Gospel Acclamation: Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Shine like lights in the world as you hold on to the word of life.

Jesus once said that no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel basket or under a bed. That would be foolish. Rather, people put a lamp on the lampstand where it gives light to the whole house.

Jesus has made us into lights. When we are baptized, we are filled with sanctifying grace, with the divine presence. God Himself dwells within us, lighting us up from the inside out with His love. When we remain in a state of grace, that light remains in us, and we are to shine that light to the world, allowing the world to catch a glimpse of God and His love by our lights.

But do we shine like lights in the world? Or do we crawl under the proverbial bed or retreat into the bushel basket and hide the light of our Catholic faith because we fear to offend or long to be accepted by the world.

We are meant to sit on a lampstand and allow the light of God to shine through us. This isn't putting ourselves on a pedestal. It is living our faith and love with holy boldness and allowing God to use us as He will.

In order to be lights in the world, we must hold on to the Word of life, Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. Only He can give us the grace we need to proclaim our faith while remaining humble and little so that He can shine through us.

Gospel Acclamation: Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you.

This commandment is both a precious gift and a demanding challenge. How has Jesus loved us? He gave Himself up to death on the cross to save us from our sins and open the way to eternal life. He has loved us to the extreme in a complete, self-sacrificial love that know no limits.

Now Jesus tells us to do the same, to love one another like that. And He is not just asking us or giving us the option. This is a commandment. We are to obey.

Of course, we wonder, and rightly, how in our weakness and sinfulness we can ever love others as Jesus has loved us. It seems like an impossible task, but Jesus never orders us to do what is impossible.

St. Therese of Lisieux once asked Jesus to love her sisters in her, for only then would she be able to really love them as He loves her. Here is the key. We must ask Jesus to love others in and through us, and then unite ourselves to His love. We must allow His love to flow through us and embrace that love. We must pray to our Lord for this grace, the grace to fulfill His commandment and love with His own love.

Gospel Acclamation: Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Rejoice and be glad; your reward will be great in heaven.

Living our Catholic faith is not easy. In fact, at times it can be dreadfully difficult. The world scoffs at us, scorns us for our belief in God and our insistence upon holding fast to His moral laws. We are sometimes persecuted, sometimes ignored, sometimes slandered, sometimes hated. Yet Jesus experienced all of this before us, and He warned us that what happened to Him would happen to us.

Yet look at Jesus' promise here. We are to rejoice when we are persecuted for our faith. We are to unite our sufferings with those of Christ. We are to take up the cross and follow after Him. We are to keep on holding fast to our faith, growing in intimacy with God, speaking the truth, loving our neighbors, even those who are our enemies, and praying for those who persecute us. Then, Christ promises us, our reward will be great in Heaven.

Gospel Acclamation: Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Come after Me and I will make you fishers of men.

In today's Gospel, Jesus extends an invitation to Peter, Andrew, James, and John. They are all fishermen, simple, hardworking fellows who catch their livelihood from the Sea of Galilee. But now their lives will change drastically if they accept Jesus' summons. These four men, however, drop everything and follow Jesus.

Jesus calls us, too. He invites us to come after Him, to walk in His ways, to follow His will, to perform His tasks, to serve His people with love. We are called to be fishers of men, to catch them and draw them to Christ by our words and actions.

How is Jesus calling you? How are you responding?

Gospel Acclamation: Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives.

Last week we talked about Jesus' proclamation of these words in His hometown of Nazareth at the beginning of His public ministry. This week we need to apply these words to ourselves, for we are all sent to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives.

We can, of course, bring glad tidings to the poor by meeting the physical needs of people who are materially poor and captive in their poverty. This is extremely important. We can support or even volunteer at a local food shelf or homeless shelter. We can contribute to the many excellent charities that are working to combat poverty across the globe. This is all excellent.

But there is another group of poor people we also cannot neglect. These are the spiritually poor, the ones who lack faith in God, the ones who are mixed up in their views of the world, the ones who do and promote evil. These people are horribly impoverished, and their poverty is more serious than material poverty. Their poverty may lead them to turn their backs on eternal life. It is truly holding them captive.

This is why we must bring glad tidings to the spiritually poor. We must proclaim the Gospel by our words and actions. We must not be afraid to speak the truth, to proclaim Jesus Christ whether people accept our message or not. We must answer questions, enter into debates, and be ready, as St. Peter says, to account for the hope that is within us. We must sometimes correct, sometimes practice “tough love,” sometimes even offend people. But we might just plant a seed in their minds, an extremely valuable seed that someday might open their hearts and minds to God.

Gospel Acclamation: Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives.

These words originally appear in Isaiah 61:1. God's Servant declares that He has been anointed to spread the message of God to those who need it most and to free people held in captivity.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus applies these words to Himself. He is in the synagogue in His hometown at Nazareth, and He has been chosen to read from the Scriptures. He knows exactly what He will read, and when the attendant hands Him the scroll of Isaiah, He quickly rolls it to this passage.

Imagine the sound of Jesus' voice as He reads Isaiah's words. It is a voice of authority and confidence. These are the words of God spoken by the Word of God even though the people in the synagogue do not realize this.

All are silent when Jesus finishes. They know that something remarkable has just happened, but they do not understand what it is. They have never heard Scripture proclaimed like this before. Jesus looks around at them all as they stare at Him and declares, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Servant of God so mysteriously prophesied by Isaiah is right in front of the people in that synagogue at Nazareth. Most do not recognize Him.

Gospel Acclamation: The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has called us through the Gospel to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Read this acclamation slowly a couple times, and let it sink in. We are called to possess the glory of Jesus. We are called to share in the divine life of God. We are called to be children of God, members of His divine family, participators in the covenant, heirs to the Kingdom.

We receive this call through the Gospel, through Divine Revelation in writing but also in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as we enter into intimacy with Him.

How, then, do we answer this call to glory? Do we read and reflect on Scripture? Do we pray? Do we repent of our sins and ask for God's mercy? Do we embrace the sacraments? Do we welcome Jesus into our hearts in the Eucharist? Do we reach out for intimacy with Him?

We are called to glory, and this glory will find its fulfillment in Heaven when we see God face to face.