Sunday 17 January 2021
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
From St Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Ephesians
The harmony of unity
It is right for you to give glory in every way to Jesus Christ who has given glory to you; you must be made holy in all things by being united in perfect obedience, in submission to the bishop and the presbyters.
I am not giving you orders as if I were a person of importance. Even if I am a prisoner for the name of Christ, I am not yet made perfect in Jesus Christ. I am now beginning to be a disciple and I am speaking to you as my fellow-disciples. It is you who should be strengthening me by your faith, your encouragement, your patience, your serenity. But since love will not allow me to be silent about you, I am taking the opportunity to urge you to be united in conformity with the mind of God. For Jesus Christ, our life, without whom we cannot live, is the mind of the Father, just as the bishops, appointed over the whole earth, are in conformity with the mind of Jesus Christ.
It is fitting, therefore, that you should be in agreement with the mind of the bishop as in fact you are. Your excellent presbyters, who are a credit to God, are as suited to the bishop as strings to a harp. So in your harmony of mind and heart the song you sing is Jesus Christ. Every one of you should form a choir, so that, in harmony of sound through harmony of hearts, and in unity taking the note from God, you may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father. If you do this, he will listen to you and see from your good works that you are members of his Son. It is then an advantage to you to live in perfect unity, so that at all times you may share in God.
If in a short space of time I have become so close a friend of your bishop – in a friendship not based on nature but on spiritual grounds – how much more blessed do I judge you to be, for you are as united with him as the Church is to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Father, so that all things are in harmony through unity. Let no one make any mistake: unless a person is within the sanctuary, he is deprived of God’s bread. For if the prayer of one or two has such power, how much more has the prayer of the bishop and the whole Church.
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On this date in other years:
Saint Antony, Abbot
Detail from "The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot" (c.1480) by Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522).
From the Life of Saint Antony by Saint Athanasius, bishop
Saint Antony receives his vocation
When Antony was about eighteen or twenty years old, his parents died, leaving him with an only sister. He cared for her as she was very young, and also looked after their home.
Not six months after his parents’ death, as he was on his way to church for his usual visit, he began to think of how the apostles had left everything and followed the Saviour, and also of those mentioned in the book of Acts who had sold their possessions and brought the apostles the money for distribution to the needy. He reflected too on the great hope stored up in heaven for such as these. This was all in his mind when, entering the church just as the Gospel was being read, he heard the Lord’s words to the rich man: If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor – you will have riches in heaven. Then come and follow me.
It seemed to Antony that it was God who had brought the saints to his mind and that the words of the Gospel had been spoken directly to him. Immediately he left the church and gave away to the villagers all the property he had inherited, about 200 acres of very beautiful and fertile land, so that it would cause no distraction to his sister and himself. He sold all his other possessions as well, giving to the poor the considerable sum of money he collected. However, to care for his sister he retained a few things.
The next time he went to church he heard the Lord say in the Gospel: Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Without a moment’s hesitation he went out and gave the poor all that he had left. He placed his sister in the care of some well-known and trustworthy virgins and arranged for her to be brought up in the convent. Then he gave himself up to the ascetic life, not far from his own home. He kept a careful watch over himself and practised great austerity. He did manual work because he had heard the words: If anyone will not work, do not let him eat. He spent some of his earnings on bread and the rest he gave to the poor.
Having learned that we should always be praying, even when we are by ourselves, he prayed without ceasing. Indeed, he was so attentive when Scripture was read that nothing escaped him and because he retained all he heard, his memory served him in place of books.
Seeing the kind of life he lived, the villagers and all the good men he knew called him the friend of God, and they loved him as both son and brother.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Santo Niño (The Holy Child)
The statue of the Santo Niño de Cebú.
From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, pope
The whole practice of Christian wisdom consists not in a profusion of words, in adroit argumentation or in a craving for praise and glory, but in the genuine and voluntary humility which, from the womb of his mother until his suffering on the cross, the Lord Jesus chose and taught as the fullness of power.
When, as the evangelist tells us, his disciples were arguing one day which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he called a little child, had him stand in front of them, and said: “I assure you that, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who makes himself as little as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Christ loves the childhood which he accepted for himself both in his soul and in his body. Christ loves this childhood, this teacher of humility, this rule of innocence and shape of gentleness. Christ loves childhood: he directs the conduct of adults to it, to it he leads old people back: and he induces to follow his own example those whom he raises to the eternal kingdom.
But to make us capable of recognizing how it is possible to attain such an admirable conversion, such a transformation by which we can return to a childlike attitude, let Saint Paul be our teacher, as he tells us: “Do not be like children in your way of thinking, but be like babes insofar as evil is concerned.” We have not to go back therefore to children’s games nor to the inadequacies of our tender years, but to take from it something that still befits a mature age, like the fast appeasement from irritation and a speedy return to calm, the total oblivion of offences, the absence of cravings for honours, the love of companionship, a sense of natural equality. It is a great good not to know how to harm others and not to enjoy evil. It is the policy of this world to inflict and repeat wrongs; but not to repay evil with evil is the childhood of Christian equanimity. Dearly beloved, the mystery of today’s feast invites us to this likeness with children. It is this form of humility which the Lord teaches us, when, as a child he was adored by the Magi. To show what kind of glory he prepared for those who imitate him, he consecrated by martyrdom the children born at the same time as he: as they were brought forth in Bethlehem where Christ was born, they shared both in his age and in his passion.
Let those who believe therefore love humility and keep from pride. Let each prefer his neighbour to himself. No one should regard his own interest but rather that of his neighbour. Thus, when all will be filled with sentiments of kindness towards others, the poison of envy will be found in no one, for he who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
For he who bears witness to this is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
Copyright © 1996-2021 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.