Sunday 16 January 2022
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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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Fursa, Abbot and Missionary
From a 14th-century French manuscript.
From the homilies of St John Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles
The light of a Christian cannot be hid
Nothing is colder than a Christian who does not care for the salvation of others.
You cannot plead poverty here; for the poor widow who put in two copper coins will be your accuser. Moreover,
Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I have none’, and Paul was so poor that he often went hungry and lacked necessary food.
You cannot plead lowliness of birth; for the apostles also were lowly men and of humble parents. You cannot allege want of education; for they too were unlearned men. You cannot plead infirmity, for Timothy was of delicate health and was frequently ill.
Everyone can be of profit to his neighbour, if he will fulfil his role.
Look at the trees of the forest: how strong they are, how beautiful, how large also, and smooth, and of great height, but they do not bear fruit. If we had a garden, we should much rather have pomegranates or fruitful olive trees. The others are for the delight of the eye, not for profit, which in their case is very small.
Men who are interested only in themselves are like the forest trees, or rather they are not even so good. In fact they are fit only for the fire, while the forest timber can be used for building houses and palisades. Such are the foolish virgins of the parable, chaste indeed and decent and modest, but as they are of no profit to anyone they are rejected. Such are they who do not nourish Christ.
Observe that none of these are charged with particular sins of their own, with fornication, for instance, or with perjury; in short, with no sin but that of being without use to another. Such was the man who buried his talent, showing indeed a blameless life, but not being useful to others.
How can such a one be a Christian ? If yeast when mixed with the flour did not raise the whole batch, would it be yeast at all? Again, if a perfume could not be perceived by those around, could it in any sense be called a perfume?
Do not say, ‘It is impossible for me to induce others to become Christians,’ for if you were really a Christian, it would be impossible for you not to do so. As all nature acts in accordance with its own properties, so in this case too; this is part of the very nature of being a Christian.
Do not insult God. To say that the sun cannot shine would be to insult him; to say that being a Christian is useless is to insult God and call him a liar. It is easier for the sun not to give heat, not to shine, than for the Christian not to send forth light; it is easier for the light to be darkness than for this to be so.
Do not tell me that it is impossible; it is the contrary that is impossible. Do not insult God. If we once get our own affairs right, the other will certainly follow as a natural and necessary consequence. It is not possible for the light of a Christian to be hid; it is not possible for a lamp so conspicuous as that to be concealed.
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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 © 1996-2022 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.