glory to you for sending us a savior, the Messiah, to enter into the world to destroy death. You are, as Saint Paul says, the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist.” Give me the grace, Lord, to be attentive to your will and carry it through.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke (Lk 4:16-30)

Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

From the close of today’s Gospel reading, Luke relates how Jesus is driven out of town by the people in the synagogue. What did he do to receive this treatment? At the beginning of the passage, minutes before this, Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah the words “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” and to people amazed at his gracious words, he says: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” thus revealing himself as the Messiah. But the people of Nazareth are unable to accept Jesus’ claims and become hostile toward him. They reject him, skeptical that “the son of Joseph” could not possibly be the Messiah. How does this relate to those of us who live among family or within tight-knit communities?

God, help me understand today’s Gospel in relation to my own experiences among the people whose lives I touch. I sometimes feel trapped in the skeptical milieu of modern communication—social media, instant access to communication, layer upon layer of interpretations of events. Help me recognize that despite living in this age, the world is yours and all that is in and that truth is not a philosophy or dictum or creed but a person—Jesus Christ your Son. Your kingdom is present and it is to come. When I am met with hostility because of my faith in the Church, help me remember the words that Jesus read from Isaiah: “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.”

From the responsorial psalm: “Before the LORD, for he comes; for he comes to rule the earth. He shall rule the world with justice and the peoples with his constancy.”

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.