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3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, 23 January 2022 Note: Homilies & Angelus / Regina Caeli of Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI & Pope Francis I had been compiled for you after the Mass Readings below. Happy Reading! Liturgical Colour: Green.
Readings at Mass See our extracts with pictures in Encouragements-191 - 192, below or EWTN, USCCB.
First reading: Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10 All the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law
Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, consisting of men, women, and children old enough to understand. This was the first day of the seventh month. On the square before the Water Gate, in the presence of the men and women, and children old enough to understand, he read from the book from early morning till noon; all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden dais erected for the purpose. In full view of all the people – since he stood higher than all the people – Ezra opened the book; and when he opened it all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people raised their hands and answered, ‘Amen! Amen!’; then they bowed down and, face to the ground, prostrated themselves before the Lord. And Ezra read from the Law of God, translating and giving the sense, so that the people understood what was read.
Then Nehemiah – His Excellency – and Ezra, priest and scribe and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all the people, ‘This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not be mournful, do not weep.’ For the people were all in tears as they listened to the words of the Law.
He then said, ‘Go, eat the fat, drink the sweet wine, and send a portion to the man who has nothing prepared ready. For this day is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad: the joy of the Lord is your stronghold.’
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 18(19):8-10,15 Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life.
The law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul. The rule of the Lord is to be trusted, it gives wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart. The command of the Lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is holy, abiding for ever. The decrees of the Lord are truth and all of them just.
May the spoken words of my mouth, the thoughts of my heart, win favour in your sight, O Lord, my rescuer, my rock!
EITHER: Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 You together are Christ's body, but each a different part of it
Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.
Nor is the body to be identified with any one of its many parts. If the foot were to say, ‘I am not a hand and so I do not belong to the body’, would that mean that it stopped being part of the body? If the ear were to say, ‘I am not an eye, and so I do not belong to the body’, would that mean that it was not a part of the body? If your whole body was just one eye, how would you hear anything? If it was just one ear, how would you smell anything?
Instead of that, God put all the separate parts into the body on purpose. If all the parts were the same, how could it be a body? As it is, the parts are many but the body is one. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you’, nor can the head say to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’
What is more, it is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones; and it is the least honourable parts of the body that we clothe with the greatest care. So our more improper parts get decorated in a way that our more proper parts do not need. God has arranged the body so that more dignity is given to the parts which are without it, and that there may not be disagreements inside the body, but that each part may be equally concerned for all the others. If one part is hurt, all parts are hurt with it. If one part is given special honour, all parts enjoy it.
Now you together are Christ’s body; but each of you is a different part of it. In the Church, God has given the first place to apostles, the second to prophets, the third to teachers; after them, miracles, and after them the gift of healing; helpers, good leaders, those with many languages. Are all of them apostles, or all of them prophets, or all of them teachers? Do they all have the gift of miracles, or all have the gift of healing? Do all speak strange languages, and all interpret them?
OR: Alternative Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12-14,27 You together are Christ's body, but each a different part of it
Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.
Nor is the body to be identified with any one of its many parts. Now you together are Christ’s body; but each of you is a different part of it.
Gospel Acclamation Luke 4:18 Alleluia, alleluia! The Lord has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives. Alleluia!
Gospel: Luke 1:1-4,4:14-21 'This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen'
Seeing that many others have undertaken to draw up accounts of the events that have taken place among us, exactly as these were handed down to us by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, I in my turn, after carefully going over the whole story from the beginning, have decided to write an ordered account for you, Theophilus, so that your Excellency may learn how well founded the teaching is that you have received.
Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him.
He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written: The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.
He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’
Acknowledgment: We thank the Publisher for allowing us to publish the Mass Readings to be used as reference for Homilies & Angelus / Regina Caeli of Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI & Pope Francis I as a source of God’s encouragements to all of us around the World.
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Homilies, Angelus / Regina Caeli
See our extracts with pictures in Encouragements-192. 8-)
Today marks the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The desire to achieve full communion among all believers in Christ is always present in the Church as she continues on her pilgrim way, and is ever more pressing during this year dedicated to the Holy Spirit as we prepare for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. Harmony and unity — the object of the Church's hope and, consequently, of humanity's hope as well — are still far off; nonetheless they constitute a gift of the Holy Spirit which we must untiringly seek. Pope Saint John Paul II (Angelus, 25 January 1998)
Throughout the world the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is being celebrated, which this year takes its theme from Christ's words: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life". It will close with the solemn ecumenical celebration, at which I will have the joy of presiding in the Basilica of St Paul-Outside-the-Walls next Thursday, 25 January, at 11.00. This year it has exceptional importance, because it will be held a few days after the close of the Great Jubilee, during which we professed with ever new joy that Christ is the only Saviour of the world "yesterday, today and for ever".
The quest for unity is one of the most demanding tasks to which Christ's disciples are called at the beginning of the new millennium. It is in this perspective of faith that we head for the future. May the Lord grant us the inexhaustible strength of his Spirit, who is capable of ever new surprises! Pope Saint John Paul II (Angelus, 21 January 2001)
1. Today, Feast of the Conversion of St Paul the Apostle, we conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, during which Christians in every corner of the world prayed together so that their full communion might be fulfilled according to the Lord's will: "Ut unum sint - that all may be one" (John 17: 21). The fervent prayer of Jesus in the Upper Room continues to remind Christian communities that unity is a gift to welcome and develop in an ever-deeper way.
2. Christian unity has been a constant preoccupation of my Pontificate and continues to be a priority demand of my ministry. In the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte at the close of the Jubilee, I wanted to mention that this longing by Christ is "a binding imperative, the strength that sustains us, and a salutary rebuke for our slowness and closed-heartedness" (n. 48).
Therefore, may the duty to pray for unity and its continual pursuit never diminish! Obstacles, difficulties and even misunderstandings and failures cannot and must not discourage us, since the "hope that even within history we shall be able to reach full and visible communion with all Christians" is based not on our own human strength but on the prayer of our mutual Lord (cf. ibid.).
3. Let us now confidently call upon Mary, Mother of Christ and the Church, so that she will sustain and accompany us on the ecumenical journey. Pope Saint John Paul II (Angelus, 25 January 2004)
As heirs of the divisions that came about in past epochs, on this occasion they have wished to launch an appeal: Christ can do all things, "he makes the deaf hear and the mute speak" (Mark 7: 37). He is capable of imbuing Christians with the ardent desire to listen to the other, to communicate with the other and, together with him, speak the language of reciprocal love.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity thus reminds us that ecumenism is a profound dialogical experience, a listening and speaking to one another, knowing one another better; it is a task within everyone's reach, especially when it concerns spiritual ecumenism, based on prayer and sharing which is now possible among Christians.
I hope that the longing for unity, expressed in prayer and brotherly collaboration to alleviate human suffering, may spread increasingly in parishes and ecclesial movements as well as among Religious institutes…
More generally, I am grateful to all who pray and work for unity with conviction and constancy in every part of the world. May Mary, Mother of the Church, help all the faithful to allow themselves in their innermost depths to be opened by Christ to reciprocal communication in charity and in truth, to become one heart and one soul (cf. Acts 4: 32) in him. Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, 21 January 2007)
Among the biblical readings in today's Liturgy is the famous text from the First Letters to the Corinthians, in which St Paul compares the Church to a human body. The Apostle writes: "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12: 12-13). The Church is perceived as a body, of which Christ is the head, and with him she forms a whole. Yet what the Apostle is eager to communicate is the idea of unity among the multiplicity of charisms, which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thanks to these, the Church appears as a rich and vital organism not uniform fruit of the one Spirit who leads everyone to profound unity, because she welcomes differences without eliminating them and thus bringing about a harmonious unity. She extends the presence of the Risen Lord throughout history, specifically through the Sacraments, the word of God and the charisms and ministries distributed among the community. Therefore, it is in Christ and in the Spirit that the Church is one and holy, that is, that she partakes in an intimate communion that transcends and sustains human intelligence…
In conclusion, dear friends, I wish to recall the figure of St Francis de Sales, whom the Liturgy commemorates on 24 January. Born in Savoy in 1567, he studied law in Padua and Paris and then, called by the Lord, became a priest. He dedicated himself to preaching and to the spiritual formation of the faithful with great success. He taught that the call to holiness was for everyone and that each one as St Paul says in his comparison of the Church to the body has a place in the Church. St Francis de Sales is the patron Saint of journalists and of the Catholic press. I entrust to his spiritual assistance the Message for World Communications Day, which I sign every year on this occasion and that was presented yesterday at the Vatican.
May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, obtain that we may always progress in communion, in order to pass on the beauty of all being one in the unity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, 24 January 2010)
Today’s Liturgy brings together two separate passages of Luke’s Gospel and presents them to us. The first (1:1-4) is the Prologue, addressed to a certain “Theophilus”. Since this name in Greek means “friend of God” we can see in him every believer who opens himself to God and wants to know the Gospel. Instead the second passage (4:14-21) presents Jesus who, “in the power of the Spirit”, goes to the Synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath. As a strict observer, the Lord does not disregard the pattern of the weekly liturgy and joins the assembly of his fellow citizens in prayer and in listening to the Scriptures. The ritual provides for the reading of a text from the Torah or the Prophets, followed by a commentary. That day Jesus stood up to read and found a passage from the Prophet Isaiah that begins this way: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted” (61:1-2). Origen’s comment was: “It is no coincidence that he opened the scroll and found the chapter of the reading that prophesies about him, this, too, was the work of God’s providence” (Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 32, 3). In fact when the reading was over in a silence charged with attention, Jesus said, “Today this scripture has [now] been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). St Cyril of Alexandria says that “today”, placed between the first and the final coming of Christ, is related to the believer’s ability to listen and to repent (cf. PG 69, 1241). But in an even more radical sense, Jesus himself is “the today” of salvation in history, because he brings to completion the work of redemption. The word “today”, very dear to St Luke (cf. 19:9, 23:43), brings us back to the Christological title preferred by the Evangelist himself, namely: “Saviour” (sōtēr). Already in the infancy narratives, it is present in the words of the Angel to the shepherds: “For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).
Dear friends, this Gospel passage also challenges us “today”. First of all, it makes us think about how we live Sunday, a day of rest and a day for the family. Above all, it is the day to devote to the Lord, by participating in the Eucharist, in which we are nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ and by his life-giving Word. Second, in our diversified and distracted time, this Gospel passage invites us to ask ourselves whether we are able to listen. Before we can speak of God and with God we must listen to him, and the liturgy of the Church is the “school” of this listening to the Lord who speaks to us. Finally, he tells us that every moment can be the propitious “day” for our conversion. Every day (kathçmeran) can become the today of our salvation, because salvation is a story that is ongoing for the Church and for every disciple of Christ. This is the Christian meaning of “carpe diem”: seize the day in which God is calling you to give you salvation!
May the Virgin Mary always be our model and our guide in knowing how to recognize and welcome the presence of God our Saviour and of all humanity every day of our lives. Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, 27 January 2013)
Now let us imagine that we too enter the synagogue of Nazareth, the village where Jesus has grown up, until he is about 30 years old. What happens is an important event, which delineates Jesus’ mission. He stands up to read the Sacred Scripture. He opens the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and takes up the passage where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). Then, after a moment of silence filled with expectation on the part of everyone, he says, in the midst of their general amazement: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).
Evangelizing the poor: this is Jesus’ mission. According to what he says, this is also the mission of the Church, and of every person baptized in the Church. Being a Christian is the same thing as being a missionary. Proclaiming the Gospel with one’s word, and even before, with one’s life, is the primary aim of the Christian community and of each of its members. It is noted here that Jesus addresses the Good News to all, excluding no one, indeed favouring those who are distant, suffering sick, cast out by society.
Let us ask ourselves: what does it mean to evangelize the poor? It means first of all drawing close to them, it means having the joy of serving them, of freeing them from their oppression, and all of this in the name of and with the Spirit of Christ, because he is the Gospel of God, he is the Mercy of God, he is the liberation of God, he is the One who became poor so as to enrich us with his poverty. The text of Isaiah, reinforced with little adaptations introduced by Jesus, indicates that the messianic announcement of the Kingdom of God come among us is addressed in a preferential way to the marginalized, to captives, to the oppressed. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 24 January 2016)
Homily, 27 January 2019 , Angelus, 27 January 2019 APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO PANAMA ON THE OCCASION OF THE 34th WORLD YOUTH DAY
Daily Blessings to You from Emmanuel Goh & Friends
Note: This webpage has many hyperlinks to the Vatican Webpage. The above extracts were compiled for your easy reading. This Publication is aimed to encourage all of Goodwill around the World. It is not for business or profit purposes but it is our way to thank our Creator for His continuous blessings!
Compiled on 27 January 2019 Last updated: 21 January 2022, 13:38 SGT
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